Umbrellas

I have talked with an old lady who remembered the first umbrella used in Oxford, and with another who described the surprise elicited by the first in Birmingham. An aunt of mine, born 1754, could not remember when the house was without one, though in her youth they were little used. May not the word umbrella have been applied to various sorts of *impluvia*? Swift, in his "Description of a City Shower," says:— "Now in contiguous drops the flood comes down, Threatening with deluge this devoted town. To shops in crowds the dangled females fly, Pretend to cheapen goods, but nothing buy. The Templa…