Umbrellas.
Umbrellas are an older invention than some writers would have us suppose. Even the usually entertained notion that Jonas Hanway introduced the umbrella into England, in the year 1752, is proved to be false by evidence that can be cited. Ben Jonson refers to it by name in a comedy produced in 1616; and so do Beaumont and Fletcher in "Rule a Wife and Have a Wife." Swift, in the "Tatler" of October 17th, 1710, says, in "The City Shower"—
"The tucked-up seamstress walks with hasty strides,
While streams run down her oiled umbrella's sides."
The following couplet also occurs in a poem written by Gay in 1712—
"Housewives underneath th' umbrella's oily shed
Safe through the wet in clinking pattens tread."
It is probable that Hanway was the first man seen carrying an umbrella in London.
At Persepolis, in Persia, are some sculptures supposed to be as old as the time of Alexander the Great, and on one of these is represented a chief or king, over whose head some servants are holding an umbrella. At Takht-i-Bostan are other sculptures, one of which is a king witnessing a boar hunt attended by an umbrella-bearer. Recent discoveries at Nineveh show that the umbrella was in use there, it being common to the sculpturings, but always represented open. The same is to be seen upon the celebrated Hamilton vases preserved in the British Museum. In many Chinese drawings ladies are attended by servants holding umbrellas over their heads.
Loubère, who went to Siam as envoy from the king of France, describes the use of umbrellas as being governed by curious regulations. Those umbrellas resembling ours are used principally by the officers of state; while those several tiers in height, as if two or more umbrellas were fixed on one stick, are reserved for the king alone. In Ava, a country adjacent to Siam, the king designates himself, among other titles, as "Lord of the Ebbing and Flowing Tide, King of the White Elephant, and Lord of the Twenty-four Umbrellas." This last title, although ridiculous to us, is supposed to relate to twenty-four states or provinces combined under the rule of the king, the umbrella being especially a royal emblem in Ava. The umbrella is also the distinguishing sign of sovereignty in Morocco.