July 8. 1854.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



23 



aid his future recollection by a fevr notes taken either 

 durinfj each lecture or soon after, would rarely feel 

 himself, for the time to come, excluded from taking 

 an intelligent interest in any general conversation 

 likely to occur in mixed society. 



S. T. Coleridge." 



Last week I sent a transcript of the prospectus 

 Coleridge had issued six years before the date of 

 the above, and for the next Number of " N. & 

 Q." I will transmit some quotations from my short- 

 hand notes of the lectures delivered in consequence 

 of it. J- Payne CoiiiEB. 



Hiverside, Maidenhead. 



NOTES ON MANNERS, COSTUME, ETC. 



Billiards. — Evelyn (Mem., vol. i. p. 516.) de- 

 scribes a new sort of billiards, " with more hazards 

 than ours commonly have." The game was there- 

 fore already known. The new game was with 

 posts and pins. The balls were struck with " the 

 email end of the billiard stick, which Is shod with 

 brass or silver." 



Buckles. — Charles II. attempted In 1666 to In- 

 troduce what was called a Persian dress (Evelyn's 

 Mem., vol. i. p. 398.) Into national use. One point 

 of this alteration was to change " shoe-strings 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 

 Artols-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 re- 

 publican Roland was the first person who ven- 

 tured to Court without buckles. This matter 

 made a sensation so great, as to deserve the ridi- 

 cule of the Antijacobin : " Roland the Just with 

 ribands in his shoes ! " The opportunity which 

 buckles afford of ornament and expense has pre- 

 served 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 

 fa^h^on of shoe and garter knots, which were com- 

 mon 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 array 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). I find this practice to 

 be of older date and higher origin than may be 

 supposed. Sandras de Courtllz, in his Memoires 

 du Comte de Bochefort, states that one of the un- 

 becoming follies of the Duke of Orleans was that 

 he took pleasure " "k tirer les manteaux sur le Pont 

 Neuf " This probably means that his royal high- 

 ness amused himself in stealing cloaks, but the 

 practices were probably originally the same. C. 



{To be continued.') 



A PAPER or TOBACCO. 



The department of domestic antiquities, re- 

 ferred to by your correspondents in their articles 

 on "Tobacco-Pipes" (Vol. Ix., pp. 372. 546.), ap- 

 pears to be not much investigated. As I consider 

 the subject of Interest, I have pleasure in sub- 

 mitting the following Items, with a view some- 

 what to elucidate It. 



Mr. Smith says, at p. 546., that he has long 

 thought the habit of smoking more ancient than 

 Is generally supposed, and refers to the use of 

 coltsfoot, and the discovery of ancient tobacco- 

 pipes under the floor of an abbey at Buildwas, in 

 Shropshire. 



The mention of coltsfoot reminds me of a pas- 

 sage In the Historic of Plantes, by Rembert Do- 

 doens, translated by Henrie Lyte, and published 

 in 1578, about eight years prior to the supposed 

 Introduction of tobacco among us. The passage 

 in question will be found under the article 

 " Coltsfoot." The writer there states that If the 

 smoke of the dried leaves of that plant be In- 

 haled through a pipe or funnel, by persons suffer- 

 ing from certain affections, they will be materially 

 benefited. I regret that the book is not at hand 

 just now for me to give the exact words of the 

 passage.* This is the earliest allusion to smoking 



[* The following is the passage on " The Vertues of 

 Colefoote. — The green leaves of colefoote pounde with 

 hony, do cure and heale the hoate inflammation called 

 Saint Anthonies fyre, and all other kindes of inflam- 



