On the bowl was portrayed a Forest Scene, with Satyrs pursuing Nymphs; on the lid was the Battle of the Centaurs; while the stem was formed by a sculptured figure of Hercules.

If the artist, Magnus Berg, who had fashioned it long ago in his own Rhine Land, had had foresight of the sort of company into whose hands his work was in these days to pass he could not have hit upon more apt devices.

His Satyrs and his Centaurs had here their representatives in the flesh; while the thews and sinews of the son of Alcmene had their counterpart in those of the man who now stood up at the head of that splendid table, and drank such a draught as though the port were porter.
It was a feat to hold it with one hand, and therefore Carew did so; but to empty it at a draught was, even for him, an impossibility, for it held three bottles of wine.

Though the Squire could be acquitted of entertaining reverence for any thing human or divine, he had a sort of superstitious regard for his beaker, and believed that so long as he had it in his possession--like the "Luck of Eden Hall"-- no great harm could happen to him.

He attached all the importance of a religious ceremony--and, indeed, it was the only one he practiced--to the using of this goblet, and resented any levity during the process as though it were sacrilege.