Dean Close would hardly have seemed the man most certain
to suffer under the Bill " to put down the Ritualists." But he appears to be at present the only certain victim of Mr. Disraeli's reforming zeal. In a letter to the Times of this day week, he contradicts with much vehemence a statement made in the House of Lords to the effect that he had worn a " cope " in Carlisle Cathedral. "I never wore such a vestment on any occasion, nor did I ever see one, excepting two ragged remnants of Popish copes, which I possess as curiosities of what I had hoped was a bygone superstition." It seems certain, however, that if Mr. Hubbard's amendment to compel the wearing of all legal vest- ments, agreed to yesterday week in the House of Commons, and reported in the same paper which contains the very reverend Dean's letter, should pass the Lords, Dean Clone will have to wear a cope in future ; not, we hope, a " ragged " one, unless he used the word metaphorically in relation to the tattered character of all Popery,.-in which sense, we suppose, the newest cope would be ragged,—but still a " curiosity" commemorating a bygone super- stition. There is certainly an irony in all human affairs ; audit will never have been more visible than if the chief result of a Bill " to put down Ritualism," should prove to be to wrap round thin Hercules of the Evangelical party the Nessus-garment of destroying superstition.
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