Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 9.djvu/279

 8*8. IX. APRIL 5, 1902.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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mans worth and in old records Rickmeres- wearth or Rickmeresweard so called from its situation in a nook of land where a little river without name falls into the Colne, and makes a rich pool of water, as the name imports."

It therefore appears to me to have a name at its source and for a long part of its course, but finally, when it joins the Colne, it has no name. I have another old book from which I give an extract : " Nordens Preparatiue To his Speculum Britannise. Printed in the year MDCCXXIII," apparently a reprint of an older work, dated 4 November, 1596.

Map of Hertfordshire. The River Gade is shown, but not named, and in describing the rivers of the county Norden states that the Colne " ere it commes to Rickmans worth devoureth Caishoo river."

W. J. GADSDEN.

19, Middle Lane, Crouch End.

WINDOW GLASS (9 th S. ix. 87, 150, 213). I am pleased to replv to MR. F. CLAYTON. Pliny is a good and useful authority on a vast number of points of detail, and his omission to mention the use of glass in windows rightly gives one pause. Did he, perhaps, object to it? As long as (perhaps a little longer than) mica was cheaper than glass the former was used, and Pliny's failure to mention the use of glass for panes is a remarkable one. He only mentions that in Arabia there is "lapidem vitri mox trans- lucidum, quo utuntur pro specularibus " (lib. 36, 30). Seneca ('Q.N.,' iv. 13, 7) writes : " Quamvis caenationem velis ac specularibus muniant." Here, perhaps, we ought to understand not the use of glass

CBS, but only those of mica. Neverthe- by the dates of these two writers, glass had become very common. From before the foundation of the empire there was a street devoted to the glass trade Vicus Vitrarius in Rome, though, doubtless, this trade began as an industry of Southern importa- tion. Still, the all-powerful fact being proven that Pompeii and Herculaneum (cf. Winckelmann, * Werke,' ii. 343) used glass panes when Pliny was living and familiar with their neighbourhood, while certifying us on the subject, only makes Pliny's omission the more striking. For, if a town like Pompeii used glass panes in Ves- pasian's day, Rome must in all probability nave used them also, at least in her wealthy palaces. It is well-nigh impossible to think she had not. The panes found at Pompeii duly appear in the catalogue of the Museo Borbonico; but the museum is just now

undergoing rearrangement, so that the old numbering will be changed. As a matter of fact, many more of these panes have been forthcoming, and the museum of Pompeii itself contains good enough specimens. In passing, let me venture to recall the kindred application of glass mentioned by Martial ( 4 Epig.,'4, 21, 5)-

Condita sic puro numerantur lilia vitro Sic prohibet tenuis gemma la tore rosis for protecting the more delicate plants from cold, especially at night. I confess I ana unable to quite follow MR. CLAYTON in his references. Pliny (lib. 36) is not speaking of the building of a temple, but of a theatre. But it is not important to our point. As to the destruction of the villa at Anzio, I am unable to assert anything, except that it is a villa of early imperial date, and that the pottery, &c., found above and below the pane of glass is of imperial days also. I therefore pass on to the more decisive refer- ence of Lactantius, a writer who, I believe, is held to have died circa A.D. 325. He writes ('De Op. Dei,' 8, 11), "Et manifestius est, mentem esse, quse per oculos ea quse sunt opposita transpiciat, quasi per fenestras perlucente vitos aut speculari lapide, ob- ductas."

This seems to me especially interesting for the double reference, to the talc windows and the glass ones. And I venture to think one may infer that both kinds subsisted, sometimes in the same dwelling. It is un- fortunate that we have no means of deter- mining the precise moment when glass panes came into competition with their predecessors made of lapis specularis. But, on the other hand, the discoveries above referred to prove beyond question that the desired date must be placed before A.D. 79. In a letter of the younger Pliny (lib. 2, epist. 17), descrip- tive of his Laurentine villa, he says that an excellent store chamber in it is furnished " specularibus, ac, multo magis, imminentibus tectis." It would be interesting to know if this older word became used in a wide sense to include both talc windows and glass ones. Prof. Mau, probably second to no living authority on the subject of Pompeii, writes, "Small panes of glass were found in the openings of the baths near the Forum ; had the central baths been finished, glass would undoubtedly have been used for the windows of the caldarium" ('Pompeii,' p. 273, 1899). On p. 351 the same writer states, In the tepidarium [of the house of Diornedes] were found four panes of glass about 10i in. square, together with the remains of the wooden frame in which they were set."