Volume 5 — 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 "the old Countess" further, for he himself abandons it, and writes to his Irish correspondent thus:—"The inscriptions you have sent me have not cleared away the difficulties relating to the Countess of Desmond; on the contrary, they make me doubt whether the lady interred at Sligo was the person reported to have lived to such an immense age."

Well might he doubt it, for in no one particular could they be identified: e.g. the lady buried at Sligo made her will in 1636, and survived to 1656,—a date long beyond the latest assigned for the demise of "the old Countess." Sir Walter Raleigh expressly says, "the old Countess had held her jointure from all the Earls of Desmond since the time of Edward IV.," a description which could not apply to the widow of a person who did not die until 1583, in the reign of Elizabeth. There are many other impossibilities in the case, discussed by Walpole, into which it is unnecessary to follow him.

Walpole then reverts to the issue of Thomas, the sixth Earl of Desmond, who was compelled to surrender his earldom, A.D. 1418, for making an "inferior marriage;" and conjectures that "the old Countess" might have been the wife of a grandson of his born 1452, or thereabouts, who would be, as Walpole states, "a titular earl:" but this absurd supposition is met by the fact of our "old Countess" enjoying a jointure from all the earls de facto in another line; a provision which the widow of an adverse claimant to the earldom could hardly have made good.

Walpole's last conjecture, following the suggestion of Smith's History of Cork, fixes on the widow of Thomas (the twelfth earl, according to the careful pedigree of Sir William Betham, though Smith erroneously calls him the thirteenth earl), and asserts the identity of the "old Countess" with a second wife, called "Catherine Fitzgerald of Dromana" (the Dacres branch of the Geraldines): for this assertion Smith, in a footnote, quotes "the Russel MSS.," and Walpole calls this "the most positive evidence we have." Of the MSS. referred to, I can find no further trace, and this "positive evidence" is weakened by the silence of Lodge's Peerage as to any second marriage of the earl in question, while, on the contrary, he gives many probabilities against it. Thomas (moyle, or bald), twelfth earl, succeeded to his nephew, James, the eleventh earl, in 1529, being then in extreme age, and died in five years after; he was the second brother of James, ninth earl, murdered in 1587—whose widow I affirm the old Countess to have been. Let us not lose sight of the fact, that the "old Countess," by general consent, was married in the reign of Edward IV., who died 1483. And I would ask, what probability is there that a younger brother would be already married to a second wife, in the lifetime of his elder brother, who is described as murdered "while flourishing in wealth and power at the age of twenty-nine years?" The supposition carries improbability on the face of it; none of the genealogies mention this second marriage at all; and Dr. Smith, whose county histories I have had particular occasion to examine, was, though a diligent collector of reports, no antiquarian authority to rely on. Above all, it is to be remembered, that Sir Walter Raleigh calls her "The old Countess of Desmond of INCHEQUIN:" this is in itself proof, all but positive, that the lady was an O'Bryen, for none other could have "part or lot" in the hereditary designation of that family: hence I have no hesitation in adhering to the conclusion, which, with slight correction of dates, I have adopted from accurate authorities, that "MARGARET O'BRIEN, WIFE OF JAMES, NINTH EARL OF DESMOND, WHO WAS MURDERED IN 1587, WAS THE GENUINE AND ONLY 'OLD COUNTESS.'" Upon the only point on which I venture to correct my authority, namely, as to the date of the earl's death, I find, on reference to an older authority than any to which we have hitherto referred, that my emendation is confirmed. In the Annals of the Four Masters, compiled from more ancient documents still, in the year 1636, I find, under the date 1487, the following: "The Earl of Desmond, James Fitzgerald, was treacherously killed by his own people at Rathgeola (Rathkeale, co. Limerick), at the instigation of his brother John."

A. B. R.

Belmont.

THE IMPERIAL EAGLE OF FRANCE.

On reading the Times of the 7th ult. at our city library, in which the following translation of a paragraph in the French journal, Le Constitutionnel, appeared, application was made to me for an explanation of that part where the Emperor Napoleon is represented as stating, among other advantages of preferring an eagle to a cock as the national emblem or ensign, which, during the ancient dynasty of France, the latter had been—

"that it owes its origin to a pun. I will not have the cock, said the Emperor; it lives on the dunghill, and allows itself to have its throat twisted by the fox. I will take the eagle, which bears the thunderbolt, and which can gaze on the sun. The French eagles shall make themselves respected, like the Roman eagles. The cock, besides, has the disadvantage of owing its origin to a pun," &c.

