Boydell, JOHN, engraver and publisher of prints, was born at Dorrington, Shropshire, in 1719, and in 1741 trudged up to London, where he learned engraving, and presently started a print-shop. English engraving was then at a low ebb, but under Boydell's liberal patronage of native artists, the importation of foreign prints not only almost ceased, but English prints were exported to the Continent. Boydell now determined to do for
English painting what he had done for engraving. He accordingly selected Shakespeare's works for illustration, and secured the most eminent painters in the kingdom, including Opie, Reynolds, Northcote, and West. The result was the 'Shakespeare Gallery,' from which was engraved a superb volume of plates (1803) to accompany a splendid edition of Shakespeare's works in 9 vols. fol. (1792-1801). The immense sums of money he spent on these illustrations, and the commercial depression consequent on the French Revolution, brought him into difficulties, from which he was not wholly extricated at his death, 12th December 1804. In 1790 he had been Lord Mayor.