according to their respective orders and degrees: the first order distinguished by the barred helmet, the gentry by the visored helmet with proper differences of the second degrees of each class from the first; and all other distinctions more than this are unnecessary and useless. "The helmet does not seem to have been formerly used but in a military way, and affairs of chivalry. I do not find any helmets upon the monuments of our Kings of England, nor upon other ancient monuments, nor upon any of the Great Seals, coins, or medals. Upon the plates of the Knights of the Garter at Windsor, all degrees used the old profile close helmet till about 1588, some few excepted; and soon after, the helmet with barrs came into fashion, and was used for all degrees of nobility, and it has continued ever since; and the same has been used for all degrees of nobility upon the plates of the Knights of the Bath, those that are knights only using a knight's helmet. And the same may be observed in Sir Edward Walker's _Books of the Nobility from the Restoration to the Revolution_, wherein all degrees have the helmet turned towards the right, showing four barrs; the sovereign's being full with seven barrs." G. * * * * * HAMPDEN'S DEATH. (Vol. viii., p. 495.) "On the 21st of July, 1828, the corpse of John Hampden was disinterred by the late Lord Nugent for the purpose of settling the disputed point of history as to the manner in which the patriot received his death-wound. The examination seems to have been conducted after a somewhat bungling fashion for a scientific object, and the facts disclosed were these: 'On lifting up the right arm we found that it was dispossessed of its hand. We might therefore naturally conjecture that it had been amputated, as the bone presented a perfectly flat appearance, as if sawn off by some sharp instrument. On searching under the cloths, to our no small astonishment we found the hand, or rather a number of small bones, inclosed in a separate cloth. For about six inches up the arm the flesh had wasted away, being evidently smaller than the lower part of the left arm, to which the hand was very firmly united, and which presented no symptoms of decay further than the two bones of the forefinger loose. Even the nails remained entire, of which we saw no appearance in the cloth containing the remains of the right hand.... The clavicle of the right shoulder was firmly united to the scapula, nor did there appear any contusion or indentation that evinced symptoms of any wound ever having been inflicted. The left shoulder, on the contrary, was smaller and sunken in, as if the clavicle had been displaced. To {647} remove all doubts, it was adjudged necessary to remove the arms, which were amputated with a penknife (!). The socket of the left (_sic_) arm was perfectly white and healthy, and the clavicle firmly united to the