maidservant. 1. The Lambs' friend Martin Burney, nephew of
6. Theologian Nathaniel Lardner (1684-1768). the novelist Frances Burney. 7. The padded yoke a London market porter wore 2. A million-word novel, Samuel Richardson's to help him carry his burden. Clarissa (1747-48) took up seven volumes.
8. The five points of Calvinist belief: Original Sin, 3. Mary Lamb. The poem had appeared earlier in Predestination, Irresistible Grace, Particular the Lambs' Poetry for Children (1809).
Redemption, and the Final Perseverance of the
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51 0 / CHARLE S LAM B I soon perceiv'd another boy, Who look'd as if he'd not had any Food, for that day at least?enjoy The sight of cold meat in a tavern larder. This boy's case, then thought I, is surely harder, Thus hungry, longing, thus without a penny, Beholding choice of dainty-dressed meat: No wonder if he wish he ne'er had learn'd to eat. 1822 1833
Old China
I have an almost feminine partiality for old china. When I go to see any
great house, I inquire for the china closet, and next for the picture gallery. I
cannot defend the order of preference, but by saying that we have all some
taste or other, of too ancient a date to admit of our remembering distinctly
that it was an acquired one. I can call to mind the first play, and the first
exhibition, that I was taken to; but I am not conscious of a time when china
jars and saucers were introduced into my imagination. I had no repugnance then?why should I now have? ?to those little, lawless,
azure-tinctured grotesques, that under the notion of men and women float
about, uncircumscribed by any element, in that world before perspective?a
china teacup. I like to see my old friends?whom distance cannot diminish?figuring
up in the air (so they appear to our optics), yet on terra firma still?for so
we must in courtesy interpret that speck of deeper blue, which the decorous
artist, to prevent absurdity, had made to spring up beneath their sandals.
I love the men with women's faces, and the women, if possible, with still
more womanish expressions.
Here is a young and courtly mandarin, handing tea to a lady from a salver?
two miles off. See how distance seems to set off respect! And here the same
lady, or another?for likeness is identity on teacups?is stepping into a little
fairy boat, moored on the hither side of this calm garden river, with a dainty
mincing foot, which in a right angle of incidence (as angles go in our world)
must infallibly land her in the midst of a flowery mead?a furlong off on the
other side of the same strange stream! Farther on?if far or near can be predicated of their world?see horses, trees, pagodas, dancing the hays.1 Here?a cow and rabbit couchant,2 and coextensive?so objects show, seen through the lucid atmosphere of fine Cathay.3 I was pointing out to my cousin last evening, over our Hyson4 (which we
are old-fashioned enough to drink unmixed still of an afternoon), some of these
speciosa miracula5 upon a set of extraordinary old blue china (a recent pur
chase) which we were now for the first time using; and could not help remark
ing how favorable circumstances had been to us of late years that we could
afford to please the eye sometimes with trifles of this sort?when a passing
1. An English country dance. 3. The old European name for China. 2. Lying down with the head raised (term from 4. A Chinese green tea. heraldry). 5. Shining wonders (Latin).
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OLD CHINA / 511
sentiment seemed to overshade the brows of my companion. I am quick at
detecting these summer clouds in Bridget.6 'I wish the good old times would come again,' she said, 'when we were not
quite so rich. I do not mean that I want to be poor; but there was a middle
state'?so she was pleased to ramble on?'in which I am sure we were a great
deal happier. A purchase is but a purchase, now that you have money enough
and to spare. Formerly it used to be a triumph. When we coveted a cheap
