October 14. 1850.
[The first two lines of this epitaph, and many similar specimens of
learned trifling, will be found in _Les Bigarrures et Touches de
Seigneur des Accords,_ cap. iii., _autre Façons de Rebus_, p. 35., ed.
1662.]
_Umbrella_ (Vol. ii., pp. 25. 93.).--In the collection of pictures at
Woburn Abbey is a full-length portrait of the beautiful Duchess of Bedford,
who afterwards married the Earl of Jersey, painted about the year 1730. She
is represented as attended by a black servant, who holds an open umbrella
to shade her.
Cowper's "Task," published in 1784, twice mentions the umbrella:
"We bear our shades about us; self-deprived
Of other screen, the thin umbrella spread,
And range an Indian waste without a tree."
Book i.
In book iv., the description of the country girl, who dresses above her
condition, concludes with the following lines--
"Expect her soon with footboy at her heels,
No longer blushing for her awkward load,
Her train and her umbrella all her care."
In both these passages of Cowper, the umbrella appears to be equivalent to
what would now be called a parasol.