Plate 99
Beneath the picture that occupies most of this plate may be seen relics
of some earlier use. Turned the other way around, the plate contains large
architectural elements in the foreground and what may be a title, perhaps
unfinished but thick with engraved swirls of wings or bows or large looped
capitals — or all these together. It is not the pattern of the present
title
page of Jerusalem but seems somewhat in its spirit.
There is only one state of this plate, though variations are made in the
colored and retouched copies. In the Harvard, Mellon, and Morgan copies
the hands of Jehovah — or of "that God from whom all books are
given", to quote the restored Plate 3 — are redrawn, concealing the
small
oblong that looks something like a small bible or psalm-book held between
the thumb and second finger of his left hand, with his forefinger inserted
between the pages. A black wash covers it in the British Museum copy. It
is fairly visible in the Rinder facsimile. But this is perhaps a wrong
construction.
