The second point which we propose to consider with reference to these letters, the rescue of Kinmont Willie, belongs rather to romance than history. The editor explains it thus:

"A well-known borderer, named William Armstrong, of Kinmont, or, as he was termed in song and amongst the people, Kinmont Willie,' was unfairly made prisoner by the deputy of the English warden, and was lodged in triumph in the castle of Carlisle. The Scottish warden, sir Walter Scott of Buccleuch, enraged at this infringement of border law, took an oath that he would free the captive. With the aid of a few men as daring as himself, and under favour of a dark and stormy night, Buccleuch and his little band scaled the castle wall, surprised the sentries, forced their way with ploughshares and sledge hammers into the inner prison, and mounting the captive upon the broad shoulders of Red Rowan, the starkest man in Teviotdale,' bore him off in his irons. Elizabeth'stormed not a little,' says Spottiswood, at such an outrage, and insisted that Buccleuch should be delivered into her hands. The Scotch people, mad with delight at an exploit which reminded them of the days and deeds of Wallace, would have defended Buccleuch and defied the queen, but James after much ado procured the heroic culprit to be committed to custody, and offered to refer the question to arbitrators or commissioners, in the customary manner of border disputes."

Elizabeth's reply is No. 60:

"I cannot omit to set before you," she writes, "a too rare example of a seduced king by a sinister counsel. Was it ever seen that a prince from his cradle preserved from the slaughter, help up in royal dignity, conserved from many treasons, maintained in all sorts of kindness, should remunerate with so hard a measure such dear deserts ? With doubt to yield a just treaty's response [i. e. to yield a doubtful response to a just treaty] to a lawful friend's demand [i. e. to a lawful demand of a friend]? Ought it be put to a question whether a king should do another, his like, a right? Or should a council be demanded their pleasure what he himself should do? Were it in the nonage of the prince it might have some colour; but in a father's age [i. e. in the case of a prince old enough to be a father] it seemeth strange, and I dare say without example."

"I am as evil treated by named friend as I could be by my known foe. Shall any castle or habitacle of mine be assailed GENT. MAG. VOL. XXXII.

by a night-larcyn, and shall not my con

federate send the offender to his due

punisher? Shall a friend stick at that demand that he ought rather to prevent?

The law of kingly love would have said nay, and not, for persuasion of such as never can nor will stead you, but dishonour you, to keep their own rule. For commissioners I will never grant for an act that he cannot deny that made; for what so the cause be made, no cause should have done that. And when you, with a better weighed judgment, shall consider, I am sure my answer shall be more honourable and just, which I expect with most speed as well for you as for myself. For other doubtful and litigious causes in our borders I will be ready to appoint commissioners, if I shall find them needful, but for this matter, of so villainous usage, assure you I will never be so answered as hearers [i. e. commissioners to hear] shall need." (p. 116.)

Still the Scottish monarch was kept back from complying with her request by the excitement of his people. Again he urged the reference to commissioners, and again Elizabeth replied,

"Neither, if you understand it aright, can we believe, that if all the council of Scotland would tell it you, they may cause you be persuaded, that commissioners should need or ought try whether any subject of yours should take out of any our holds a prisoner, however taken. And therefore, do not beguile yourself, nor let them make you believe, that ever I will put that to a trial as a matter doubtful. But for the truth to be known of the first taking of that silly man, and divers other points fallen out betwixt our wardens, I agree very willingly to such an order, but let the matter of greatest moment, which is the malefact of your Locrine, be first redressed. And when you plainly now do see my true meaning of repair of honour, which so lately hath been blotted, and how no desire of quarrelling for trifles, nor backwardness in faithful affection, which you never shall find to quail but your own desert, I hope at length you will postpone your new advisers, and remember her who never yet omitted any part that might concern a most faithful friendship's love." (p. 117.)

....

honour he yielded to her demand with all possible readiness. No prince in Europe, he assured her, would be so careful to preserve her honour from all blemish as her brother of Scotland. Buccleuch was accordingly delivered up, and kept for some time in confinement in England. Sir Walter Scott has informed us that according to the tradition of the family the Queen desired to see the gallant borderer. He was introduced to her majesty, and knelt at her feet. The Queen darted upon him one of her most awful looks, and asked him how he dared to storm one of her castles. "What is there, madam,” replied the hardy mountaineer, "that a brave man dare not do?" Ever ready to admire courage, even in her enemies, the Queen exclaimed to those about her, "With a thousand such leaders I could shake any throne in Christendom!"

