Of signboards portraying artists, but few instances occur; and when they do, they are almost exclusively the property of printsellers. We have only met with three: REMBRANDT’S HEAD, the sign of J. Jackson, printseller, at the corner of Chancery Lane, Fleet Street, 1759; and of Nathaniel Smith, the father (?) of J. T. Smith, in Great May’s Buildings, St Martin’s Lane. Another member of that family, J. Smith, who kept a printshop in Cheapside, where several of Hogarth’s engravings were published, assumed the HOGARTH’S HEAD for his sign. The third is the VAN DYKE’S HEAD, the sign of C. Philips, engraver and print-publisher in Portugal Street, in 1761. Hogarth also had a head of Van Dyke as his trade symbol, made from small pieces of cork, but being gilt, he called it the GOLDEN HEAD, (_see under_ Miscellaneous Signs.) In old times, more than at present, music was deemed a necessary adjunct to tavern hospitality and public-house entertainment. The fiddlers and ballad singers of the “tap” room, however, gave way to the newer brass band at the doors, and this, in its turn, is now gradually fading before the “music hall” and so-called “concert” arrangement. Singing, it may be remarked, is one of the first follies into which a man falls after a too free indulgence in the cup. It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that musical signboards should have swung from time to time over the alehouse door. PAGANINI, who contributed so much to the popularity of that well-known part of the “Carnival de Venise”--still the shibboleth of all fiddlers--is of very common occurrence. The love for music is also eloquently expressed by the sign of the FIDDLER’S ARMS, Gornal Wood, Staffordshire. JENNY LIND seems to be the only musician of modern times who has found her way to the signboard. In the last century, HANDEL’S HEAD was common; but at the present moment, no instance of its use remains. The MAID AND THE MAGPIE, a very common tavern title, is believed to be the only sign borrowed from an opera. In Queen Anne’s time, there was a PURCELL’S HEAD in Wych Street, Drury Lane, the sign of a music-house. It represented that musician in a brown, full-bottomed wig, and green nightgown, and was very well painted. Purcell, who died in 1682, greatly improved English melody; he composed sonatas, anthems, and the music to various plays. His “Te Deum” and “Jubilate” are still admired. Actors, and favourite characters from plays, have frequently been adopted as signs. The oldest instance we find is TARLETON, or DICK TARLETON, who, in the sixteenth century, seems to have been common enough to make Bishop Hall allude to him in his “Satyres,” (b. vi., s. 1)-- “O honour far beyond a brazen shrine, To sit with Tarlton on an ale-post’s sign.”