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[Transcriber's note: Original spelling variations have not been
standardized. Characters with macrons have been marked in brackets with
an equal sign, as [=e] for a letter e with a macron on top; the
paragraph sign is shown by [p]. Underscores have been used to indicate
_italic_ fonts. A list of volumes and pages in "Notes and Queries" has
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NOTES AND QUERIES:

A MEDIUM OF INTER-COMMUNICATION

FOR

LITERARY MEN, ARTISTS, ANTIQUARIES, GENEALOGISTS, ETC.

"When found, make a note of."--Captain Cuttle.

VOL. V.--No. 120. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 14. 1852.

Price Fourpence. Stamped Edition, 5_d._




CONTENTS.

                                                                Page


      NOTES:--

      The Old Countess of Desmond                                145

      The Imperial Eagle of France                               147

      Folk Lore:--Valentine's Day--Nottingham Hornblowing--Bee
      Superstitions; Blessing Apple-trees;
      "A Neck! a Neck!"--Hooping Cough                           148

      Note on the Coins of Vabalathus                            148

      The Agnomen of "Brother Jonathan," of Masonic
      Origin                                                     149

      Minor Notes:--Hippopotamus, Behemoth--Curious
      Inscription--Coins of Edward III. struck at Antwerp
      in 1337                                                    149

      QUERIES:--

      Is the Walrus found in the Baltic?                         150

      English Free Towns, by J. H. Parker                        150

      Minor Queries:--Bishop Hall's Resolutions--Mother
      Huff and Mother Damnable--Sir Samuel Garth--German's
      Lips--Richard Leveridge--Thomas Durfey--Audley
      Family--Ink--Mistletoe excluded from
      Churches--Blind taught to read--Hyrne, Meaning of--The
      fairest Attendant of the Scottish Queen--"Soud,
      soud, soud, soud!"--Key Experiments--Shield
      of Hercules--"Sum Liber, et non sum," &c.                  150

      MINOR QUERIES ANSWERED:--Whipping a Husband;
      Hudibras--Aldus--"The last links are broken"--Under
      Weigh or Way--The Pope's Eye--"History
      is Philosophy"                                             152

      REPLIES:--

      Coverdale's Bible, by George Offor                         153

      "As Stars with Trains of Fire," &c.,
      by Samuel Hickson                                          154

      Dials, Dial Mottoes, &c.                                   155

      Can Bishops vacate their Sees?                             156

      Character of a True Churchman                              156

      Wearing Gloves in Presence of Royalty                      157

      Gospel Oaks                                                157

      The Pendulum Demonstration                                 158

      Expurgated Quaker Bible, by Archdeacon Cotton              158

      Junius Rumours                                             159

      Wady Mokatteb not mentioned in Num. xi. 26.,
      by Rev. Dr. Todd                                           159

      Replies to Minor Queries:--Rotten Row--"Preached from a
      Pulpit rather than a Tub"--Olivarius--Slavery in Scotland
      --Cibber's Lives of the Poets--Theoloneum--John of
      Padua--Stoke--Eliza Fenning--Ghost Stories--Autographs of
      Weever and Fuller--Lines on the Bible--Hell-rake--Family
      Likenesses--Grimsdyke--Portraits of Wolfe, &c.             160

      MISCELLANEOUS:--

      Notes on Books, &c.                                        166

      Books and Odd Volumes wanted                               166

      Notices to Correspondents                                  167

      Advertisements                                             167




Notes.


THE OLD COUNTESS OF DESMOND.

(_Continued from_ Vol. iv., p. 426.)

I feel much obliged to J. H. M., who writes from Bath, and has directed
my attention to Horace Walpole's "minute inquiry" respecting the "Old
Countess of Desmond," as also to "Pennant's Tours," all which I have had
opportunity of examining since I wrote to you last. The references do
not incline me to alter one word of the opinion I have ventured as to
the identity of this lady; on the contrary, with the utmost respect for
his name and services to the cause of antiquarian research, I propose to
show that Horace Walpole (whose interest in the question was, by his own
confession, but incidental, and ancillary to his historic inquiries into
the case of Richard III., and who had no direct data to go on) knew
nothing of the matter, and was quite mistaken as to the individual.

