1. Glazing, as practised in this country, consists chiefly in setting
panes of glass in window-sashes. In the performance of this operation,
the glazier first fits the panes to the sash by cutting away, if
necessary, a part of the latter with a chisel; he then fastens the
glass slightly with little pieces of tin, which have been cut to a
triangular shape; and, lastly, he applies _putty_ at their junction
with the sash, and by this means confines them firmly and permanently
to their place. The putty is made of linseed-oil and whiting. The
latter of these materials is chalk cleared of its grosser impurities,
and ground in a color-mill.
2. Plain glazing is so simple, that no person need serve an
apprenticeship to learn it; and there are but few who confine their
attention to this business exclusively. It is commonly connected with
some other of greater difficulty, such as that of the carpenter and
joiner, or house and sign painter, but with the latter more frequently
than any other.
3. When the glass, as received from the manufacturer, may not be of
the size and shape required for a proposed application, the panes are
cut by means of a diamond fixed in lead, and secured by a ferrule of
brass, which is fastened to a small cylindrical handle of hard wood.
This instrument is used, in conjunction with a straight edge, like a
pencil in ruling lines on paper for writing. The glass is afterwards
broken in the direction of the fracture, by a slight pressure
downwards.
4. Although glass windows seem to us to be indispensable to comfort,
yet glass had been manufactured many centuries in considerable
perfection, before it was applied to this purpose. The houses in
oriental countries had commonly no windows in front, and those on the
other sides were provided with curtains, or with a moveable
trellis-work in summer, and in winter with oiled paper.
5. In Rome and other cities of the empire, thin leaves of a certain
kind of stone called _lapis specularis_ were used. Windows of this
material, however, were employed only in the principal apartments of
great houses, in gardens, sedans, and the like. Paper made of the
Egyptian papyrus, linen cloth, thin plates of marble, agate, and horn,
seem likewise to have been used.
6. The first certain information we have of the employment of glass
panes in windows, is found in the writings of Gregory of Tours, who
flourished in the last quarter of the sixth century. This prelate
states that the churches were furnished with windows of colored glass,
in the fourth century after Christ. The oldest glass windows now in
existence were of the twelfth century, and are in the Church of St.
Denis, the most ancient edifice of this description in France.
7. Æneas Sylvius accounted it one of the most striking instances of
splendor which he met with in Vienna, in 1458, that most of the houses
had glass windows. In France, all the churches had these conveniences
in the sixteenth century, although there were but few in private
dwellings. Talc, isinglass, plates of white horn, oiled paper, and
thinly shaved leather, were used instead of glass. A similar state of
things prevailed in England.
8. The glass used for the windows of churches and other public
buildings, after the fourth century, was very commonly intrinsically
colored or superficially painted. Painting on glass had its origin in
the third century, and at first it consisted in the mere arrangement
of small pieces of glass of different colors in some sort of symmetry,
and constituted a kind of mosaic-work.
9. Afterwards, when more regular designs came to be attempted, such as
the human figure, the whole address of the artist went no farther than
drawing the outlines of the objects in black on glass resembling in
color the subjects to be represented. The art, in this state of
advancement, was spread over a great part of Europe.
10. About the beginning of the fifteenth century, a method of fixing
metallic colors in glass by means of heat was discovered, and from
this the art derived great advantages. It flourished most during the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries; but it declined in the following
age, and in the eighteenth century it was very little practised in any
country. It has, however, been partially revived, of late, in Germany.
A very good specimen of this kind of painting, as well as of colored
glass, may be seen in St. John's Church, in Philadelphia.
[Illustration: TURNER.]