‘This young Spark is perfectly a man of Taste—dresses like a gentleman—swears like a Nabob, and believes the Ladies think him a clever fellow.’ * * * * * ‘This Man (wonderful man he should be called) is a learned Ass. Speaks gramatically nice, looks very solemn, and expects y^e Ladies to understand his consequence, happy are they who win his smiles.’ * * * * * ‘A fit Man for a closet—give this gentleman retirement, he requires to bear Comp^y with none but invissibles—Gods, Goddesses, Genii, Fauns, Sylphs, Naiads, Dryads, & y^e like.’ ‘An unfit Man to be alone—one that his associates have nicknamed Bob Drowsy, he can find no amusement but in his tongue, & if he is left half an hour alone he falls asleep.’ In an oval medallion in the centre is the following:— ‘THE QUIZ CLUB. Dedicated to all Beaus in Christendom. By S. A., Professor of Physiognomy and Correction of the Heart. Dear Madam, ask your loving Quiz If here he ‘Spies his own Dear Phiz; And if mark’d out some fault he find, Like one or two which warp his mind, Bid the defaulter hence amend And be the Sexes honour’d friend. ‘Publish’d by Ashton & Co., No. 28 Little Britain, May 1st, 1797, & Enter’d at Stationers’ Hall.’ Trips to Gretna were among the earliest results of the abolition of Fleet marriages by Lord Hardwicke’s New Marriage Act of 1753, one of the most famous of these clandestine marriages being that of Richard Lovell Edgeworth ten years later. The fan illustrates, in six scenes, the progress of a love match from the first meeting, to a marriage at Gretna, and final forgiveness by the bride’s father—‘The First Impression,’ ‘Mutual Declaration,’ ‘The Refusal,’ ‘The Flight,’ ‘The Journey’s End,’ ‘The Reconciliation.’ This subject also formed a favourite _motif_ for the Staffordshire potter of the period, who produced a number of groups characterised by that quaint humour which appears to be native to him. It will be observed that in the fan, as in the pottery figure groups, the popular idea of the ‘blacksmith’ is perpetuated. This popular notion, however, is thus disposed of by Jeaffreson, the historian of matrimony (_Brides and Bridals_): ‘There is no evidence that any one of the Gretna Green marriages was solemnised in a smithy, or that any one of the famous Gretna Green ‘couplers’ ever followed the smith’s calling. One of these so-called parsons had been a common soldier, another a tobacconist, a third a pedlar, and all of them drunkards and cheats, but no one of them ever shod a horse or wrought an iron bolt.’