The way in which these two subjects are illustrated by the letters before us exemplifies the manner in which other letters in the volume may be brought to bear upon other important transactions in the histories both of England and Scotland. Altogether, they form a book which falls very legitimately within the scope of the Camden Society. It will at once take a place among our genuine historical materials, and those who study it will be enabled to form a far more accurate appreciation of the characters of the great Queen and her successor than can be obtained from recent works of infinitely greater pretence. Mr. Ryder is much to be commended for having communicated the letters in his possession to the Camden Society. We trust he will do the same with his correspondence of John Duke of Lauderdale.

in the accounts of which I trace back in Allen's History of London and the Beauties of England and Wales.

YORK HOUSE AT WHITEHALL was built, from the designs of Payne, for Sir Matthew Featherstonhaugh, who died here on the 18th March 1774.* It is said to have been for some time the residence of General Amherst, who died in 1781. In 1789 it was fitted up for the Duke of York; when the domed entrance-hall, and grand staircase, were added by Mr. Holland, the architect who was also employed in the alteration of Carlton House for the Prince of Wales.

The Duke of York did not reside there above three years, as before May 1792 he had exchanged it for Viscount Melbourne's mansion in Piccadilly. From that time it was called Melbourne House, until it passed into the hands of the late Lord Dover, who died there in 1833, and whose widow still occupies it. It is now called Dover House.

These dates are illustrated by a view (by Chalmers) of "York House, in Parliament Street, the Residence of his Royal Highness the Duke of York," which appeared in the European Magazine for April 1789; by another, drawn by John Carter, engraved for the small Stationers' Almanac of the same year; by a view of “York House," dedicated to Viscount Melbourne, in Colnaghi's Views, dated May 1792; and another, in which it is called Melbourne House, by S. W. Toms, published May 21, 1792.

YORK HOUSE IN PICCADILLY was erected on the site of Sunderland

House, from the designs of Sir William Chambers. In 1770 it was sold by Lord Holland to Lord Melbourne, as noticed in the passage cited by Mr. Cunningham.

"Lord Holland has sold Piccadilly House to Lord Melbourne, and it is to be called Melbourne House." Mr. Rigby to Lord Ossory, Dec. 6, 1770.

In 1792 it passed into the possession of the Duke of York, who appears to have resided in Piccadilly until about 1804, when he took a house in Portman Square. The purchasers then

* Gentleman's Magazine for March 1774, p. 142 showing that Debrett's Baronetage is wrong in its dateof 24th May.

WHILST there is no artificial material of itself more beautiful than glass, so there is probably none which is capable of a greater variety of application, or which consequently affords room for more varied ingenuity in the designs, or more practised skill in the manipulations, of those who manufacture it. Nor are the operations of the glass-worker remarkable merely for their ingenuity and skill, for in intensity of labour they do not yield to those of the forge. Of all these operations, whether minutely delicate, or

the results of patient and fiery toil, it is the part of the author before us to give a full and particular account. For this task, by his long and devoted attachment to his art, he has especially qualified himself, perhaps beyond any of his contemporaries, and we are inclined to think that the wonders he describes, assisted by the clearness of his details, will infuse some of his enthusiasm into most of his readers.

It is now many years ago since Mr. Pellatt took out his patent for the

ornamental incrustations upon glass, called Crystallo-Ceramie, a process by which ornaments of any description arms, ciphers, portraits, and landscapes -were inclosed within glass, so as to become chemically imperishable. The effect was very beautiful, and the articles produced were greatly admired, though Mr. Pellatt's historical researches have now brought him to confess that the same results had been achieved by the ancients. In glassmaking, as in other things, we are often brought to the conclusion that "there is nothing new under the sun." Indeed, it appears difficult to arrive at the earliest æra of this invention. Though it was long doubted that the

ancients knew much about it, and Pliny was scarcely credited when he asserted that it was discovered by the Sidonians in the vicinity of Mount Carmel, the modern researches into the arts of the Egyptians have shewn that they were well acquainted with this among other products of high civilization. Whether the Egyptian chronology is even now placed upon a sound foundation may perhaps admit of doubt; but Sir Gardner Wilkinson considers that he has found proofs that the art of glass-working was practised in Egypt before the Exodus of the children of Israel. At Beni Hassen are two paintings representing glassblowers at work

and from the hieroglyphics which accompany them they are supposed by him to have been executed in the reign of the first Osirtasen. In the same age, he remarks, images of glazed pottery were common; proving the mode of fusing, and the proper proportions of the ingredients for making glass, to have been then known. Lastly, Sir J. G. Wilkinson adduces the instance of a glass bead found by Capt. Hervey at Thebes, which bears in hieroglyphic characters the name of a monarch who lived 1500 years before Christ. But, whatever may have been its antiquity in Egypt, there is no doubt that glass was brought to great perfection by that nation. Winckelmann states that they employed it not only for drinking vessels but for mosaic work, the figures of their deities, imitations of precious stones, and sometimes for coffins. The glass-houses of Alexandria were celebrated. Strabo asserts that an earth (supposed to be manganese) was found in Egypt, without which the valuable coloured glass

could not be made. It is also related that the emperor Hadrian received as a present from an Egyptian priest several glass cups, sparkling with every colour, which were ordered to be used only on grand festivals.

