Anthony Rich, Jun.

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QUERIES.

WHEN WERE UMBRELLAS INTRODUCED INTO ENGLAND?

Thomas Coryat, in his _Crudities_, vol. i. p. 134., gives us a curious
notice of the early use of the umbrella in Italy. Speaking of fans, he
says:

"These fans are of a mean price, for a man may buy one of the
fairest of them for so much money as countervaileth one English
groat. Also many of them (the Italians) do carry other fine
things of a far greater price, that will cost at the least a
ducat, which they commonly call in the Italian tongue
_umbrellaes_, that is, things that minister shadow unto them for
shelter against the scorching heat of the sun. These are made of
leather, something answerable to the form of a little canopy,
and hooped in the inside with diverse little wooden hoops that
extend the _umbrella_ in a pretty large compass. They are used
especially by horsemen, who carry them in their hands when they
ride, fastening the end of the handle upon one of their thighs:
and they impart so long a shadow unto them, that it keepeth the
heat of the sun from the upper parts of their bodies."

Lt.-Col. (afterwards Gen.) Wolfe, writing from Paris, in the year 1752,
says: