LONDON. 
113 
The Good Woman (without a head.) Some perfons, 
whole reading and experience have brought them in con- 
ta£l rather "with bad women than good, and who perhaps 
have read the ftory of a woman who fpoke very well with¬ 
out a tongue, (a ftory which is attefted by Wilcox bilhop 
of Rochefter, and was read before the Royal Society in a 
letter from Lifbon, dated Sept. 3, 1707 ; and which gave 
occafion to the following epigram :• 
Qu'une femme parle fam langue, 
Et mime fajj'e une harangue ; 
On le dit, et je le crois bien ! 
Mais qu'avec une langue elk puijfefe taire , 
Oh ! ma foi, voila le myjlere ! 
En verite je n'tn crois rien. 
That without tongue a woman could 
Chat and prattle, talk aloud ; 
As a fad 1 mult receive it.— 
But, that a woman with a tongue 
Could hold her peace, and hold it long; 
Pfitaw ! I can’t believe it. Z.) 
Some fuch perfons, we fay, have been of opinion, that a 
woman never could be abfolutely good unlefs her head 
were entirely off; and hence have deduced the origin of 
the fig'n, which is (fill to be feen at an oil-fhop in St. Giles’s, 
midway beflve^h the church and Tottenham-Court Road ; 
at another in Bilhoplgate-ftreet; and at another in London 
Road. But, when the reader is told, that this fign has 
never appeared but at an oil-fhop, and that it is commonly 
believed that the firlt-mentioned houfe has been in the 
fame trade, and with the fame fign, or fomething like it, 
ever fmce the days of Charles I. he will perhaps agree 
with us, that the fign was originally, at that difcant pe¬ 
riod, nothing but an Italian oil-jar, which, being very 
badly painted, and become much worfe by decay, might 
have been likened by the cultomers to an headlefs old 
woman with her arms a-kimbo; and might really have 
been as much like one as what it was intended for. Then 
we may fuppofe the next occupier of the houfe, either 
deceived himfelf, or humouring the miftake of others, 
might, when he renewed his fign, really turn it into a 
woman without a head. Or, even fuppofing the miftake 
to have been made by the fign-painter, from being una¬ 
ble to diftinguifn the figure he had to copy from ; this 
will not appear fo very abfurd, when we have given, as 
below, a reprefentation of ajar and an old woman fide 
by fide. 
We have read of ftranger metamorphofes, and of ftranger 
errors in drawing"; for one of which we ihall crofs the 
Atlantic, and go to North America. A certain great 
fhopkeeper, or merchant, of New York, who had never 
leaTned to write, ufed notwithstanding to keep his own 
accounts. His practice was, to make a grof$ reprefenta¬ 
tion, in his book, of the article he had Ibid, with certain 
marks for dates and prices. Mr. Bandfeer, in his Lectures 
on Engraving, ftrongly o'ojefts to the word copying as ap¬ 
plied to the reduced drawing of a large pifture or other 
object : he prefers the word tranjlating. Our merchant, 
therefore, when he fold any article, did not copy it into 
his book—no, he tranjlated it; and it is well-known that 
rnoft things fuffer by tranflation : fo it was in the inftance 
we are going to relate. A neighbour called in one morn¬ 
ing to fettle an account. Our merchant opens his draty- 
VOL.XIII. No. S ? 2. 
ing-book : On fuch a day, fays he, you had a cafk of 
vinegar, on fuch a day a fide of bacon, on fuch a day a 
chcefe. The debtor protefted he never had had any cheefe, 
but the creditor was pofitive ; for (fays he) here it is in 
my book. The debtor, after fome confideration, fays ; I 
cannot recolleift having had any thing of you near that 
time, except indeed a grindjlcne. “You are right,” lays 
the merchant; “a grindftone it Was; the miftake was 
mine; for I did not leave a hole in the middle of it, to 
diftinguifti it from a cheefe.” 
In l'pite of the entertainment which thefe motley exhi¬ 
bitions afforded, they were doomed to be taken down in 
theyear 1762 and 1771. The danger of their falling upon 
the heads of the paffengers, the interruption they created 
to the fight in the ftreets, and their difagreeable creaking 
by day and night in high winds, united for their cleftruc- 
tion, to the no frnall difadvantage and regret of feveral 
artifts in that line; for it was a lucrative, though inferior, 
branch of the art of painting, and furniflied employment 
to many clever hands. Sometimes men of fuperior talents 
condefcended to employ their brufhes upon fign-pods, 
which, though in high fituations, were not always in high 
efteem, but brought neverthelefs a great profit to the per¬ 
formers. Mr. Wale, a royal academician, was occafion- 
ally a fign-painter; the principal fign which he painted 
was a whole-length of Shakefpeare, about five feet high, 
which was difplayed before the door of a public-houfe, 
the north-weft corner of Little Ruffel-ftreer, in Drury- 
lane : it was enclofed in a molt fumptuous carved-and-gilt 
frame, and fufpended by rich iron-work : but it happened 
that this fplendid object was not long exhibited ; for the 
act we are fpeaking of was paffed very foon after, and 
caufed it to be removed: it was then fold for a trifle to a 
broker, at whofe door it ltood for feveral years, till it was 
totally deftroyed by weather and other accidents.—Van 
Sorner was another fign-painter of reputation, who put 
any price he liked on his works.—In the -beginning of his 
prefent majefty’s reign, among the molt celebrated pracli- 
tioners in this branch of the profeffion, was a perfon of 
the name of Lamb, who poffeffed a confiderable degree of 
ability; his pencil was bold and mafterly, well adapted to 
the lubjects he treated, and the beft colourifir, in fad the 
Titian, of his brotherhood. We have feen and admired 
fome of his performances, preferved, out of curiofity, by a 
moll refpedable fign, herald, and houfe, painter of our 
time, Mr. Thornton, of Carter-lane, who has himfelf 
evinced a great deal of proficiency in a branch of the 
chromatic art, now reviving under a lefs gaudy and more 
chafte regulation than in former times. 
It was obferved at the time, that the citizens of London 
were very loath to part with their figns. Being obliged 
to remove them from the fign-pofts which obftruded the 
foot or horfe pavement, they, (tuck them commonly againft 
their houfes, at the rifque of darkening a window or two, 
where many of them remained till they were quite decayed, 
when of courfe they were not renewed, the numbering of 
the houfes making them quite unneceffary. We ourfelves 
have perhaps partaken of the unwillingnefs of the owners 
to part with thefe ornaments, and have therefore detained 
the reader longer than we intended. Proceed we now with 
our annals. 
On Sunday the zzd of March, 1772, a violent ftorm of 
hail, thunder, and lightning, happened in London and its 
neighbourhood, during divine fervice in the afternoon. 
The congregations, in many churches, were (truck with 
the utmost consternation ; particularly at St. John’s, Horf- 
leydown, where, the hailftones breaking fome of the win¬ 
dows, a great part of the people, in the midlt of the fer- 
mon, precipitately ran out, and the remainder were thrown 
into the turnoff confufion. At Lambeth-church, every 
one lied from the windows, the charity-children were 
frightened into a general outcry, and the fervice was, for 
fome time, (lopped. On the morning of the 23d of De¬ 
cember, in the fame year, there happened one of the great-? 
elt fogs in London, that had ever been remembered; by 
G g which 