Of Roman glass numerous relics are still extant, though, from the fragility of the material, we cannot be surprised if some of the most remarkable are mere fragments. But even in our own country large cinerary urns of glass are every now and then exhumed, as well as the smaller unguentaria or lacrymatories. The glass-makers of Rome had a street assigned to them in the first quarter of the city; and a tax was imposed upon them by Alexander Severus, which existed in the time of Aurelius, and probably long after. The manufacture of artificial gems was a favourite branch of Roman glass-making. They were prepared by welding together two or three layers of colours in opaque glass,* and being made in forms resembling the real stones, they enabled the gem engravers to meet the public demand at a comparatively low price.

* One of our author's recent patents is for welding coloured glass upon white or lighter-tinted glass, for windows, skylights,

&c.

The large skylight of the inner quadrangle at the Reform Clubhouse was of strong flint glass, in embossed patterns. made at the Falcon glass-works, moulded The embossed quarries for church windows are another excellent adaptation, very useful where stained glass cannot be afforded.

When the artists had thus become accustomed to cut glass in the manner of cameos, they were led to the execution of larger objects, of which the Portland and Naples vases, (represented in the Vignette prefixed to this article,) are the most remarkable existing examples.

The Portland Vase is too well known to require much to be said upon it here.** Its material, after having been in turn described as every conceivable variety of precious stone (though the idea that any stone of such magnitude could be hollowed out to its present form seems preposterous), is now generally admitted to be glass. The lower layer is blue, and the whole (or at least the whole of that part below the handles) was originally covered with white enamel, out of which the figures have been sculptured, in the style of a cameo, with astonishing skill and labour. It has been seen, by the newspapers, that the public are now again admitted to the view of the Portland Vase, which has remained in the room of Mr. Doubleday, the officer of the Museum who so skilfully reunited its fragments, from the time it was knocked down by a wanton fool a few years ago. Mr. Pellatt mentions a circumstance which we think is not generally known respecting some very accurate copies of the Portland Vase which were made by Wedgwood. He says that the Duchess of Portland was permitted to purchase the original, by Mr. Wedgwood not bidding further than he had already done, on an understanding that he should be allowed to make copies; that he paid five hundred guineas for a model, it is supposed to Flaxman; and that the copies he sold were priced at fifty guineas each. These copies were chased by a steel rifle, after the bas-relief had been wholly or partially fired.

The Naples Vase, now deposited in the Pompeian museum at Naples, was discovered in a sepulchre at Pompeii, on the 29th Dec. 1839. It is of the same character, in the quality and colours of the glass, as the Portland

See in our Magazine for Jan. 1846 an account of the Portland Vase, and the Sarcophagus in which it was found, which we gave on occasion of the "Elucidation" of its design published by Thomas Windus, esq. F.S.A.

Vase; the white figures being sculptured out of an exterior coating, and thus raised in relief on a dark blue transparent ground. This beautiful vase is supposed to be of more recent period than the Portland: its designs are of less severe and conventional character. The sides are covered with

arabesque foliage of the vine, rising from a head of Bacchus: below the handles are Bacchanalian boys; and towards the base is a frieze of goats in various attitudes. It has lost its footin which it shares the fate of the Portland Vase, (which, it will be remembered, has a foot supplied of inferior workmanship,) but this does not appear in Mr. Pellatt's representation of it, where it terminates in a small knob. Its general form is more elegant than that of the Portland Vase.

The Auldjo Vase was also found at Pompeii. The neck and handle are in the cabinet of Mr. Richardson Auldjo, and the remainder in the British Museum-a disunion the continuance of which is much to be deprecated. This also is another specimen of cameoengraving. The ground is light purple; the ornamental foliage, grapes, and birds, being cut in yellow enamel, inclining to white in the most highly relieved parts. It is represented in its proper colours in a work on the Glass of the Ancients, by Herr von Minutoli.*

The fourth vase represented in the Vignette, more in outline than the rest, is the work of a modern Bohemian artist, and is in the possession of the author. The subject is from Le Brun's painting of the conquest of the Persians at the battle of Arbela by Alexander the Great; and for depth of workmanship and artistic execution, as intaglio-engraving, Mr. Pellatt pronounces this vase to be unrivalled.

The chief fame in modern glassmaking has been acquired by the manufacturers of Venice. James Howell says, in a letter written (or supposed to have been written) from that city in the year 1621,

"The art of glasse-making is very highly valued in Venice; for whosoever comes to

* Uber die Anfertigung und die Nutzanwendung der farbigen Gläser bei den Alten; von Heinrich C. von Minutoli. Berlin, 1836. 4to. Tab. III.