Philadelphia to introduce the use of umbrellas in summer, as a defence from the sun. They were then scouted in the public gazettes as a ridiculous effeminacy. On the other hand, the physicians recommended them to keep off vertigoes, epilepsies, sore eyes, fevers, &c. Finally, as the doctors were their chief patrons, Doctor Chancellor and Doctor Morgan, with the Rev. Parson Duché, were the first persons who had the hardihood to be so singular as to wear umbrellas in sunshine. Mr. Bingham, when he returned from the West Indies, where he had amassed a great fortune in the Revolution, appeared abroad in the streets attended by a mulatto boy bearing his umbrella. But his example did not take, and he desisted from its use. It In the old time, shagreen-cased watches, turtle shell and pinchbeck, were the earliest kind seen; but watches of any kind were much more rare then. When they began to come into use, they were so far deemed a matter of pride and show, that men are living who have heard public Friends express their concern at seeing their youth in the show of watches or watch chains. was so rare to find watches in common use that it was quite an annoyance to the watchmakers to be so repeatedly called on by street passengers for the hour of the day. Mr. Duffield, therefore, first set up an outdoor clock to give the time of day to people in the street. Gold chains would have been a wonder then ; silver and steel chains and seals were the mode, and regarded good enough. The best gentlemen of the country were content with silver watches, although gold ones were occasionally used. Gold watches for ladies was a rare occurrence, and when worn were kept without display, for domestic use. The men of former days never saw such things as our Mahometan whiskers on Christian men. The use of boots have come in since the war of independence; they were first with black tops, after the military, strapped up in union with the knee bands; afterwards bright tops were introduced. The leggings to these latter were made of buckskin, for some extreme beaux, for the sake of close fitting a well turned leg. It having been the object of these pages to notice the change of fashions in the habiliments of men and women from the olden to the modern time, it may be necessary to say, that no attempt has been made to note the quick succession of modern changes,-precisely because they are too rapid and evanescent for any useful record. The subject, however, leads me to the general remark, that the general character of our dress is always ill adapted to our climate; and this fact arises from our national predilection as English. As English colonists we early introduced the modes of our British ancestors. They derived their notions of dress from France; aud we, even now, take all annual fashions from the ton of England,—a circumstance which leads us into many unseasonable and injurious imitations, very ill adapted to either our hotter or colder climate. Here we have the extremes of heat and cold. There they are moderate. The loose and light habits of the east, or of southern Europe, would be better adapted to the ardour of our midsummers; and the close and warm apparel of the north of Europe might furnish us better examples for our severe winters. But in these matters (while enduring the profuse sweating of 90 degrees of heat) we fashion after the modes of England, which are adapted to a climate of but 70 degrees! Instead, therefore, of the broad slouched hat of southern Europe, we have the narrow brim, a stiff stock or starched buckram collar for the neck, a coat so close and tight as if glued to our skins, and boots so closely set over our insteps and ancles, as if over the lasts on which they were made. Our ladies have las many ill adapted dresses and hats; and sadly their healths are impaired in our rigorous winters, by their thin stuff shoes and transparent and light draperies, affording but slight defence for tender frames against the cold. FURNITURE AND EQUIPAGE. "Dismiss a real elegance, a little used, For monstrous novelty and strange disguise." THE tide of fashion, which overwhelms every thing in its onward course, has almost effaced every trace of what our forefathers possessed or used in the way of household furniture, or travelling equipage. Since the year 1800 the introduction of foreign luxury, caused by the influx of wealth, has been yearly effecting successive changes in those articles, so much so, that the former simple articles which contented, as they equally served the purposes of our forefathers, could hardly be conceived. Such as they were, they descended acceptably unchanged from father to son and son's son, and presenting at the era of our independence, precisely the same family picture which had been seen in the earliest annals of the town. Formerly there were no sideboards, and when they were first introduced after the Revolution, they were much smaller and less expensive than now. Formerly they had couches of worsted damask, and only in very affluent families, in lieu of what we now call sophas or lounges. Plain people used settees and settles,-the latter had a bed concealed in the seat, and by folding the top of it outwards to the front, it exposed the bed and widened the place for the bed to be spread upon it. This, homely as it might now be regarded, was a common sitting room appendage, and was a proof of more attention to comfort than display. It had, as well as the settee, a very high back of plain boards, and the whole was of white pine, generally unpainted and whitened well with unsparing scrubbing. Such was in the poet's eyes when pleading for his sopha, "But restless was the seat, the back erect They were a very common article in very good houses, and were generally the proper property of the oldest members of the family, unless occasionally used to stretch the weary length of tired boys. They were placed before the fire-places in the winter, to keep the back guarded from wind and cold. Formerly there. were no windsor chairs, and fancy chairs are still more modern. Their chairs of the genteelest kind were of mahogany or red walnut, (once a great substitute for mahogany in all kinds of furniture, tables, &c.) or else they were of rush bottoms, and made of maple posts and slats, with high backs and perpendicular. Instead of japanned waiters as now, they had mahogany tea boards and round tea tables, which, being turned on an axle underneath the centre, stood upright, like an expanded fan or palm leaf, in the corner. Another corner was occupied by a beaufet, which was a corner closet with a glass door, in which all the china of the family and the plate were intended to be displayed for ornament as well as use. A conspicuous article in the collection was always a great china punch bowl, which furnished a frequent and grateful beverage,-for wine drinking was then much less in vogue. China tea cups and saucers were about half their present size; and china tea pots and coffee pots with silver nozles was a mark of superior finery. The sham of plated ware was not then known; and all who showed a silver surface had the massive metal too. This occurred in the wealthy families, in little coffee and tea pots, and a silver tankard for good sugared toddy, was above vulgar entertainment. Where we now use earthen ware, they then used delf ware imported from England, and instead of queensware (then unknown) pewter platters and porringers, made to shine along a "dresser," were universal. Some, and especially the country people, ate their meals from wooden trenchers. Gilded looking-glasses and picture frames of golden glare were unknown, and both, much smaller than now, were used. Small pictures painted on glass with black mouldings for frames, with a scanty touch of gold leaf in the corners, was the adornment of a parlour. The looking-glasses in two |