Perhaps the publication of the following document may lead to a solution of the question sent by M.C.L. (Vol. iii., p. 478.). It is a copy of a letter from the Duke of Monmouth, as Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, intimating to the clergy the displeasure of Charles II. at their use of periwigs, and their practice of reading sermons. His Majesty, it will be found, thought both customs equally important and equally unbecoming. Of the latter, it is stated that it "took beginning with the disorders of the late times, and that the way of preaching without book was most agreeable to the use of the foreign churches, to the custom of the University heretofore, and to the nature and intendment of that holy exercise." It will surprise many of your readers to find that the reading of sermons was considered to be a mere puritanical innovation. "_The Duke of Monmouth, Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, to the Vice-Chancellor and University._ "Mr. Vice-Chancellor and Gentlemen, "His Majesty having taken notice of the liberty which several persons in holy orders have taken to wear their hair and periwigs of an unusual and unbecoming length, hath commanded me to let you know, that he is much displeased therewith, and strictly injoins that all such persons as profess or intend the study of divinity, do for the future wear their hair in a manner more suitable to the gravity and sobriety of their profession, and that distinction which was always maintained between the habit of men devoted to the ministry and other persons. "And whereas, his Majesty is informed that the practice of reading sermons is generally taken up by the preachers before the University, and there for some time continued, even before himself, his Majesty hath commanded me to signify to you his pleasure, that the said practice, which took beginning with the disorders of the late times, be wholly laid aside; and that the foresaid preachers deliver their sermons, both in Latin and English, by memory, or without book, as being a way of preaching which his Majesty judges most agreeable to the use of the foreign churches, and to the custom of the University heretofore, and to the nature and intendment of that holy exercise. "And that his Majesty's commands in the premisses may be duly regarded and observed, his Majesty's farther pleasure is, that the names of all such ecclesiastical persons as shall wear their hair as heretofore in an unfitting imitation of the fashion of laymen, or that shall continue in the present slothfull way of preaching, be from time to time signified unto me by the Vice-Chancellor for the time being, upon pain of his Majesty's displeasure.