This sign is equally common on the Continent; the book of Dutch signboard inscriptions of the seventeenth century, from which we have constantly quoted, gives several verses which figured under various signs of the Good Woman. Amongst them the following are worth noticing:—
“Hier is de goede vrouw te vinden,
Na ’t leven zeer net afgebeeld,
Daar niet als ’t hoofd maar aan en scheeld,
Dewyl dat draait met duizend winden;
Indien er ’t hoofd was aangebleven
Sy was nooit goed haar gansche leven.”[649]
Another had:—
“De vrouw die is een mannen-plaag,
Al zyn snot-leepels daarna graag;
Dies als dat vuur is uitgedoofd
Dan wenschen zy, haar zonder hoofd.”[650]
In Italy, also, it is known, and serves as a sign to many an inn. Readers who may have visited Turin will remember the kind reception of “la buona Moglie” in that town. In Paris it gives its name to a street, Rue de la Femme sans Tête. The picture in France is generally accompanied by the legend, “Tout en est bon,” the absence of the head probably implying “fors la tête,” except the head; ergo, everything is good in woman except her head—her ever-changing whims and fancies. At the present day there is, in the Rue St Marguerite, a pork butcher who has made the following use of this sign: Under the usual representation of the Good Woman he has written in golden letters, “Tout en est bon, depuis les” (a representation of four pigs’ feet) “jusqu’à la,” (a representation of an enormous boar’s head.) This ungallant association of ideas of a woman and a pig is, we are sorry to say, not without an example in our nation, though fortunately our rudeness was two hundred years ago, and we have grown more refined since:—
“One Ambrose Westrop, vicar of the Parish church Much to Sham (?) in the county of Essex, taught in a Sermon That a Woman is worse than a sow in two respects; First: because a sowskin is good to make a cart saddle and her bristles good for a sowter. Secondly: because a sow will run away if a man cry but hoy, but a woman will not turn her head, though beaten down with a leaver, and that all the difference between a woman and a sow is in the nape of the neck, where a woman can bend upwards, but a sow cannot, etc. The said Westrop is a great malignant and very envious and full of venome against the Parliament. But his benefit is sequestered, as well he deserves, from his filthiness and unfitnesse to the place.”—Remarkable Passages and Occurrences of Parliament, &c. December 8 to 15, 1644.
Lawyers, priests, and women have, at all times and in all countries, received a liberal share of abuse and slander; no wonder, then, that the Lawyer kept the Good Woman in countenance. In a sign derived from the Good Woman the man of law is “damned to fame” as the Honest Lawyer, the sign representing him with his head in his hand, as the only condition in which by any possibility he could be honest. Another sign abusive of the softer sex is the [Man loaded with Mischief], the sign of an ale-house in Oxford Street. The original, said to be painted by Hogarth, is fastened to the front of the house, and has the honour of being specified in the lease of the premises as one of the fixtures. An engraving of it is exhibited in the window. It represents a man carrying a woman, a magpie, and a monkey, the woman with a glass of gin in her hand. In the background, on the left-hand side, is a public-house with a pair of horns as a “finial” on the gable end; this house is called “Cuckhold’s Fortune;” a woman is passing in at the door, and a sow is asleep in a pot-house, with a label above, “She is as drunk as a sow,” whilst two cats are making love on the roof. On the right-hand side is the shop of S. Gripe, Pawnbroker, which a carpenter enters to pledge his tools. The engraving is signed: “Drawn by Experience; engraved by Sorrow.” Under it is the following rhyme:—
“A monkey, a magpie, and a wife,
Is the true emblem of strife.”
This sign has been imitated in other places, sometimes called the Mischief, as at Blewbury, Wallingford, or the Load of Mischief, as at Norwich. About twenty years ago there was one to be seen in the neighbourhood of Cambridge, with this expressive addition, that the man was tied to the woman by a chain and padlock. A similarly malicious reflection on the “softer sex” is seen in many parts of France, as in Paris, Troyes, and various other towns. It is called “Le trio de Malice,” (the three bad ones,) the trio being composed of a cat, a woman, and a monkey.