Sitting on top of a large book containing a list of all the people who subscribed to Boydell's project is a grotesque, bearded figure representing Avarice, clutching a bag of money under each arm. This is one of the ways in which Gillray suggests that the print publisher, John Boydell, was more interested in the money he would make from his 'Shakespeare Gallery' than in supporting British painters, which is what he claimed was his real intention.

Sitting on the shoulders of Avarice is a tiny figure wearing a head-dress made of peacock feathers (symbolising vanity), and blowing bubbles from a pipe dipped into a bowl of soapy water; one of the bubbles is labelled 'immortality'. Gillray is suggesting that Boydell was motivated by self-interest, and hoped he would go down in history as a great and noble patron of the arts.

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