It seems almost a pity that so much time and labor, skill and genius
should be given to a thing so easily broken. And yet we have seen that
a good many glass articles have been preserved for centuries. The
engraving on the Bohemian goblet is ingenious, and curious, and
faithful in detail, but the flowers on this modern French flagon are
really more graceful and beautiful.

[Illustration]

About four hundred years ago there was found in a marble coffin, in a
tomb near Rome, a glass vase which is now famous throughout the world.
There is good reason for supposing it to have been made one hundred
and thirty-eight years before Christ, consequently it is now about two
thousand years old. For many years this was in the Barberini palace in
Rome, and was called the Barberini Vase. Then it was bought by the
Duchess of Portland, of England, for nine thousand dollars, and since
then has been known as the Portland Vase.

She loaned it to the British Museum, and everybody who went to London
wanted to see this celebrated vase.

[Illustration]

One day a crazy man got into the Museum, and with a smart blow of his
cane laid in ruins the glass vase that had survived all the world's
great convulsions and changes for two thousand years! This misfortune
was supposed to be irreparable, but it has been repaired by an artist
so cleverly that it is impossible to tell where it is joined together.