Umbrellas, in my youth, were not ordinary things; few but the macaronis of the day, as the dandies were then called, would venture to display them. For a long while it was not usual for men to carry them without incurring the brand of effeminacy, and they were vulgarly considered as the characteristics of a person whom the mob hugely disliked, namely, a mincing Frenchman! At first, a single umbrella seems to have been kept at a coffee-house for some extraordinary occasion--lent as a coach or chair in a heavy shower--but not commonly carried by the walkers. The Female Tatler advertises, "the young gentleman belonging to the custom-house who, in fear of rain, borrowed _the umbrella from Wilks' Coffee-House_, shall the next time be welcome to the maid's _pattens_." An umbrella carried by a man was obviously then considered as extreme effeminacy. As late as in 1778, one John Macdonald, a footman, who has written his own life, informs us that when he used "a fine silk umbrella, which he had brought from Spain, he could not with any comfort to himself use it; the people calling out 'Frenchman! why don't you get a coach?'" The fact was that the hackney-coachmen and the chairmen, joining with the true _esprit de corps_, were clamorous against this portentous rival. This footman, in 1778, gives us further information. "At this time there were no umbrellas wore in London, except in noblemen's and gentlemen's houses, where there was a large one hung in the hall to hold over a lady or a gentleman, if it rained between the door and their carriage." His sister was compelled to quit his arm one day from the abuse he drew down on himself and his umbrella. But he adds, that "he persisted for three months till they took no further notice of this novelty. Foreigners began to use theirs, and then the English. Now it is become a great trade in London." This footman, if he does not arrogate too much to his own confidence, was the first man distinguished by carrying and using a silken umbrella. He is the founder of a most populous school. The state of our population might now in some degree be ascertained by the number of umbrellas. _New Monthly Magazine._ * * * * * GIPSIES.