rsons or
those of their descendants, to sorrow and misfortune." One of the many
strange occurrences relating to Sir Anthony Browne, standard-bearer to
King Henry VIII., was communicated some years ago in connection with
the famous Cowdray Castle, the principal seat of the Montagues. It is
said that at the great festival given in the magnificent hall of the
monks at Battle Abbey, on Sir Anthony Browne taking possession of his
Sovereign's gift of that estate, a venerable monk stalked up the hall
to the dais, where Sir Anthony Browne sat, and, in prophetic language,
denounced him and his posterity for usurping the possessions of the
Church, predicting their destruction by fire and water--a fate which
was eventually fulfilled.

One of the last viscounts was, in 1793, drowned when trying to pass
the Falls of Schaffhausen on the Rhine, accompanied by Mr. Sedley
Burdett, the elder brother of the distinguished Sir Francis. They had
engaged an open boat to take them through the rapids; but it seems the
authorities tried to prevent so dangerous an enterprise. In order,
however, to carry out their project, they started two hours earlier
than the time previously fixed--four o'clock in the morning--and
successfully passed the first or upper fall. But, unhappily, the same
good fortune failed them in their next descent, for "the boat was
swamped and sunk in passing the lower fall, and was supposed to have
been jammed in a cleft of the submerged rock, as neither boat nor
adventurers ever appeared again. In the same week, the ancient seat of
the family, Cowdray Castle, was destroyed by fire, and its venerable
ruins are the significant monument at once of the fulfilment of the
old monk's prophecy, and of the extinction of the race of the great
and powerful noble."

It is further added that the last inheritor of the title--the
immediate successor and cousin of the ill-fated young nobleman of
Schaffhausen, Anthony Browne, the last Montague, who died at the
opening of this century--left no male issue, and his estates devolved
on his only daughter, who married Mr. Stephen Poyntz, a great
Buckinghamshire landlord. Some years after their marriage Mr. Poyntz
was desirous of obtaining a grant of the dormant title "Viscount
Montague" in favour of the elder of his two sons, issue of this
marriage; but his hopes were suddenly destroyed by the death of the
two boys, who were drowned while bathing at Bognor, the "fatal water"
thus becoming the mea