200 THE HISTORY OE THE ORDER OE [book ii.

laneum, we find that patricians had as fine panesin their windows as the best Bohemian crystal.What M. Taylor affirms in his letter to Chateau-briand, this latter doubles its weight by making ithis own. To prevent surprise at Acre’s having glasswindows fully equal to our own, we must only becontented to consider that city as the great martfor all the commerce of the world in the thirteenthcentury, and the aggregation of everything thatwas then splendid in existence, and not as themiserable Arab village before us. It is on thesame fifty times sacked and devastated spot,that is all. But the grand commercial Acrein question was razed (and the very groundscraped clean, for having been profaned by thefeet of Giaours) six centuries and a half ago; and ifVenice became remarkable for large plate-glass, itis likely enough she learned the art from Acre . 1But stained, or painted glass, with us still some-what of a singularity and reserved once to a fewEuropean cathedrals, was then much used inAcre, and also pointed arches, to credit antiquariantradition, and some recent artists. Not only mer-chants, and habitual residents of high, or royalrank, there was a continual influx of strangers ofall classes, but chiefly the most elevated, from every1 Chateaubriand : Itin. de Paris a Jerusalem, ii. 418.