e line being extinct, the
estate passed to the sister of Lord Montague. This lady was married to the
late W. S. Poyntz, Esq., M.P. The two sons of Mr. and Mrs. Poyntz were
drowned at Bognor, and the estate a second time devolved on the female
representatives. These ladies, still living, are the Marchioness of Exeter,
the Countess Spencer, and the Dowager Lady Clinton. The estate passed by
purchase into the hands of the Earl of Egmont.

The old villagers, the servants, and the descendants of servants of the
family, point to the ruins of the hall, and religiously cling to the belief
that its destruction and that of its lords resulted from the curse. It
certainly seems an illustration of Archbishop Whitgift's words to Queen
Elizabeth:

"Church-land added to an ancient inheritance hath proved like a moth
fretting a garment, and secretly consumed both: or like the eagle that
stole a coal from the altar, and thereby set her nest on fire, which
consumed both her young eagles and herself that stole it."

E. RDS.

Queen's Col., Birm., Feb. 20. 1851.

_Red Hand_ (Vol. ii., p. 506., _et ante_).--A correspondent, ARUN, says,
"Your correspondents would confer a heraldic benefit if they would {195}
point out other instances, which I believe to exist, where family
reputation has been damaged by similar ignorance in heraldic
interpretation." I have always thought this ignorance to be universal with
the country people in England: I could mention _several instances_. First,
when I was a boy at school I was shown the hatchments in Wateringbury
church, in Kent, by my master, and informed that Sir Thomas Styles had
murdered some domestic, and was consequently obliged to bear the "bloody
hand:" and lastly, and lately, at Church-Gresley, in Derbyshire, at the old
hall of the Gresley family, I was shown the marble table on which Sir Roger
or Sir Nigel Gresley had cut up, in a sort of Greenacre style, his cook;
for which he was obliged to have the bloody hand in his arms, and put into
the church on his tomb.

H. W. D.

_Anticipations of Modern Ideas by Defoe_ (Vol. iii., p. 137.).--The two
tracts mentioned by your correspondent R. D. H., and which he states he has
often sought in vain, namely, _Augusta Triumphans_, London, 1728, 8vo., and
_Second Thoughts are best_, London, 1729, 8vo., are to be found in the
_Selection from Defoe's Works_ published by Talboys in 20 vols. 12mo. in
1840. They are both indisputably by Def