The downfall of taste & genius or the world as it goes. (BM 1876,1014.43)

Men, women, and animals rush right to left: figures representing modern follies pursue others representing Truth, Art, &c. A hooded female figure (left) holding a serpent, representing Faction or Discord, holds up a cracked mirror which she appears to have taken from Truth who runs beside her. Behind them are three female figures: Painting, holding a palette and brushes, lies on the ground, about to be trampled on by a pig with a collar inscribed 'Learned Pig'; on one side of her is Sculpture, a young woman with a mallet and chisel half-seated on the ground, and on the other Music, prostrate, with a lyre and laurel wreath beside her. The pursuers are mountebanks and performing animals, the foremost being the Learned Pig. Beside it is a monkey riding a large dog and holding a flag inscribed 'Genl Jacko'; another monkey in military uniform is bounding forward. An equestrian performer rides a horse standing on one leg. A harlequin, with his club, a Mother Shipton, and a fashionably dressed man waving his hat march forward. With them are other performing animals: a hare beating a drum, a dog in legal wig and gown, and another dog dressed as a woman. Open on the ground lie 'Shakespeares Plays' and 'Popes Works'. A half-length statue of a woman on a terminal pillar has three pairs of breasts; a man wearing cap and bells is sprinkling her high-piled hair with powder; above her head is the word 'Nature'. In the upper right corner of the print part of an ascending balloon is visible, its car inscribed 'Lunardi', while the aeronaut waves a flag with three fleurs-de-lis (see BMSat 6700).
Behind the figures are four battered columns, on each of which is a statue. 'Fame' (left) holds two broken trumpets; 'Wisdom', holding a shield and spear, is decapitated, her owl perches on her neck; 'Justice' holds her sword and scales, both broken; 'Virtue' is a man with a wooden leg supported on a crutch, holding out his hat as if begging. In the background are sketched two ruined temples, each on a hill: '[Tem]ple Fame and Temple Virtue'. c.1784

Etching