1. "HENCE ductile CLAYS in wide expansion spread,
Soft as the Cygnet's down, their snow-white bed;
With yielding flakes successive forms reveal,
280 And change obedient to the whirling wheel.
--First CHINA'S sons, with early art elate,
Form'd the gay tea-pot, and the pictured plate;
Saw with illumin'd brow and dazzled eyes
In the red stove vitrescent colours rise;
285 Speck'd her tall beakers with enamel'd stars,
Her monster-josses, and gigantic jars;
Smear'd her huge dragons with metallic hues,
With golden purples, and cobaltic blues;
Bade on wide hills her porcelain castles glare,
290 And glazed Pagodas tremble in the air.


[_Hence ductile clays_ l. 277. See additional notes, No. XX.]

[_Saw with illumin'd brow_. l. 283. No colour is distinguishable in the
red-hot kiln but the red itself, till the workman introduces a small
piece of dry wood, which by producing a white flame renders all the
other colours visible in a moment.]

[_With golden purples_. l. 288. See additional notes, No. XXI.]


"ETRURIA! next beneath thy magic hands
Glides the quick wheel, the plaistic clay expands,
Nerved with fine touch, thy fingers (as it turns)