Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 9.djvu/589

 12 s. ix. DEC. 17, i92i.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 483 J'envoye celle-cy par un hornme expres afin qu'elle puisse vous etre remise de bonne heure demain a Paris. J'ay 1'honneur d'etre, avec un tres profond respect, Monseigneur, votre tres humble et tres obeissant serviteur, HOOKE. A Versailles, le 2 may 1714. This letter is the more interesting because we know that Tonson was on very good terms with Prior and published a care- ful edition of his works. Tonson' s good character, already damaged by what we learn of his disputes with Dryden, is com- pletely destroyed by the preceding docu- ment. Many conclusions might be drawn from Hooke's letter : but I leave those to the scholar who would undertake to re- write Tonson' s biography or the history of the Kit-Cat Club. PAUL G. DOTTIN. FondationThiers, 5, Bond Point Bugeaud, Paris. GLASS-PAINTERS OF YORK. (See ante, 12 S. viii. 127, 323, 364, 406, 442, 485 ; ix. 21, 61, 103, 163, 204, 245, 268, 323, 363, 404, 442.) THE BARNETT FAMILY. JOHN JOSEPH BARNETT was born in Hull in 1786. He was of Jewish origin, his father being named Solomon and his uncles Isaac and Moses. The family originally came from London, where the name Barnett is common amongst the Jews. Very little is known about Solomon. Barnett. He is said to have been a glass-maker and cutter Jews have for centuries been connected with the glass-making business. We learn from Josephus that there were Jewish glass - workers in Constantinople between A.D. 531 and 565 by the miracle of Our Lady saving the life of a Jewish glass -worker's child, whose inhuman father had cast into his glass- furnace ; and Benjamin of Tudela, whose travels date from 1160 to 1173, states there were four hundred Jewish glass-workers living in Tyre. Both Eraclius and the pseudo-Eraclius (thirteenth century) mention lead glass under the name of *' Jewish glass " ; and as late as 1836, according to an anonymous writer on glass -painting in The Philosophical Magazine, the lead glass used in the manufacture of factitious gems in Birmingham was known as " Jews' glass." Solomon Barnett eidently came to York about the beginning of the nineteenth cen- tury. Shortly before this, in 1797, Messrs. Prince and Prest had established a flint- glass factory in Fishergate (now known as the York Glass Company), and it is probable that Solomon Barnett worked for them. He afterwards retired and became warden of the House of Correction in Peasholme Green. John Joseph Barnett was brought up in his father's business as a glass-cutter. It would seem that he also understood glass- making, for in St. Michael's Church, Spur- riergate, are circles and stars inserted in the windows made up of variously coloured flashed glasses, including, what is most re- markable, ruby or " lost red" as it was then called. The ruby is of a dull tint and has been blown in the form of a small circular " crown " sheet about 9in. in diameter. The red " flash " has been engraved and cut on the wheel so as to show various patterns of flowers and ornaments in the white ground beneath. One of the ornaments in the centre window of the south side has the name " J. Barnett, 1821," engraved in it. The production of copper ruby was, every- where else at that time, unknown, and re- garded as a lost art. (Vide Martin's evi- dence before Parliament, printed in Timbs's ' Popular Errors Explained/ 3rd. ed., 1862, p. 65; Lakin's * Pottery and Glass-Painting Receipts,' 1824, p. 74; Whittock's ' Painter and Glazier's Guide,' 1827, p. 300.) In 1827 the Academy of Arts in Berlin paid a premium for an imperfect receipt. The art was re-discovered in France by Bon- temps in 1826, and in 1828 by M. Englehardt of Zinsweiler in Germany. As likely as not, however, Barnett' s ruby was not suitable for anything but plain glazing, as one of the chief difficulties is to produce a red which will not change colour in the glass-painter's kiln. In 1823 Barnett is described in ' Bayne's Directory ' as a " glass-cutter (and stainer) " and as living in College Street ; ' White's Directory,' 1846, says at No. 16. In the former he is *also classified under ' Opti- cians.' Barnett made the acquaintance of Mark Dovenor, landlord of the Queen Caroline in Goodramgate, a man of an in- genious turn of mind who applied himself to many lines of work. In 1846 he is not only enumerated amongst publicans but included in the list of stone and marble masons and sculptors. For Barnett, Dovenor built a furnace for the purpose of his experiments in the making of coloured glass and glass-painting, which he practised assiduously ; but being a man of a taciturn disposition Barnett did not inform his sons, Francis, Mark and Alfred, what his aims