Shakespeare sacrificed; -or- the offering to avarice (BM 1868,0808.5869 1)

Alderman Boydell stands within a magic circle, directing a sacrifice of Shakespeare's plays; these are burning at his feet; the dense smoke which rises from the fire obscures a monument to Shakespeare, concealing the head and shoulders of a figure of Shakespeare in bas-relief pointing to the inscription on the monument (as in Kent's monument in Westminster Abbey) :

'The cloud capt [towers]
The gorgeous [palaces]
The solemn Temples
Yea the great Globe [itself]
Shall dissolve -
And like the baseless fabrick of a vision,
Leave not a wreck [sic] behind.'

Beside the fire (right) stands on end a huge volume inscribed 'List of Subscribers to the Sacrifice'. On it sits an aged gnome-like creature with a large head, symbolizing Avarice; under each skinny arm he clutches a large money-bag inscribed '£'. On his shoulders stands an infant blowing from a tobacco-pipe the bubble of 'Immortality'; he wears a head-dress of peacock's feathers, symbolizing Vanity. Boydell, who wears a furred alderman's robe, looks fixedly at Avarice, who returns his cunning smile; with his left hand he points to the fire. He is less caricatured than savagely depicted, the realism of his figure contrasting with the fantasy of the design. An evil-looking creature wearing a fool's cap crouches by the fire (right) blowing it with bellows. He is a caricature of the fool in West's picture of Lear (iii. 2).
The smoke as it rises expands into heavy clouds which support various figures, more or less travestied, from the pictures commissioned by Boydell for his Shakespeare Gallery. The most prominent and the largest in scale are immediately above Boydell: Bottom and Cardinal Beaufort. Bottom, with his finger to his (ass's) nose, closely resembles the figure in Fuseli's painting of the 'Midsummer Night's Dream' (iv. 1). Beaufort on his deathbed, as in Reynolds's 'Death of Cardinal Beaufort' ('Henry VI', Part II, iii. 3), now in the Dulwich Gallery, clutches, instead of bedclothes, the cloud on which he lies. A devil behind his head clutches his pillow. Immediately above these is Lear seated on his throne and driving out Cordelia, a parody of Fuseli's picture. He points, not at Cordelia (who is not depicted) but at a spider's web on which is a small nude figure holding a sword and spear. Lear's gothic throne is travestied as the gable-end of a brick building with two smoking chimneys. Above the throne, and pointing down at Lear, is an ape-like nude figure wearing a gold chain. This is a parody of North-cote's Duke of Gloucester as the wicked uncle ('Richard III', iii. 1). A nude torso behind Beaufort appears to be from the figure of Edward V in Northcote's painting of the dead princes ('Richard III', iv. 3). Looking down on this torso are the head and shoulders of a man in armour, and of an old man with a long beard whose hair blows up into the form of a pillow. The latter may be taken from Cardinal Bourchier in Northcote's picture of Richard III (iii. 1). Above these lies the infant Perdita from Opie's painting of the 'Winter's Tale' (ii. 3), with a detached helmet (for a fore-shortened head), and an outstretched arm in armour from the same picture. In the upper right corner of the design are the three witches in 'Macbeth', closely imitated from Fuseli. Below them, and standing on a promontory of cloud which overlooks the flames of Hell, is the Ghost in 'Hamlet', also taken from Fuseli. Near him (left) stands the elongated figure of Warwick in trunk hose pointing to the Tudor Rose from Boydell's picture of the scene in the Temple garden ('Henry VI', Part I, ii. 4). He appears to be pointing at the witches.
In the upper part of the design is an infant at a woman's breast attended by two other figures. This does not appear to be from the Shakespeare Gallery. [It is described by Grego as taken from the Infant Shakespeare by Romney, but has no resemblance to that picture, which, according to the 'D.N.B.', was painted in 1791.] On the ground and just within the magic circle kneels a ragged boy with palette and brushes who is pushing another boy, holding an engraver's tool, outside the circle, which is inscribed in large letters: 'ΟΥΔΕΙΣ ΑΜΟΥΣΟΣ ΕΙΣΙΤΩ' [This inscription was over the doorway of the 'Great Exhibition Room' at Somerset House, adapted by Sir George Baker M.D. from the famous one over Plato's Library. J. Baretti, 'A Guide through the Royal Academy'. Information from Mr. W. R. M. Lamb, C.V.O. See BMSat 7219.] Behind the boys and in the background is the temple of Fame on a mountain-top. Fame, poised on the apex of the temple, blows upwards from her trumpet a blast of bubbles inscribed 'Mecænas! Leo! Alexander! Psha!' She scatters papers inscribed 'Puff, Puffs, Puffs [&c], Morning Herald, World'. Outside the circle and on the extreme right is a portfolio inscribed 'Ancient Master[s]', across which a snail crawls. Within the circle is a pile of portfolios inscribed 'Modern Masters'. On the extreme right and outside the circle is an open grave in which stands, holding a spade, a corpse-like figure with a grinning skull (not from the Shakespeare Gallery, but perhaps intended for the grave-digger in Hamlet). Behind him ascend the flames of Hell, in which small demons are flying. The burning papers which constitute the sacrifice are inscribed 'King Lear', 'Richard III', 'Henry VI', 'Romeo & Juliet', 'Hamlet', 'Macbeth', 'Midsummer Nights dream'. 20 June 1789

Hand-coloured etching and aquatint