e introduction of forks there appears to have been some
difficulty in the manner they were to be held and used. In _The Fox_, Sir
Politic Would-be, counselling Peregrine at Venice, observes--

--Then you must learn the use
And handling of your silver fork at meals.

[Footnote A: I find this circumstance concerning forks mentioned in the
"Dictionnaire de Trevoux."]

Whatever this art may be, either we have yet to learn it, or there is more
than one way in which it may be practised. D'Archenholtz, in his "Tableau
de l'Angleterre" asserts that "an Englishman may be discovered anywhere,
if he be observed at table, because he places his fork upon the left side
of his plate; a Frenchman, by using the fork alone without the knife; and
a German, by planting it perpendicularly into his plate; and a Russian, by
using it as a toothpick."

Toothpicks seem to have come in with forks, as younger brothers of the
table, and seem to have been borrowed from the nice manners of the stately
Venetians. This implement of cleanliness was, however, doomed to the same
anathema as the fantastical ornament of "the complete Signor," the
Italianated Englishman. How would the writers, who caught "the manners as
they rise," have been astonished that now no decorous person would be
unaccompanied by what Massinger in contempt calls

Thy case of toothpicks and thy silver fork!

Umbrellas, in my youth, were not ordinary things; few but the macaroni's
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 then 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 an extreme effeminacy. As
late as in 1778, one John Macdonald, a footman, who has written his own
life, informs us, that when he carried "a fine silk umbrella, which he had
brought from Spain, he could not with any comfort to himself use it; the