Page:Textile fabrics; a descriptive catalogue of the collection of church-vestments, dresses, silk stuffs, needle-work and tapestries, forming that section of the Museum (IA textilefabricsde00soutrich).pdf/560



which, if not outstretched in token of clemency towards the man or woman who had the hardihood to come unbidden to his presence, signified that such a bold intruder, were she the queen herself, must be put to death. Having nobles and guards about him, this monarch of one hundred and twenty-seven provinces is handing to Haman, one of those three princes before him, a written document from which hang two royal seals: this is that terrible decree, which, out of spite towards Mordecai, and hatred for the Jewish race, Haman had won from his partial master Ahasuerus, for the slaughter, on a certain day, of every Hebrew within the Persian empire.

Yet further to the left is another group, wherein we observe some of the richly-attired functionaries of the empire. A bareheaded old man, a royal messenger, who holds up his left hand as if to indicate he had come from the court of Ahasuerus, delivers to one of the nobles there this original decree to be copied out and sent in all directions through the kingdom.

Looking still at top, but to the far right, we have in the background, amid the trees, a large house, from out of the midst of which stands up a tall red beam, the gibbet, fifty cubits high, got ready by Haman at his wife's and friends' suggestion for hanging on it Mordecai. In this foreground we behold Haman clad in a blue mantle and a rich golden chain about his neck: to the man standing respectfully before him, cap in hand, Haman gives the written order duly authenticated by the two imperial seals upon it, for the execution of Mordecai. Immediately to the left of this scene we are presented with the inside view of a fine chamber hung with tapestry, and ornamented with tall vases, two of which are on a shelf close by a lattice-window. In the middle of this room is a group of three women: one of them, Esther, richly clad, is seated and wringing her hands in great grief, as if she had learned the fell death awaiting her uncle, and the slaughter already decreed of all her nation: two of her gentlewomen are with her, wailing, like their queen-mistress, the coming catastrophe.

Right in the centre of the piece, and occupying its most conspicuous position, we behold the tall stately figure of a beautiful young queen, splendidly arrayed, and wearing over the rich caul upon her head a royal diadem. She seems to have just arisen from the magnificent throne or rather faldstool close behind her. With both her hands clasped in supplication, she is followed in her upward course by her train of attendants—two ladies and a nobleman—all gaily dressed, threading their way through as they ascend from the hall below crowded with courtiers, men and women gossiping together in little knots, and set