Here is drawing indeed.

The charge brought by the mysterious painter in Balzac's story against Pourbus, that one was unable to walk behind the figure in his picture, could never hold with Jan Steen.

His every figure stands out surrounded by atmosphere, and never more so than in the "Oyster Feast".

Again, in the "Cat's Dancing Lesson" (opposite page 158), what drawing there is in the girl playing the pipe, and what life in the whole scene! It is odd that Jan Steen in Holland, and George Morland in England, both topers, should have had this secret of simple charm so highly developed: one of nature's curious ironies, very confusing to the moralist.

In the second Hague picture (opposite page 80) Leyden's genial tosspot has achieved a farther triumph--he has painted one of the most radiantly delicate figures in all art.