"Mark! how all things swerve From their known course, or vanish like a dream; Another language spreads from coast to coast; Only, perchance, some melancholy stream, And some indignant hills old names preserve, When laws, and creeds, and people all are lost!" Wordsworth's _Eccles. Sonnets_, xii. W. L. NICHOLS. Bath. * * * * * SCARFS WORN BY CLERGYMEN. (Vol. vii., p. 269.) The mention of the distinction between the broad and narrow scarf, alluded to by me (Vol. vii., p. 215.), was made above thirty years ago, and in Ireland. I have a distinct recollection of the statement as to what _had_ been the practice, then going out of use. I am sorry that I cannot, in answer to C.'s inquiry, recollect who the person was who made it. Nor am I able to specify instances of the partial observance of the distinction, as I had not till long after learned the wisdom of "making a note:" but I had occasion to remark that dignitaries, &c. frequently wore wider scarfs than other clergymen (not however that the narrower one was ever that slender strip so improperly and servilely adopted of late from the corrupt custom of Rome, which has curtailed all ecclesiastical vestments); so that when the discussion upon this subject was revived by others some years ago, it was one to which my mind had been long familiar, independently of any ritual authority. I hope C. will understand my real object in interfering in this subject. It is solely that I may do a little (what others, I hope, can do more effectually) towards correcting the very injurious, and, I repeat, inadequate statement of the _Quart. Review_ for June, 1851, p. 222. However trifling the matter may be in itself, it is no trifling matter to involve a considerable portion of the clergy, and among them many who are most desirous to uphold both the letter and the spirit of the Church of England, and to resist all real innovation, in a charge of lawlessness. Before the episcopal authority, there so confidently invoked, be interposed, let it be _proved_ that this is not a badge of the clerical order, common to all the churches of Christendom, and actually recognised by the rules, in every respect so truly Catholic, of our own Church. The matter does not, I apprehend, admit of demonstration one way or the other, at least till we have fresh evidence. But to me, as to many others, analogies seem all in favour of the scarf being such a badge; and not only this, but the very regulation of our royal ecclesiastical authorities. The injunctions of Queen Elizabeth, in 1564, seem to mark the tippet as a distinction between clergymen and laymen, who otherwise, in colleges and choirs at least, would have none. I also am strongly of opinion that the tippets mentioned in the 58th and 74th English canons are the two scarfs referred to: the silken tippet (or broad scarf) being for such priests or deacons as hold certain offices,