[Flemish characters]

Two designs on the same plate; the upper design showing a scene at the door of a Flemish church (right) in a small square, with a procession of little girls, uniformly dressed, wearing aprons and sabots, each with a large book under her arm, entering the church, the smallest in the rear; they are followed (left) by a fat Flemish woman wearing a hooded cloak, a book in her hand, a birch-rod hanging from her wrist; on the extreme left a little boy walks between his stout parents, taking a hand of each, and behind, three men are indicated, also with books; on the right three nuns approach the door, skirting the wall of the church, a crucifix in a niche shown above their heads. The lower design shows a scene in the market-square of a Flemish town with a row of booths on the left; under the projecting roof of one of them, a fat woman sits behind a table on which is a teetotum, with an arrow swinging on a dial; she is surrounded by men who proffer coins, as a small boy gapes at this gambling scene. On the right a town-crier reading from a paper and ringing his bell is the chief figure of a group: a peasant woman carrying milk-pails on a yoke, four men, two little girls, a dog. In the right centre priests listen intently to one of their number who stands in back view reading from a paper. Behind (left), a monk takes a woman by the chin. In the background British guardsmen, standing stiffly at attention, are being drilled. Cf. British Museum online catalog.