s.'[1098]

Next, says Addison, after the clergy of the highest rank, such as
bishops, deans, and archdeacons, come 'doctors of divinity, prebendaries
and all that wear scarfs.'[1099] It was an object therefore of some
ambition in his day to wear a scarf. There was many a clerical fop, we
are told in a later paper of the 'Spectator,' who would wear it when he
came up to London, that he might be mistaken for a dignitary of the
Church, and be called 'doctor' by his landlady and by the waiter at
Child's Coffee House.[1100] Noblemen also claimed a right of conferring
a scarf upon their chaplains. In this case, those who knew the galling
yoke that a chaplaincy too often was, might well entitle it 'a badge of
servitude,' and 'a silken livery.'[1101]

At this point, a short digression may be permitted on the subject of
clerical dress during the last century.

In the time of Swift and the 'Spectator,' clergymen generally wore their
gowns when they travelled in the streets of London.[1102] But they wore
them, so Hearne says, with a difference, very characteristic of those
days of hot party strife. The Tory clergy only wore the M.A. gown; 'the
Whigs and enemies of the Universities go in pudding-sleeve gowns,'[1103]
or what was otherwise called the 'crape' or 'mourning gown.' In the
country the correct clerical dress was simply the cassock. Fielding's
genius has made good Parson Adams a familiar picture to most readers of
English literature. We picture him careless of appearances, tramping
along the muddy lanes with his cassock tucked up under his short
great-coat.[1104] A clergyman, writing in 1722, upon 'the hardships and
miseries of the inferior clergy in and about London,' compares with some
bitterness the threadbare garments of the curate with 'the flaming gown
and cassock' of the non-resident rector. He could wish, he said ('if
the wish were canonical')[1105] that he might appear in a common habit
rather than in a clerical garb which only excited derision by its
squalor. He thought it a desirable recommendation to the religious and
charitable societies of the day, that they should make gifts to the
poorer clergy of new gowns and cassocks.[1106] Soon, however, after
Fielding's time, the cassock gradually fell into disuse as an ordinary
part of a clergyman's dress. It was still worn by many throughout the
Sunday; but on week days was regarded as somewhat stiff and formal, even
by those who insisted most on the proprieties.[11