Premising that the French journalist's object is to authorise the present ruler of France's similar adoption and restoration of the noble bird on the French standard by the example of his uncle, I briefly stated the circumstance to which Napoleon, on this occasion, referred; and as not unsuited, I should think, to your miscellany, I beg leave to repeat it here.

In 1545, during the sitting of the Council of Trent, Peter Danes, one of the most eminent ecclesiastics of France, who had been professor of Greek, and filled several other consonant stations, appeared at the memorable council as one of the French representatives. While there, his colleague, Nicholas Pseaume, Bishop of Verdun, in a vehement oration, denounced the relaxed discipline of the Italians, when Sebastian Vancius de Arimino (so named in the "Canones et Decreta" of the Council), Bishop of Orvietto (Urbevetanus), sneeringly exclaimed "Gallus cantat," dwelling on the double sense of the word Gallus—a Frenchman or a cock, and intending to express "the cock crows;" to which Danes promptly and pointedly responded, "Utinam et Galli cantum Petrus resipisceret," which excited, as it deserved, the general applause of the assembly, thus turning the insult into a triumph. The apt allusion will be made clear by a reference to the words of the Gospels: St. Matthew, xxvi. 75.; St. Mark, xiv. 68. 72.; St. Luke, xxii. 61-2.; and St. John, xviii. 27., where the ἀλεκτοροφωνία of the original is the "cantus galli" of the Vulgate, and where Petrus represents the pope, who is aroused to resipiscere by the example of his predecessor St. Peter.

This incident in the memorable assembly is adverted to in the French contemporary letters and memoirs, but more particularly in the subsequent publication of a learned member of Danes's family, La Vie, Eloges et Opuscules de Pierre Danes, par P. Hilaire Danes, Paris, 1731, 4to., with the the portrait of the Tridentine deputy, who became Bishop of Lavaur, in Languedoc (now département du Saone), and preceptor to Francis, the short-lived husband of Mary Stuart, before that prince's ascent to the throne. So high altogether was he held in public estimation, that he was supposed well entitled to the laudatory anagram formed of his name (Petrus Danesius), "De superis natus."

In the Council of Trent there only appeared two Englishmen, Cardinal Pole and Francis Gadwell,[1] Bishop of St. Asaph, with three Irish prelates, (1) Thomas Herliky, Bishop of Ross, called Thomas Overlaithe in the records of the Council; (2) Eugenius O'Harte, there named Ohairte, a Dominican friar, Bishop of Ardagh; and (3) Donagh MacCongal, Bishop of Raphoe: Sir James Ware adds a fourth, Robert Waucup, or Vincentius, of whom, however, I find no mention in the official catalogue of the assisting prelates. Deprived of sight, according to Ware, from his childhood, he yet made such proficiency in learning, that, after attaining the high degree of Doctor of Sorbonne in France, he was appointed Archbishop of Armagh, or Primate of Ireland; but of this arch-see he never took possession, it being held by a reformed occupant, Dr. George Dowdall, appointed by Henry VIII. in 1543.

J. R. (Cork.)

FOLK LORE.

Valentine's Day (Vol. v., p. 55.).

—Your correspondent J. S. A. will find the following notice of a similar custom to the one he alludes to in Mr. L. Jewitt's paper on the Customs of the County of Derby, in the last number of the Journal of the British Archæological Association:

"Of the latter (divinations) there is a curious instance at Ashborne, where a young woman who wishes to divine who her future husband is to be, goes into the church-yard at midnight, and as the clock strikes twelve, commences running round the church, repeating without intermission—

Having thus performed the circuit of the church twelve times without stopping, the figure of her lover is supposed to appear and follow her."

J.

Nottingham Hornblowing.

—About the beginning of December the boys in and around Nottingham amuse themselves, to the annoyance of the more peaceable inhabitants, by parading the streets and blowing horns. I have noticed this for several years, and therefore do not think it is any whim or caprice which causes them to act thus; on the contrary, I think it must be the relic of some ancient custom. If any of your correspondents could elucidate this, it would particularly oblige

STOMACHOSUS.

Bee Superstitions—Blessing Apple-trees—"A Neck! a Neck!"

—The superstition concerning the bees is common among the smaller farmers in the rural districts of Devon. I once knew an apprentice boy sent back from the funeral cortège by the nurse, to tell the bees of it, as it had been forgotten. They usually put some wine and honey for them before the hives on that day. A man whose ideas have been confused frequently says his "head has been among the bees" (buzzing).

The custom is still very prevalent in Devonshire of "hollowing to the apple-trees" on Old Christmas Eve. Toasted bread and sugar is soaked in new cider made hot for the farmer's family, and the boys take some out to pour on the oldest tree, and sing—

The village boys go round also for the purpose, and get some halfpence given them for their "hollering," as they call it. I believe this to be derived from a Pagan custom of offering to Ceres.

