The opening picture represents Folly, as a young woman in cap and bells, mounting the pulpit in order to sing her own praises to a listening world, and in the concluding one she is seen descending the same steps with a gesture of farewell, leaving a gaping and astonished audience behind her (Pl. 12 (1)). One of the most beautiful of the drawings, representing Penelope at her loom (Pl. 12 (2)), is now given to Ambrosius, but it bears so close a resemblance to the style of some of the figures in the “Dance of Death” woodcuts, that it is difficult to believe that it is not by Hans.[118] Some of the representations of single figures, such as the Pope under a high canopy (Pl. 12 (3)), the Cardinal (Pl. 12 (4)), the Bishop (Pl. 12 (5)), and the Astronomer, are drawn with greater care, and show a more serious point of view, than is anywhere disclosed in the book itself. In these Holbein is seen at his best, and also in the charming little picture of nuns kneeling with lighted candles before a picture or carving of the Virgin and Child, which calls to mind more than one of his later designs for painted glass (Pl. 12 (6)). In several of them, such as the group of men engaged in an animated theological discussion, and that of the young man looking back so intently at the fair damsel who comes after him that, without noticing it, he has stepped into a basketful of eggs belonging to an old market woman, there is a landscape background of town and river and distant Alps, charmingly though hastily indicated (Pl. 13 (1)). Among the classical allusions there are comic representations of the slaying of Niobe’s children,[119] of Vulcan splitting the skull of Jupiter,[119] of Atlas staggering under the weight of the world,[119] of Polyphemus dancing, and of Hercules quieting Cerberus by means of a sausage.[119] Nicolas de Lyra is represented reading the Scriptures, and at the same time playing a small hand-organ, in allusion to his name (Pl. 13 (2)). King Solomon stands pointing to his open book (Pl. 13 (3)), and another excellent little drawing is that of the young courtier or nobleman (Pl. 13 (4)). The sketch of Folly talking to his puppet (Pl. 13 (5)) is one of the illustrations now given to the unknown artist who collaborated with the Holbeins.