426 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 109. 



■with the Lowei- House of Canterbury for the review 

 of the Liturgy. In this letter the archbishop 

 says that himself and the otlier bisliops of the 

 province were sitting loith the bishops of the 

 southern province in their House. A similar ex- 

 pedient for constituting a quasi-r\a.tioi\al synod 

 seems to have been resorted to upon some earlier 

 occasions ; but the Convocation of York still 

 passed in due form by their own separate decree 

 what was so agreed upon. The Articles were 

 thus subscribed by our Convocation in 1571, and 

 the Canons in 1604 and 1640. 



Since then the Convocation of York lias been 

 regularly summoned, met, adjourned, and been 

 prorogued, without even the dutiful address to the 

 crown, which is regularly discussed and adopted 

 in Canterbury. In the year 1847, a spasmodic 

 attempt at life was manifested in this venerable 

 and ill-used institution. Archbishop Harcourt had 

 consented that an address to the crown should be 

 adopted, and himself procured a draft to be ap- 

 proved by the bishops. His grace however died 

 before the day of meeting. Some difficulty was 

 experienced by the officials, both in York and 

 London, as to the course to be pursued ; but a 

 precedent having been pointed out in the reign of 

 James I., when Archbishop Hutton died after 

 summoning the Convocation and before its as- 

 sembly, a writ was issued from the crown to the 

 dean and chapter at York to elect a prreses for the 

 Convocation during the vacancy of the archbishop- 

 rick. They appointed the canon who happened 

 to be in residence ; an unusually large attendance 

 was given ; the Convocation was opened, the names 

 called over, and then the officials had reached tlie 

 limit of their experience ; according to their pre- 

 cedeiUs we ought all to have been sent away. 

 The address however was called on by the presses, 

 being apparently quite unaware that a prolocutor 

 should be chosen by the clergy before they pro- 

 ceeded to business. Such an officer probably seemed 

 to the dignitary already in the chair like a second 

 King of Brentford " smelling at one rose," and the 

 demand was refused. Further difficulties ensued, 

 of course, the moment the debate was opened ; 

 and finally, the prases, determined not to be 

 tempted out of his depth, rose all at once, and 

 read the i^ivUformida which restored our glorious 

 Chapter House to its silent converse with the 

 ghosts. The Convocation has never since been 

 heard of. Can Eboe. 



THE OLD COUNTESS OF DESMOND. 



(Vol. iv., p. 305.) 



If your correspondent A. B. R. will refer to 

 Walpole's Fugitive Pieces he will find a minute 

 inquiry into the person and age of this long-lived 

 lady. This is doubtless the dissertation alluded to 

 by C. (Vol. ii., p. 219.) Tennant has two notices 



of the countess in his Scotch tours. In that of 

 1769 (which somewhat strangely follows the one 

 of 1772), he gives at p. 87. the engraving spoken 

 of (Vol. iv., p. 306.), a]iparently taken from the 

 original at Dupplin Castle. It difl^ers a little from 

 R's. descriptidii of another portrait, as the cloak is 

 strapped over the chest, not held by a button. 

 In 1772 Pennant again describes this portrait in 

 his Tour in Scotland, vol. ii. p. 88., and speaks of 

 four others, viz., first, at Devonshire House ; second, 

 at the Hon. John Yorke's seat, near Cheltenham ; 

 third, at Mr. Scott's, printer ; and the fourth, in the 

 Standard Closet, AVindsor Ciistle. At the back of 

 the last is written with a pen "Rembrandt." "A 

 mistake (says P.) as Rembrandt was not fourteen 

 years of age (he was indeed oidy eight) in 1614, 

 at which time it is certain the countess was not 

 living." 



Jn my copy of the Fugitive Pieces (the Straw- 

 berry Hill edition, presented by Walpole to Cole), 

 I find the following manuscript note by Cole ; an 

 amplification of the passage from AValpole's letters 

 quoted at p. 306. : — 



" Being at Strawberry Hill in x\pril, 177.3, I saw 

 there a copy of the picture commonly attributed to the 

 old Countess of Desmond ; but INIr. Walpole told me 

 that there is sufficient proof that it is a painter's mother, 

 1 think Rembrandt's. However, by a letter from Mr. 

 Lort, April 15, 1774, he assures me that on Mr. Pen- 

 nant's calling at Strawberry Hill to see this picture, he 

 was much chagrined at having a print of it engraved 

 for his book, till Mr. Lort revived him by carrying 

 him to a garret in Devonshire House, where was a 

 picture of this same coimtess with her name on it, ex- 

 actly corresponding to his engraved print. I remember 

 .1 tolerable good old picture of her at Mr. Dicey's, 

 prebendary of Bristol, at Walton in Bucks." 



Walpole could not dismiss Pennant without a 

 disparaging remark. He is " a superficial man, 

 and knows little of history or antiquity ; but he 

 has a violent rage for being an author." Those 

 who live in glass houses should not throw stones : 

 Pennant woidd not have displayed the ignorance 

 which Walpole exhibits in the instance before us. 

 In an inscription, which the latter gives, on a 

 Countess of Desmond buried at Sligo, occurs the 

 following contraction : " Desmonias Noie Eliza- 

 betha." AValpole says {Fugitive Pieces, p. 204.), 

 " This word I can make no sense of, but sic ori- 

 ginale ; I take it to be a redundancy of the carver. 

 It seems to be a repetition of the last three syl- 

 lables of Desmoniae !" 



The sarcastic observations which Walpole passes 

 on the Society of Anticjuaries, its members, and its 

 publications, are so frequent and so bitter, that 

 they must have been founded on some offence not 

 to be pardoned. Were the remarks on the " His- 

 toric Doubts" by the president, Dean Jlilles, and 

 by the Rev. Robert Masters (printed in the first 

 two volumes of the Archceologia), regarded as 