The farmer's men have also a custom, on cutting the last sheaf of wheat on the farm, of shouting out "A neck! a neck!" as they select a handful of the finest ears of corn, which they bind up, and plait the straw of it, often very prettily, which they present to the master, who hangs it up in the farm kitchen till the following harvest. I do not know whence this custom arises.

WILLIAM COLLYNS, M.R.C.S.

Kenton.

Hooping Cough.

—In Cornwall, a slice of bread and butter or cake belonging to a married couple whose Christian names are John and Joan, if eaten by the sufferer under this disorder, is considered an efficacious remedy, though of course not always readily found.

W. S. S.

NOTE ON THE COINS OF VABALATHUS. (Vol. iv., pp. 255. 427. 491.)

Since the publication of my last note on the coins of Vabalathus, I have obtained the Lettres Numismatiques du Baron Marchant, 1850. The original edition being very rare, and I believe only three hundred of this one having been printed, I have thought it might be as well to record some additional information from it in your pages. Marchant reads, "Vabalathus Verenda Concessione Romanorum Imperatore Medis datus Rex." It is needless to remark on this, further than on the more ancient interpretations. He points out that the Greek letters, or rather numerals, show the coins to have been struck in a country where Greek, if not the popular language, was that of the government, along with Latin. This country was necessarily an Oriental one, and I think this observation would rather lead to the inference that the word VCRIMDR, occupying the place usually filled by Cæsar, Augustus, ϹΕΒΑϹΩϹ, &c., might be an Oriental title, though expressed in Latin letters. Millin, to whom he had communicated his view, thought correctly "que ça sentait un peu le père Harduin," and it was only published in the posthumous edition of his works. De Gauley has published coins struck by the Arabs in Africa, which have Latin legends, in some of which the Arabic titles are given in Latin letters. The Emir Musa Ben Nasir appears thus, MυSE. F. NASIR. AMIRA. The coins of Vabalathus offer a more ancient example of the same. I have given what appears to me the clue, and I hope it will be followed out by Orientalists. M. de Longperier, in his annotations to the 28th letter, shows that the name Ἀθηνᾶς is derived from Ἀθηνόδωρος, and appears to think ΑΘΗΝΟΥ or ΑΘΗΝΥ the genitive of ΑΘΗΝΑϹ. The difficulty, he says, is, that names in ᾶς have, in the Alexandrian dialect, the genitive ᾶτος. He does not appear to have noticed the reading as ΥΙοϹ (or ΟΥ as Ο ΥΙοϹ?), which appears to me to remove the difficulty, but also to obviate the necessity of the name Ἀθηνᾶς at all. He remarks on the similarity of name between Αθηνας, Αθηνατος, and Odenathus.

"If," he says, "we examine comparatively Vabalath (ΟΥΑΒΑΛΑΘ) and Odenath, or rather Odanath, as in Zosimus, we see an analogous formation; Ou-baalat, Ou-tanat, the feminine of Baal or Bel, and of Tan, Dan, or Zan, preceded by the same syllable. Baalat is a Scripture form (Jos. xix. 44.; 1 Kings ix. 48.; Paral. ii. viii. 6.). De Gauley has found the name of Tanat in a Phœnician inscription, and Lenormant remarks that this feminine form of Zan, or Jupiter, corresponds to Athéné. Thus Ou-tanat is the equivalent of Athenas, consequently of Athenodorus."

Vabalathus is thus, if these etymological considerations be correct, the son of Odenathus. Longperier proposes to read ΕΡΩΤΑϹ for ϹΡΩΙΑϹ, and to consider this the equivalent of Herodes, mentioned by Trebellius Pollio. With all deference to M. de Longperier, I venture to oppose the following objections. First, Some coins read ϹΡΙΑϹ, which would read ΕΡΤΑϹ on his principle. Since, in the coins of Zenobia, Vabalathus, and those bearing the name of Athenodorus, whether struck by Vabalathus or not, is not material at present, we find the names at full length, not omitting the vowels, it is natural to suppose that the same would here take place, if the word really were the name of Herodes. To explain, if we found ΖΗΝΟΒΙΑ and ΖΝΟΒΙΑ, ΑΘΗΝΟΔΩΡΟϹ and ΑΘΝΔΡΟϹ, or similar contractions, we might consider ΕΡΩΤΑϹ and ΕΡΤΑϹ identical. Secondly, On my specimens of this coin I find the ι in this word distinctly formed, and the Τ in the next word ΑΥΤ as distinct. All authors have read this letter ι, although varying in the rest. Thirdly, On the obverse of these specimens the Ε is larger and more open than the Ϲ, as may be seen in the conclusion ...ΝΟϹ . ϹΕΒ, where it is preceded by two sigmas, and is easy to compare with them. We should naturally expect to find it having the same form on the reverse, if the reading ΕΡΩΤΑϹ were correct. But it is of the same size as the other letters, on my specimens at least. I need not say that there is no trace of the central stroke.

