beames of the sunne." Their employment, says the author, is
dangerous, "because they gather the heate into a pyramidall point,
and thence cast it down perpendicularly upon the head, except they
know how to carry them for auoyding that danger." This is certainly a
fact not generally known to those who use Parasols too recklessly.

"Poesis Rediviva," by John Collop, M.D. (1656), mentions Umbrellas.
Michael Drayton, writing about 1620, speaks of a pair of doves, which
are to watch over the person addressed in his verses:--

"Of doves I have a dainty pair,
Which, when you please to take the air,
About your head shall gently hover,
Your clear brow from the sun to cover;
And with their nimble wings shall fan you,
That neither cold nor heat shall tan you;
And, like umbrellas, with their feathers
Shall shield you in all sorts of weathers."

Beaumont and Fletcher have an allusion to the umbrella (1640);--

"Now are you glad, now is your mind at ease,
Now you have got a shadow, an umbrella,
To keep the 'scorching world's opinion
From your fair credit."
--_Rule a Wife and Have a Wife_, Act iii, sc. I.

Ben Jonson, too, once mentions it (date 1616), speaking of a mishap
which befel a lady at the Spanish Court:--