CURRENT LITERATURE.
Cowdray : the History of a Great English House. By Mrs. Charles Roundel!. (Bickers and Son.)—This history was certainly worth telling. Cowdray was built by Sir William Fitzwilliam, afterwards Lord Southampton, in the first half of the sixteenth century. The estate had come into his bands from a Welsh knight, who had married the heiress of the Do Bohuns. Sir Anthony Browne, half-brother of Lord Southampton, succeeded him in the property. His son was created Viscount Montague by Queen Mary, on the occasion of her marriage with Philip. The last of the Montagnes was drowned in 1795, in a mad attempt to shoot the fall of the Rhine at Laufenbnrg. The local authorities actually guarded the river-bank with troops ; but the young Englishman and his companion (the elder brother of Sir Francis Burdett) eluded them. It reminds one of the Egyptian cats, who, Herodotus tells us, used to rush past the guards that vainly endeavoured to keep them from jumping into the fire. Only a few
days before this event Cowdray was burnt, and with it a number of inestimable relics, the sword and coronation robe of William the Conqueror, which had been taken thither from Battle Abbey, being among them. The catalogue of things destroyed in this fire is indeed grievous to read. The present possessor of the estate is Lord Egmont. The history of these vicissitudes is remarkably in- teresting, as are the illustrations, drawings of the great house as it was in former days, with which it is adorned. We should have much liked to see photographs of what is still standing. Covvdray was Church property, and was supposed to be subject to a curse pro- nounced by the last of the monastic occupiers, a curse of "fire and water." It was dormant, so runs the story, while the descendants of Sir Anthony Browne remained in the old faith. But the last Lord Montague had been brought up a Protestant ; the two sons of his sister, who inherited the property after him, were also drowned. And, as has been said, the house was burnt down.
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