Besides the official catalogue there also appears to have been a comic or satirical guide, for the newspapers of the day advertise—

This Day was published, Price 6d.,

HA! HA! HA! Or the Laugher’s Companion to the GRAND EXHIBITION of the SIGN PAINTERS. Also He! He! He! Or the Artist’s Guide to the Society’s Exhibition.

Printed for W. Nicholl, at the Papermill, in St Paul’s Churchyard.

We shall close this subject with a paper in favour of the much abused exhibition, a weak, but well meant, effusion in doggerel rhyme:—

To the Printer of the ST JAMES’S CHRONICLE.

SIR,

As the Sign Painters in this Catalogue have directed any Essays on their Exhibition to be sent to you, I have troubled you with the enclosed Trifle, by inserting which in your Chronicle, you will oblige

Your humble Servant

And constant Reader

A Friend to the Sign Painters.

[526]

Addressed to the Gentlemen of the Society of Sign Painters. Though Malice darts around malignant Rays
And pow’rful Envy all its Spleen displays:
Go on, great Chiefs, pursue your noble Play,
And nobly end, what nobly you began.
Spite of Detraction shall your Mirth rise
With odorif’rous Flavour to the Skies,
And Masmore’s, Lester’s, Ward’s, and Fishbourne’s Name,
With thine, Van Dyke, shall live to endless Fame;
For your Collection Wit and Skill combine,
And Humour flows in ev’ry well chose Sign;
To you the Palm, th’ admiring World must give,
To you the Honour ev’ry Artist leave.
Regard not they the little-minded’s Rage,
Nor dread the snarling Critic’s angry Page;
For conscious Worth shall be your safest Guard,
And Immortality your sure Reward.
April 27-29, 1762.E. N.

[723] In Farringdon Street; the head-quarters of the London Sign-Painters.

[724] In allusion to a well-known art-theory of Hogarth’s.

[725] Fanny Parsons was the girl who played such an active part in the Cock Lane ghost performances, Jan. and Feb. 1762.

[726] A famous discussion club held at the Robin Hood Tavern, Essex Street, Strand.

[727] Evidently an allusion to Edmund Curll, the notorious bookseller, who stood in the Pillory at Cheapside.