J.F.

As far as I remember, there is a portrait of Hanway with an umbrella as a frontispiece to the book of Travels published by him about 1753, in four vols. 4to.; and I have no doubt that he had used one in his travels through Greece, Turkey, &c.

T.G.L.

In the hall of my father’s house, at Stamford in Lincolnshire, there was, when I was a child, the wreck of a very large green silk umbrella, apparently of Chinese manufacture, brought by my father from Holland, somewhere between 1770 and 1780, and as I have often heard, the first umbrella seen at Stamford.  I well remember also an amusing description given by the late Mr. Warry, so many years consul at Smyrna, of the astonishment and envy of his mother’s neighbours at Sawbridgeworth, in Herts, where his father had a country-house, when he ran home and came back with an umbrella, which he had just brought from Leghorn, to shelter them from a pelting shower which detained them in the church-porch, after the service, on one summer Sunday.  From Mr. Warry’s age at the time he mentioned this, and other circumstances in his history, I conjecture that it occurred not later than 1775 or 1776.  As Sawbridgeworth is so near London, it is evident that even there umbrellas were at that time almost unknown.

If I have “spun too long a yarn,” the dates, at least, will not be unacceptable to others like myself.

G.C.  RENOUARD.

Swanscombe Rectory, May 1.

Dr. Jamieson was the first who introduced umbrellas to Glasgow in the year 1782; he bought his in Paris.  I remember very well when this took place.  At this time the umbrella was made of heavy wax cloth, with cane ribs, and was a ponderous article.

R.R.

* * * * *

EMANCIPATION OF THE JEWS.

(VOL.  I, PP. 474, 475.)

From a scarce collection of pamphlets concerning the naturalisation of the Jews in England, published in 1753, by Dean Tucker and others, I beg to send the following extracts, which may be of some use in replying to the inquiry (Vol. i., p. 401.) respecting the Jews during the Commonwealth.

Dean Tucker, in his Second Letter to a Friend concerning Naturalisation, says (p. 29.):—­

“The Jews having departed out of the realm in the year 1290, or being expelled by the authority of parliament (it matters not which), made no efforts to return till the Protectorship of Oliver Cromwell; but this negotiation is known to have proved unsuccessful.  However, the affair was not dropped, for the next application was to King Charles himself, then in his exile at Bruges, as appears by a copy of a commission dated the 24th of September, 1656, granted to Lt.-Gen. Middleton, to treat with the Jews of Amsterdam:—­’That whereas the Lt.-Gen. had represented to his Majesty their good affection to him, and disowned the application lately made to Cromwell in their behalf