Before I proceed on this daring undertaking, I beg to say, that an
inspection of Pennant's print, called "The Old Countess of Desmond,"
_satisfies_ me that it is _not_ taken from a duplicate picture of that
in possession of the Knight of Kerry: though there certainly is a
resemblance in the faces of the two portraits, yet the differences are
many and decisive. Pennant says that there are "four other pictures in
Great Britain in the same dress, and without any difference of feature,"
besides that at Dupplin Castle, from which his print was copied; but
that of the Knight of Kerry must be reckoned as a sixth portrait, taken
at a _much more advanced period_ of life: in it the wrinkles and
features denote _extreme_ old age. The head-dresses are markedly
different, that of Pennant being a _cloth_ hood lying back from the face
in folds; in the Knight of Kerry's, the head-dress is more like a beaver
bonnet standing forward from the head, and throwing the face somewhat
into shade. In Pennant's, the cloak is plainly fastened by leathern
strap, somewhat after the manner of a laced shoe; in the other, the
fastening is a single button: but the difference most marked is this,
that the persons originally sitting for these pictures, looked opposite
ways, and, of course, presented different sides to the painter. So that,
in Pennant's plate, the _right side-face_ is forward; and in the other,
the left: therefore, these pictures are markedly and manifestly neither
the same, nor copies either of the other.

It does not concern us, in order to maintain the authority of our
_Irish_ picture, to follow up the question at issue between Pennant and
Walpole but I may here observe, that either must be wrong in an
important matter of fact. Walpole, in a note to his "Fugitive Pieces"
(Lord Orford's _Works_, vol. i. p. 210-17.), writes thus: "_Having by
permission of the Lord Chamberlain obtained a copy of the picture at
Windsor Castle, called The Countess of Desmond, I discovered that it is
not her portrait; on the back is written in an old hand, 'The Mother of
Rembrandt.'_" He then proceeds to prove the identity of this picture
with one given to King Charles I. by Sir Robert Car, "My Lord Ankrom"
(after Duke of Roxburg), and set down in the Windsor Catalogue as
"_Portrait of an old woman, with a great scarf on her head, by
Rembrandt_." Pennant's note differs from this in an essential
particular; he mentions this picture at Windsor Castle thus: "_This was
a present from Sir Robert Car, Earl of Roxburg, as is signified on the
back; above it is written with a pen,_ 'REMBRANDT' (not a word of his
_mother_), _which must be a mistake, for Rembrandt was not fourteen
years of age in 1614_, at a time when _it is certain (?) that the
Countess was not living, and... it does not appear that he ever visited
England_."

The discrepancy of these two accounts is obvious--if it "_be written in
an old hand, 'The Mother of Rembrandt,'_" on the back of the picture, it
seems strange that Pennant should _omit_ the first three words; if they
be not so written, it seems equally strange that Walpole should venture
to _add_ them. I presume the picture at Windsor is still extant; and
probably some reader of "N. & Q." having access to it, will be so good
as to settle the question of accuracy and veracity between two
gentlemen, of whom one must be guilty of _suppressio veri_, or the other
of _suggestio falsi_.

Horace Walpole, or his editor, must have corrected his "Fugitive Pieces"
since the "Strawberry Hill edition," to which J. H. M. refers, was
printed; for in the edition I have consulted, instead of saying "I can
make no sense of the word _noie_," the meaning is correctly given in a
foot-note to the inscription; and the passage given by J. H. M. is
altogether omitted from the text.

I must now proceed in my bold attempt to show that Horace Walpole knew
nothing of a matter, into which he made a "minute inquiry." This may
seem presumptuous in a tyro towards one of the old masters of
antiquarian lore and research; but I plead in apology the great advance
of the science since Horace Walpole's days, and the greater plenty of
materials for forming or correcting a judgement. It has been well said,
that a single chapter of Mr. Charles Knight's _Old England_ would full
furnish and set up an antiquarian of the last century; and this is true,
such and so many are the advantages for obtaining information, which we
modern antiquaries possess over those who are gone before us; and
lastly, to quote old Fuller's quaintness, I would say that "a dwarf on a
giant's shoulders can see farther than he who carries him:" thus do I
explain and excuse my attempt to impugn the conclusion of Horace
Walpole.

Walpole's first conjectures applied to a Countess of Desmond, whose tomb
is at Sligo in Ireland, and who was widow to that _Gerald_, the
sixteenth earl, _ingens rebellibus exemplar_, who was outlawed, and
killed in the wood of _Glanagynty_, in the county of Kerry, A.D. 1583.
Walpole applied to an Irish correspondent for copies of the inscriptions
on her tomb; but we need not follow or discuss the supposition of her
identity with