NIEDERWEILER STATUETTE, 275 TOMB OF FRANKLIN TEAPOT, 285 LA GRANGE PLATE, 290 CADMUS PLATE, 292 LAFAYETTE LANDING PLATTER, 294 PROSCRIBED PATRIOTS PITCHER, 302 NAVAL PITCHER, 309 PICKLE LEAF, 317 PHILADELPHIA LIBRARY PLATE, 319 ANTI-SLAVERY PLATE, 333 BALTIMORE & OHIO RAILROAD PLATES, 336 STATE-HOUSE PLATE, 338 JOHN HANCOCK’S HOUSE, 341 HARVARD COLLEGE PLATE, 348 STEAMBOAT PLATE, 350 MACDONOUGH’S VICTORY PLATE, 351 NAHANT PLATE, 354 CITY HALL PITCHER, 359 PARK THEATRE PLATE, 361 FAIRMOUNT PARK PLATE, 364 PILGRIM PLATE, 366 CAPITOL PLATE, 374 CROWN DERBY PLATE, 379 DELFT APOTHECARY JARS, 382 COPPER-LUSTRE PITCHER, 387 A BEAUFET, 415 CHINA STEPS, 419 [Illustration: [Wedgwood Pieces]] I. CHINA HUNTING My dearly loved friend, Charles Lamb, wrote, in his “Essays of Elia,” “I have an almost feminine partiality for old china. When I go to see any great house, I inquire first for the china-closet, and next for the picture-gallery. I have no repugnance for those little lawless azure-tinted grotesques that, under the notion of men and women, float about uncircumscribed by any element, in that world before perspective—a china teacup.” In that partiality for old china I humbly join, and it is of the search through New England for such dear old china loves, and of the gathered treasures of those happy china hunts, that I write.