To the mud they were made of restoring each village.
And they show him the pages of China's first sages,
Which were printed for sale in the towns of the Tartar;
When, with us, scarce a spark of wit gleamed in one clerk,
And De Montfort "his mark" set to our Magna Charta.
They declare, too, that banking quite flourished in Nanking,
And that printed bank-notes were in vogue at the hour
When our yeomen and reeves exchanged bannocks for beeves,
And seldom bought less than a sheep'sworth of flour.
And he learns their silk factories furnished phylacteries,