Upon a table, green as the privet and holly that formed the walls of the bower in which it was placed, stood a great china bowl, one of those leviathan memorials of bygone wassailry which we may sometimes espy -- reversed in token of its desuetude -- perched on the top of an old japanned closet, but seldom, if ever, encountered in its proper position at the genial board.    From Wordnik.com.  [Rookwood] Reference