11, A. WISDOM, shield with, I think, an eatable root; meaning temperance, as the beginning of wisdom.
11, B. FOLLY, the ordinary type used in all early Psalters, of a glutton, armed with a club. Both this vice and virtue are the earthly wisdom and folly, completing the spiritual wisdom and folly opposite under St. Matthew. Temperance, the complement of Obedience, and Covetousness, with violence, that of Atheism.
42. All these quatrefoils are rather symbolic than representative; and, since their purpose was answered enough if their sign was understood, they have been entrusted to a more inferior workman than the one who carved the now sequent series under the Prophets. Most of these subjects represent an historical fact, or a scene spoken of by the prophet as a real vision; and they have in general been executed by the ablest hands at the architect's command.
With the interpretation of these, I have given again the name of the prophet whose life or prophecy they illustrate.
13, A. "I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne" (vi. I).
The vision of the throne "high and lifted up" between seraphim.
13, B. "Lo, this hath touched thy lips" (vi. 7).
The Angel stands before the prophet, and holds, or rather held, the coal with tongs, which have been finely undercut, but are now broken away, only a fragment remaining in his hand.
14, A. The burial of the girdle (xiii. 4, 5).
The prophet is digging by the shore of Euphrates, represented by vertically winding furrows down the middle of the tablet. Note, the translation should be "hole in the ground," not "rock."
14, B. The breaking of the yoke (xxviii. 10).
From the prophet Jeremiah's neck; it is here represented as a doubled and redoubled chain.
The prophet sitting; before him two wheels of equal size, one involved in the ring of the other.
15, B. "Son of man, set thy face toward Jerusalem" (xxi. 2).
The prophet before the gate of Jerusalem.
16, A. "He hath shut the lions' mouths" (vi. 22).
Daniel holding a book, the lions treated as heraldic supporters. The subject is given with more animation farther on in the series (24, B).
16, B. "In the same hour came forth fingers of a Man's hand" (v. 5).
Belshazzar's feast represented by the king alone, seated at a small oblong table. Beside him the youth Daniel, looking only fifteen or sixteen, graceful and gentle, interprets. At the side of the quatrefoil, out of a small wreath of cloud, comes a small bent hand, writing, as if with a pen upside down on a piece of Gothic wall.[64]