September, 1918 
27 
A Hepplewhite de¬ 
sign for an oval tea 
tray 
would delight the heart 
of any collector, there 
was order in it all. One 
did not tumble over a Tur¬ 
key-red tea-cosy or mis¬ 
take it for a hassock. Nor 
did one have to compress 
elbow to side to keep from 
precipitating precious tea¬ 
cups to the floor underfoot. 
In this instance a remark¬ 
able collection of antiques 
and curios furnished a 
whole room. 
Queen Anne and Leigh 
Hunt 
“I cannot vie with Mar¬ 
ius in offering you the 
throne of George Eliot,” 
said our host, “but here is 
a very comfortable ar¬ 
rangement once occupied 
by Queen Anne.” 
“Yes,” commented our 
hostess, “Arthur went 
threadbare to have it be¬ 
cause Alexander Pope hap¬ 
pened to have written: 
‘Thou, great Anna, whom 
three realms obey, 
Dost sometimes counsel take, 
and sometimes tay’ 
In fact, I once arrived just 
in time to prevent him 
from buying Leigh Hunt’s 
cause—what was it Leigh 
Arthur, I never can remember?” 
“ ‘Oh, heavens! to sip that most exquisite cup 
of delight was bliss almost too great for earth; a 
thousand years of rapture all concentrated into 
the space of a minute, as if the joy of all the 
world had been skimmed for my peculiar drink¬ 
ing, I should rather say imbibing, for to have 
swallowed that legend like an ordinary beverage 
without tasting every drop would have been a 
sacrilege.’ ” 
“No w T onder you were keen for the spec¬ 
tacles!” I cried. 
“But I never heard of Leigh Hunt’s spec¬ 
tacles. I don’t believe he ever wore them. You 
have to make allowance for the attitude my 
better half holds toward tea!” 
“No, my dear,” our hostess replied sweetly, 
“you know I love these things as 
much as you do.” It was true. 
Now while we did not talk tea 
throughout all our little visit, we 
did eagerly examine the old tea- 
furniture. There was Delft, pottery 
and porcelain of all sorts, marvel¬ 
ous tea-caddies, a collection of 
prints and caricatures of the Boston 
Tea Party. 
“There were other tea-parties 
over there in America,” our host 
Another Hepple¬ 
white tea tray con¬ 
ception 
Inlay plays a great part in 
Hepplewhite designs 
(Above) A Hepplewhite 
tray made in 1775 
spectacles just be- 
Hunt said of tea, 
explained, “you neglect them terribly! There 
was the ‘Tea-party’ of Philadelphia in 1773, 
the ‘Tea-party’ of Edenton in 1774 and the 
same year the ‘Tea-parties’ of Cumberland 
County and of Greenwich, New Jersey. I have 
them all in the library!” 
We saw the books before 
coming away. Not the 
least interesting was Chip¬ 
pendale’s “The Gentleman 
and Cabinet-Maker’s Di¬ 
rector,” issued in London 
in 1762 with its designs for 
tea-tables and tea-chests, 
and the Hepplewhite book 
of 1787. Dr. Samuel John¬ 
son was rated a prodigi¬ 
ous tea-drinker in his day 
“beyond all precedent.” 
We did not compete with 
his record, nor yet with 
that of Bishop Burnet, who 
thought nothing of sixteen 
cups of a morning, but we 
did not find our tea taste 
stinted that delightful 
afternoon at Camberwell. 
“Venus her myrtle, Phoebus 
has her Bays 
Tea both excels, which she 
vouchsafes to praise.” 
We found Waller’s lines 
coming to mind many times 
afterwards, when we had 
come to discover them in a 
dusty tome of 1662 which 
we found for a penny in a 
book stall and added it to 
our collection of tea-ana! 
And what response to the 
memory of our Camberwell 
adventures was evoked when home again in 
country we chanced upon Thomas’s 
Spy” and read therein that 
Each of these trays has 
raised edge 
our own 
“Massachusetts 
touching farewell to tea! 
A variation on the Chippendale chest 
design 
“Farewell, the teaboard with its equipage 
Of cups and saucers, cream bucket and sugar tongs, 
The pretty tea-chest also lately stored 
With Hyson, Congo and best Double Fine.” 
Books and Autographs 
We began then with enthusiasm to read up 
on tea. It behooved us to begin with the “tea- 
party” episodes our host in Camberwell had 
hinted at as neglected by our histories. Lor one 
thing, there were the autographs to be 
sought of many of the revolutionary partici¬ 
pants. We found a book on the subject, long 
since out of print, and many a hint was con¬ 
tained therein. This was “Tea Leaves” by 
Lrancis S. Drake “Being a collec¬ 
tion of letters and documents re¬ 
lating to the Shipment of Tea to the 
American Colonies in the year 1773, 
by the East India Tea Company.” 
There we found many portraits, 
fac-simile signatures, etc. It is a 
book worth looking for. Our copy 
cost us but two dollars. On a fly¬ 
leaf someone—not the poet himself, 
alas!—had copied these lines of 
(Continued on page 66) 
Each Chippendale design has dig¬ 
nity of line 
Design for a tea table in the Chinese taste, by Chippen¬ 
dale. From “Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker’s Director” 
The last of Chippendale’s six de¬ 
signs for tea chests 
