n a fictile
vase), to buffet to and fro with blows of the fist. The stuffed bag will
represent the human head on the end of its trunk; and the word may have
been a slang one of the day, or coined by the Asiatic Trimalchio, whose
general language is filled with provincial patois. The translation would
then be, in the familiar style of the original,--"The _noddle_ makes the
man," &c.

Anthony Rich, Jun.

* * * * *

QUERIES.

WHEN WERE UMBRELLAS INTRODUCED INTO ENGLAND?

Thomas Coryat, in his _Crudities_, vol. i. p. 134., gives us a curious
notice of the early use of the umbrella in Italy. Speaking of fans, he
says:

"These fans are of a mean price, for a man may buy one of the
fairest of them for so much money as countervaileth one English
groat. Also many of them (the Italians) do carry other fine
things of a far greater price, that will cost at the least a
ducat, which they commonly call in the Italian tongue
_umbrellaes_, that is, things that minister shadow unto them for
shelter against the scorching heat of the sun. These are made of
leather, something answerable to the form of a little canopy,
and hooped in the inside with diverse little wooden hoops that
extend the _umbrella_ in a pretty large compass. They are used
especially by horsemen, who carry them in their hands when they
ride, fastening the end of the handle upon one of their thighs:
and they impart so long a shadow unto them, that it keepeth the
heat of the sun from the upper parts of their bodies."

Lt.-Col. (afterwards Gen.) Wolfe, writing from Paris, in the year 1752,
says:

"The people here use umbrellas in hot weather to defend them
from the sun, and something of the same kind to secure them from
snow and rain. I wonder a practice so useful is not introduced
in England, (where there are such frequent showers,) and
especially in the country, where they can be expanded without
any inconveniency." {415}

Query, what is the date of the first introduction of the _umbrella_ into
England?

Edward F. Rimbault

* * * * *

MINOR QUERIES.

_Duke of Marlborough._--The Annual Register for the year 1758 (pp.
121-127.) contains an account of the circumstances connected with the
trial of one Barnard, son of a surveyor in Abingdon Buildings,
Westminster, on a charge of sending letters to the Duke of Marlbor