"The accusing spirit which flew up to heavens chancery with the oath blush'd as he gave it in, and the recording angel as he "wrote it down dropt a tear upon the word and blotted it out for ever". [graphic]

"The Recording Angel sits full face in the upper part of the design, writing at a long scroll, which rests on a small but very solid rectangular table supported on billowing clouds. He is a sulky-faced naked child, with wide-spread wings and wearing a nightcap. A large tear falls from his right eye. The Accusing Spirit, a bald-headed, elderly man, his face blotched with drink, with wings and wearing a long robe, in profile to the right, holds up to the Angel a paper inscribed "He shall not dye by xxx". The winged heads of a man and woman, poised on the claws of birds of prey, rest on clouds in the upper left corner of the design; he regards her insinuatingly, she grins back. A cherub's winged head flies behind the Accusing Spirit. Rays of light fall diagonally from the right on the Recording Angel. Billowing clouds complete the design."--British Museum online catalogue