In its first state, which I give here, together with its accompanying letterpress, the line of publication runs: “Gisling, Geneve, exc.” and the title: Het beest van Babel is aan’t vluesten Die Godsdienst heeft niet méer te duckten. (The beast of Babel is flying, Religion has nothing more to fear.) [Illustration: Het beest van Babel, etc. (_The plate in its first state._)] [Illustration: Het beest van Babel, etc. (_The plate in its second state._)] The design is very elaborate and crowded with figures, those in the foreground being executed with considerable spirit. The Dutch Lion (1) carries a sword in its right front claws, as does that on the Persian flag of to-day. On its back rides William of Orange (7) with lance in rest and bearing a shield upon which St. Michael is represented combating sin in the shape of a dragon. William is supported by mounted soldiers, one of whom bears a flag inscribed with {218} the words “Prot religion and libe”—(For religion and liberty). Over his head flies a winged Revenge (3) carrying a shield in one hand and the lightnings of God’s wrath in the other. Before him flies the seven-headed Beast of Babel (2), shorn of two of his heads, which lie bleeding on the ground beneath the lion. The monster, which “utters horrible shrieks,” bears upon its back between its wings Father Petre (6), who holds on his lap the infant Pretender (5), to whom his “brains have so infamously given birth.” The too-old infant carries in his hand the ever-present toy windmill. Blood pours from the decapitated necks of the Beast as he plunges with his accompanying rabble into the “pool of horrors.” Priests and other Romish officials, some mounted on goats, asses, and wolves, flee (4) or are trampled under foot (8). In the mid background William of Orange (9), by a poetic licence able to be in two places at once, a fairly common convention even in serious pictures of that and an earlier date,[42] is being {221} greeted by the English nobles as their saviour. To the left, through an archway, James II. (10) is seen fleeing by boat with his wife and infant, though, as a matter of fact, he remained in England some months after the latter were safely abroad. To the right, through another arch, Louis XIV. (11) is seen “embracing the child and taking pity on his mother,” and putting two of the curious, hearse-like carriages of the period at their disposal. Here we not only find Mary of Modena duplicated, but the infant Pretender triplicated in the same picture! So much for the plate in its first state. [42] See, for example, Tintoret’s great picture of “Adam and Eve” in the Accademia at Venice.