On wooden Pegasus so trim-a,
Is something—nothing—’tis a whim-a.’
The fan-makers were not slow in following up with a fan. On April 25, the following advertisement appeared in the Craftsman:—
‘This day is published, by J. Pinchbeck at the Fan and Crown in New Round Court, in the Strand.
‘The Reason for the Motion. A Satire, whereon are the Portraits of divers Noble Personages. To which is annexed, Explanatory Verses, which will serve as a Key to the Whole.
‘Where may be had, All sorts of Fans and Fan-Mounts. The newest fashion, and suited to the nicest Taste. Wholesale or Retail.
‘N.B.—Gentlemen and Ladies may have any Device done in a curious Manner, according to their own Direction.
‘There is a Spurious Sort about the Town, which has not the Verses, and but part of the Figures.’
The Jacobite rebellion of 1745 was commemorated by a fan leaf engraved by Sir Robert Strange, intended for the sympathisers with the Pretender. The moment for the rebellion was well chosen—the king was in Hanover, the Duke of Cumberland had fought and lost Fontenoy in April of the same year, and was still engaged in Flanders. The fan shows the Prince in armour, with Cameron of Lochiel as Mars, and Flora Macdonald as Bellona.
In the fan representing the apotheosis of the Young Pretender, the Prince, supported by Mars and Bellona, is claiming the inheritance of the English crown; a figure of Fame bears the laurel wreath, at his side is an altar blazing with devoted hearts, and above are Venus and Cupid seated on a cloud. On the left, Britannia smiles through her tears as a dove approaches bearing the palm branch, emblem of Peace. On the right, Jupiter with his thunder scatters the Hanoverian faction into obscurity, and Rapine and Murder are prostrated. An example, carefully coloured, appeared in the Walker sale in 1882, and passed into the possession of Lady Charlotte Schreiber for the sum of £7. The stick is ivory, carved with subjects and fretwork.
The peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, signed October 7, 1748, was celebrated in the following April by a grand display of fireworks in the Green Park, opposite to His Majesty’s library. A fan fairly well engraved, the design well disposed, shows a view of the temporary building erected for this purpose, which consisted of a ‘magnificent Doric temple,’ with two extended wings terminated by pavilions, the whole being one hundred and fourteen feet high and four hundred and ten feet long. The exhibition began about nine o’clock in the evening, and was introduced by ‘a grand overture of warlike instruments composed by Mr. Handel.’ About eleven o’clock the whole building was illuminated, in which state it continued till between two and three in the morning; His Majesty and the royal family retiring about twelve.
The untimely death of the Prince of Wales in 1751 threw London into mourning, the fan following suit with a portrait bust of Frederick on a cenotaph, with mourning figures of Art, Science, and Britannia, a figure of Hope with an anchor occupying the foreground. The fan here, true to its antecedents, discovers more loyalty than did some of the rhymesters of the period, one of whom produced an epitaph of which the following is a portion:—
... ‘Since ‘tis only Fred,
Who was alive and is dead.