EARTH TO EARTH. Earth walks on Earth, Earth goes to Earth, Sooner than it wold: Earth builds on Earth, Palaces and towers: Earth says to Earth, Soon, all shall be ours. In the church of Stratford upon Avon, was painted an angel holding a scroll, upon which were seven stanzas in old English, being an allegory of mortality. The two following stanzas stand third and fourth in the inscription: Erth apon erth wynnys castellys and tourys, Then seth erth unto erth thys ys all owrys. When erth apon erth hath bylde hys bowrys, Then schall erth for erth suffur many hard schowrys. Erth goth apon erth as man apon mowld, Lyke as erth apon erth never goo schold, Erth goth apon erth as gelsteryng gold, And yet schall erth unto erth rather than he wold. The following epitaph is from an old brass in the church of St. Helen's, London: Earth goeth upō earth as moulde upò moulde; The following two epitaphs are from monuments in the churchyard of Llangerrig, Montgomeryshire : O earth, O earth! observe this well- From earth my body first arose ; YANKEE DOODLE. The origin of Yankee Doodle is by no means as clear as American antiquaries desire. The statement that the air was composed by Dr. Shuckburg, in 1755, when the Colonial troops united with the British regulars near Albany for the conquest of Canada, and that it was produced in derision of the old-fashioned manners of the provincial soldiers, when contrasted with the neat and dandified appearance of the regulars, was published some years ago in a musical magazine printed in Boston. The account there given as to the origin of the song is this :-During the attacks upon the French outposts in 1755, in America, Governor Shirley and General Jackson led the force directed against the enemy lying at Niagara and Frontenac. In the early part of June, whilst these troops were stationed on the banks of the Hudson, near Albany, the descendants of the "Pilgrim fathers" flocked in from the eastern provinces; never was seen such a motley regiment as took up its position on the left wing of the British army. The band played music some two centuries of age, officers and privates had adopted regimentals each man after his own fashion; one wore a flowing wig, while his neighbor rejoiced in hair cropped closely to the head; this one had a coat with + wonderful long skirts, his fellow marched without his upper garment; various as the colors of the rainbow were the clothes worn by the gallant band. It so happened that there was a certain Dr. Shuckburgh, wit, musician, and surgeon, and one evening after mess he produced a tune, which he earnestly commended as a well-known piece of military music, to the officers of the militia. The joke succeeded, and Yankee Doodle was hailed by acclamation "their own march." This account is somewhat apocryphal, as there is no song: the tune in the United States is a march; there are no words to it of a national character. The only words ever affixed to the air in this country is the following doggerel quatrain :— Yankee Doodle came to town Upon a little pony, He stuck a feather in his hat And called it macaroni. It has been asserted by writers in this country, that the air and words of these lines are as old as Cromwell's time. The only alteration is in making Yankee Doodle of what was Nankee Doodle. It is asserted that the tune will be found in the Musical Antiquities of England, and that Nankee Doodle was intended to apply to Cromwell, and the other lines were designed to "allude to his going into Oxford with a single plume, fastened in a knot called a macaroni." The tune was known in New England before the Revolution as Lydia Fisher's Jig, and there were verses to it commencing : Lucy Locket lost her pocket, Lydia Fisher found it, Not a bit of money in it, Only binding round it. The regulars in Boston in 1775 and 1776 are said to have sung verses to the same air :— Yankee Doodle came to town, For to buy a firelock; We will tar and feather him, And so we will John Hancock, &c. The manner in which the tune came to be adopted by the Americans, is shown in the following letter of the Rev. W. Gordon. Describing the battles of Lexington and Concord, before alluded to, he says: The brigade under Lord Percy marched out [of Boston] playing, by way of contempt, Yankee Doodle: they were afterwards told they had been made to dance it. NOTES ON MANNERS, COSTUME, ETC. Billiards.-Evelyn (Mem., vol. i. p. 516) describes a new sort of billiards, "with more hazards than ours commonly have." The game was therefore already known. The new game was with posts and pins. The balls were struck with " the small end of the billiard stick, which is shod with brass or silver." Buckles.-Charles II. attempted in 1666 to introduce what was called a Persian dress (Evelyn's Mem., vol. i. p. 398) into national use. One point of this alteration was to change "shoestrings and garters into buckles, of which some were set with precious stones." The attempt wholly failed, and soon went out of fashion, except the buckles, which appear never to have been wholly lost. The shoe-buckles were pushed to a great size by the fops about 1775: the largest were called Artois-buckles, after the Comte d'Artois, the French king's brother. But on the Revolution they became unpopular, and at one time it would have been dangerous to wear them. The republican Roland was the first person who ventured to Court without buckles. This matter made a sensation so great as to deserve the ridicule of the Antijacobin: "Roland the Just with ribands in his shoes! The opportunity which buckles afford of ornament and expense has preserved them as a part of the court dress; and of late years they have appeared a little in private society. They are generally, though not always, worn when a prince of the royal family is of the party; and at the king's private parties, although the rest of the dress be that usually worn, buckles are almost indispensable. Knee-strings came in with shoe-strings, and have had about the same vogue. We see in the great roses worn by peers and knights of the orders with their robes, the fashion of shoe and garter knots, which were common in the reigns of Charles II. and Louis XIV. Baits.-Bull and bear baiting are well-known amusements; but in Evelyn's Memoirs, vol. i. p. 408, he tells us that— A very gallant horse was baited to death by dogs; but he fought them all, so as the fiercest of them could not fasten on him till they (the assistants) ran him through with their swords. This wicked and barbarous sport should have been punished on the contrivers of it, to get money under pretence that the horse had killed a man; which was false. Cloaks. After being out of fashion for near a century, cloaks are come a little into fashion again (1822). For officers in the army they are better than great coats, as the latter spoil the epaulets and lace; but for common life they are cumbrous and more expensive. I do not think the fashion will last. It is said that when the common Irish wish to excite a quarrel in a fair, one of them drags a cloak or coat along the ground as a signal of defiance (Edgeworth). This practice is of older date and higher origin than may be supposed. Sandras de Courtiez, in his Memoires du Compte de Rochefort, states that one of the unbecoming follies of the Duke of Orleans was that he took pleasure" à tirex les manteaux sur le Pont Neuf." This probably means that his royal highness amused himself in stealing cloaks, but the practices were probably originally the same. Visiting Cards.-About six or eight years ago a house in Dean Street, Soho, was repaired (I think No. 79), and, on re |