In my early childhood there were still men living who had not abandoned the eighteenth-century fashion of wearing a wig. This custom, indeed, did not entirely die out with the coming in of the nineteenth century, some old-fashioned people continuing to wear these head-coverings as late as the early ’thirties. The last man to wear a pigtail is said to have been one of the Cambridge dons, who retained it as late as the year 1835. The higher clergy did not abandon their wigs till a somewhat later date. As recently as 1848 Bishop Monk wore a wig whilst officiating at an ordination at St. Margaret’s, Westminster. Archbishop Sumner, however, is said to have been the very last ecclesiastic to discard this head-covering, which Bishops Bagot and Blomfield had been the first to lay aside. Bishop Blomfield was a divine who was noted for his wit, and his sayings were sometimes very amusing. He was once engaged in a controversy with a learned man as to the mental superiority of the East over the West, and after much argument his opponent as a parting shot said, “Well, at any rate the wise men came from the East—you can’t dispute that.” “Surely,” retorted the Bishop, “that was the wisest thing they could do.” On another occasion, at a party where a lady in an extremely _decolleté_ gown excited a good deal of attention, some one remarked to him: “Her appearance is really quite scandalous. Did you ever see anything like it?” “Never,” replied the Bishop; “at least, not since I was weaned.” When wigs were first abandoned the new fashion of wearing the hair was not by any means universally popular, and in some country districts old-fashioned parishioners were by no means enamoured of the change in their pastor’s appearance. A certain clergyman, for instance, who at the beginning of the last century determined to follow the new fashion, and having discarded his wig, appeared in the village street with a cropped head, was severely snubbed by a lady parishioner whom he had consulted as to the effect of this change in his personal appearance. Her remark was, “Once a man, twice a child.” For many years, indeed, people of the old school considered this innovation a most undignified change. Nightcaps, which were once universally worn, have now pretty well gone the same way as wigs; in old days every one, not only men, but also women, wore them, and they were considered as indispensable as any other article of ordinary attire. There is a well-known story relating to the celebrated Dr. Burney which illustrates this. Dr. Burney, whilst staying with Nelson at Merton, discovered that he had omitted to bring any nightcaps with him, and so borrowed one from the great admiral. Sitting up to study before retiring to bed, the cap somehow caught fire in a candle, the end portion of it being consumed, upon which Dr. Burney wrote out the following lines, which he sent with the remains of the cap to his host on the following morning:—