6/31 I cannot give chapter or verse for this comfortable theory; which of course preceded the ingenious Jonas Hanway's invention of the umbrella. In a small and very imperfect degree the enactment anticipates the covered city of Mr.H.G. A Dutch friend to whom I put the point tells me that more probably the preservation of bricks and mural carvings was intended, the dryness of the wayfarer being quite secondary or unforeseen. His body lies in the church of the Augustines in the same city, where he died in 1691--true to the Dutch painters' quiet gift of living and dying in their birthplaces. |