Page:Walks in the Black Country and its green border-land.pdf/127

Rh the celebrated architect and designer, Augustus Welby Pugin, an enthusiastic devotee and student of the decorative art. Indeed, he seemed to have espoused the Roman Catholic faith in middle-life more out of his admiration for saints in glass than for any other religious convictions. One designed and the other executed seemingly with the same class and capacity of genius. Painted windows, of every device, form, and size, for cathedrals, colleges, churches, and private mansions under this firm became one of the special manufactures of Birmingham. The establishment of the Hardmans is on Newhall Hill, and is well worth a visit, not only for its beautiful productions but for its prominent place in the history of the art in England.

Messrs. Lloyd and Summerfield, at Birmingham Heath, have also distinguished themselves for the splendid specimens of glass-painting which they have produced.

But of all the manufactures of Birmingham none has such a wide reputation abroad, in America especially, as Gillott's. Happily there are a hundred "young ideas taught to shoot" with a pen where one is taught to shoot with a gun Pens are the knitting needles of civilization, and ply in all its webs of social life and literature. They are the metallic points from which flash the electric thoughts that thrill the world, and conduct the first that children write into visible words.