He is eating with his knife.  The other holds a long glass of white wine.  Four musketeers, with different shaped hats, are behind these, one holding a glass, the three others with their guns on their shoulders.  Other guests are placed between the personage who is giving the toast and the standard-bearer.  One with his hat off, and his hand uplifted, is talking to another.  The second is carving a fowl.  A third holds a silver plate; and another, in the background, a silver flagon, from which he fills a cup.  The corner behind the captain is filled by two seated personages, one of whom is peeling an orange.  Two others are standing, armed with halberts, of whom one holds a plumed hat.  Behind him are other three individuals, one of them holding a pewter pot, on which the name ‘Poock,’ the landlord of the ‘Hotel Doele,’ is engraved.  At the back, a maid-servant is coming in with a pasty, crowned with a turkey.  Most of the guests are listening to the captain.  From an open window in the distance, the facades of two houses are seen, surmounted by stone figures of sheep.”

There, now you know all about it:  now you can go home and paint just such another.  If you do, do pray remember to paint the hands of the figures as they are here depicted; they are as wonderful portraits as the faces.  None of your slim Van Dyck elegancies, which have done duty at the cuffs of so many doublets; but each man with a hand for himself, as with a face for himself.  I blushed for the coarseness of one of the chiefs in this great company, that fellow behind “William the drummer,” splendidly attired, sitting full in the face of the public; and holding a pork-bone in his hand.  Suppose the Saturday Review critic were to come suddenly on this picture?  Ah! what a shock it would give that noble nature!  Why is that knuckle of pork not painted out? at any rate, why is not a little fringe of lace painted round it? or a cut pink paper? or couldn’t a smelling-bottle be painted in instead, with a crest and a gold top, or a cambric pocket-handkerchief, in lieu of the horrid pig, with a pink coronet in the corner? or suppose you covered the man’s hand (which is very coarse and strong), and gave him the decency of a kid glove?  But a piece of pork in a naked hand?  O nerves and eau de Cologne, hide it, hide it!

In spite of this lamentable coarseness, my noble sergeant, give me thy hand as nature made it!  A great, and famous, and noble handiwork I have seen here.  Not the greatest picture in the world—­not a work of the highest genius—­but a performance so great, various, and admirable, so shrewd of humor, so wise of observation, so honest and complete of expression, that to have seen it has been a delight, and to remember it will be a pleasure for days to come.  Well done, Bartholomeus Vander Helst!  Brave, meritorious, victorious, happy Bartholomew, to whom it has been given to produce a masterpiece!