W. H. S.

Edinburgh.

THE AGNOMEN OF "BROTHER JONATHAN," OF MASONIC ORIGIN.

George Washington, commander-in-chief of the American army in the revolution, was a mason, as were all the other generals, with the solitary exception of Arnold the traitor, who attempted to deliver West Point, a most important position, into the hands of the enemy. It was this treasonable act on the part of Arnold which caused the gallant Andre's death, and ultimately placed a monument over his remains in Westminster Abbey. On one occasion, when the American army had met with some serious reverses, General Washington called his brother officers together, to consult in what manner their effects could be the best counteracted. Differing as they did in opinion, the commander-in-chief postponed any action on the subject, by remarking, "Let us consult brother Jonathan," referring to Jonathan Trumbull, who was a well-known mason, and particularly distinguished "for his sound judgment, strict morals, and having the tongue of good report."

George Washington was initiated a mason in Fredericksburg, Virginia, Lodge No. 4, on the 4th of November, 1752, was passed a fellow craft on the 3rd of March, 1753, and raised to the sublime degree of a master mason on the 4th day of August, 1753. The hundredth anniversary of this distinguished mason's initiation is to be celebrated in America throughout the length and breadth of the land.

W. W.

La Valetta, Malta.

Minor Notes.

Hippopotamus, Behemoth.

—The young animal which has drawn so much attention hitherto, will increase in attractiveness as he acquires his voice, for which the zoologist may now arectis auribus await the development. It has appeared singular to many who knew the Greek name of this animal to signify river-horse, that he should be so unlike a horse. Nevertheless, the Greeks who knew him only at a distance, as we did formerly, named him from his voice and ears after an animal which he so little resembles in other respects. The Egyptian words from which the Behemoth of Job (chap. xl. v. 10.) are derived, more fitly designate him as water-ox, B-ehe-moūt = literatim, the aquatic ox.

T. W. B.

Lichfield.

Curious Inscription (Vol. iv., pp. 88. 182.).

—My ecclesiological note-book supplies two additional examples of the curious kind of inscription communicated by your correspondents J. O. B. and MR. E. S. TAYLOR (by the way, the one mentioned by J. O. B. was found also at St. Olave's, Hart Street; see Weever, Fun. Mon.). These both occur at Winchester Cathedral: the first near a door in the north aisle, at the south-west angle:—

☜ ILL PREC

AC ATOR

H VI ☞

AMBVLA

The other on the south side:

CESSIT COMMVNI PROPRIVM JAM PERGITE

QVA FAS. 1632.

☞

ACR S ILL CH

S A IT A ORO

ERV F IST F

☜

W. SPARROW SIMPSON, B.A.

[This curious inscription, with a translation, is given by Milner, in his History of Winchester, vol. ii. p. 90.]

Coins of Edward III. struck at Antwerp in 1337.

—Ruding, in his Annals of the Coinage of Great Britain (3rd ed. p. 212.), describing the coins of Edward III. (who often resided on the Continent, and whose sister Eleanor was married to Raimond III., Duke of Guelder), says:

"In November A.D. 1337, according to Grafton, the king was made vicar-general and lieutenant to the emperor, with power to coin money of gold and silver. He kept his winter at the castle of Louvain, and caused great sums of money, both of gold and silver, to be coined at Antwerp."

And in the note:

"Chronicle [of Grafton?] sub anno. Froissart also mentions this fact. The silver coins were probably struck with English dies, and consequently are not now to be distinguished."

Now, you will oblige me by informing your English readers, that though these may have been struck with English dies, they can readily be distinguished from other English coins by the legends. They are represented on Pl. viii., Nos. 19. and 20., in my Munten der voormalige Hertogdommen Braband en Limburg, van de vroeyste Tijden tot aan de Pacificatie van Gend. The type is wholly English, and agrees with the coins of Edward III., as I have remarked in the text. The Moneta nostra indicates a joint coin (i.e. common to the emperor and to the king); as Coin No. 3. Pl. xxxiii. was probably a joint coin of Edward III. and Philip VI., King of France.

P. O. VAN DER CHŸS.

Leiden.