_Dutch Allegorical Picture_ (Vol. vi., p. 457.).--In the account I gave you
of this picture I omitted one of the inscriptions, which I but just
discovered; and as the picture appears to have excited some interest in
Holland (my account of it having been translated into Dutch[9], in the
_Navorscher_), I send you this further supplemental notice.
I described a table standing under the window, on the left-hand side of the
room, containing on the end nearest to the spectator, not two pewter
flagons, as I at first thought, but one glass and one pewter flagon. On the
end of this table, which is presented to the spectator, is an inscription,
which, as I have said, had hitherto escaped my notice, having been
partially concealed by the frame--a modern one, not originally intended for
this picture, and partly obscured by dirt which had accumulated in the
corner. I can now make out very distinctly the following words, with the
date, which fixes beyond a question the age of the picture:
"Hier moet men gissen
Glasen te wasser
Daer in te pissen
En soú niet passen.
1659."
I may also mention, that the floor of the chamber represented in the
picture is formed of large red and blue square tiles; and that the folio
book standing on end, with another lying horizontally on the top of it,
which I said in my former description to be standing on the end of the
table, under the window, is, I now see, standing not on the table, but on
the floor, next to the chair of the grave and studious figure who sits in
the left-hand corner of the room.
These corrections of my first description have been in a great measure the
result of a little soap and water applied with a sponge to the picture.