_The Poley Frog._--More than half a century ago, I was present when this singular appendage was the subject of conversation in a large literary party, but being then a schoolboy I made "no note of it." My recollection now is, that after some jokes on the name of Poley as that of a frog, allusion was made to an old court story of King James II. throwing a frog into the neck of William, third Earl of Pembroke. The story, with its consequences, may be found in the _Tixall Letters_, vol. i. p. 5.; Wood's _Athenae Ox._, vol. i. p. 546.; Park's _Royal and Noble Authors_, vol. ii. p. 249. [Old English G]. I have never seen a head of any engraving of the portrait of Sir John Poley, of Boxsted Hall, not Bexstead. I believe there is none. D. _Bands_ (Vol. ii., p. 23.) are the descendants of the ruff a portion of the ordinary civil costume of the sixteenth century. In the reign of James I., the ruff was occasionally exchanged for a wide stiff collar, standing out horizontally and squarely, made of similar stuff, starched and wired, and sometimes edged like the ruff with lace. These collars were called bands. A good example occurs in the portrait of Shakspeare by Cornelius Jansen, engravings of which are well known. At the end of the seventeenth century these broad-falling bands were succeeded by the small Geneva bands, which have ever since been retained by our clergymen and councillors, but in a contracted form, having been originally _bona fide_ collars, the ends of which hung negligently over the shoulders. (See Planche's _Brit. Costume_, pp. 350. 390.) Bands are worn by the ecclesiastics in France and Italy, as well as in England. In the second number of _Popular Tracts Illustrating the Prayer-Book_, p. 3., it is suggested that bands are perhaps the remains of the amice, one of the eucharistic vestments in use previous to the Reformation, which consisted of a square cloth, so put on that one side, which was embroidered, formed a collar round the neck, whilst the rest hung behind like a hood. By analogy with the scarf of our Protestant clergy, which is clearly the stole of the Roman Church retained under a different name, this suggestion is not without some degree of plausibility. The fact that the present academical costume is derived from the ordinary civil dress of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, sufficiently accounts for the retention of the bands as a part. ARUN. Surely bands are no part of the peculiar dress of the clergy, &c., but the ordinary dress of the people, retained by certain classes or professions, because they wished for something regular and distinctive. So the wigs of the judges were the fashionable dress 150 years ago. It is curious that the clergy have cut down their bands, while the lawyers still glory in comparatively large and flowing ones. Bands altered greatly in their form. Taylor, the Water Poet, I think, says-- "The eighth Henry, as I understand, Was the first prince that ever wore a band,"