441 
paid to Sir Walter Raleigh in 1603 and 1604. The grant commences 
with the barony, manor, and castle of Inchiquin ; and among its deno- 
minations is that of Cooly-Clogh-Finnagh, clearly the land let by Sir 
Walter to Mr. Cleaver, and shewing that it was part of the jointure- 
lands of the old Countess Kathrin. 
I submit that I have now shown legal proof that the Countess could 
not have been disturbed in the enjoyment of her jointure, and I entirely 
acquit the Karl of Cork from the groundless aspersion of having even 
attempted to deprive her of it. 
We will now take into consideration the negative evidence,deduced 
from the notices of the old Countess of Desmond in the works of Sir 
Walter Raleigh, Lord Bacon, and Fynes Moryson. 
From Sir Walter Raleigh’s ‘‘ History of the World,”’ book t., chap. v., 
sec. 5, folio edition, 1614, p. 66 :— 
“T myself knew the old Countess of Desmond, of Inchiquin in 
Munster, who lived in the year 1589, and many years since, who was 
marryed in Edward IV.’s time, and held her joynture from all the Earls 
of Desmond since then ; and that this is true all the Noblemen and Gen- 
tlemen of Munster can witnesse.”’ 
Lord Bacon twice notices the Countess; but it appears to me clearly 
that in both instances he derives his information almost entirely from 
Fynes Moryson, whose ‘Itinerary’ was published six years previous 
to Lord Bacon’s earliest mention of her, which is in his ‘‘ Historia Vite 
et Mortis.””. London: 8vo, 1623 :— 
‘‘Hiberni preesertim sylvestres, etiam adhuc sunt valde vivaces : 
certe aiunt, paucis abhinc annis Comitissam Desmondie vixisse ad an- 
num centissimum quadragesimum, Et ter per vices dentiisse. Hibernis 
autem mos est se nudos ante focum butyro salso et veteri fricare et quasi 
condire.”’ 
[The Irish, particularly those who live in the country, even now, 
are very long lived. They say for certain that within these few years 
the Countess of Desmond lived to her 140th year, and cast her teeth 
three times. But it is a custom with the Irish, placing themselves 
naked before a fire, to rub, and as it were season, their bodies with old 
salt butter. | 
On the latter part of this extract I may remark, that although Lord 
Bacon’s rule of inductive philosophy did not allow him to express an 
opinion on what he had not witnessed and tested, yet the passage is 
evidently given as a probable explanation of the means by which the 
Countess’s years were so wonderfully extended; and with this great phi- 
losopher’s implied conviction, considering it in a mercantile point of 
view, it would seem very desirable that the medical body should care- 
fully test this prescription and-practice of the olden time: for should it 
prove so greatly conducive to longevity, not only would the faculty 
benefit, and a serious stimulus be given to the production of butter, but 
the class of butter which is now almost valueless, that which has over- 
R. I. A, PROC.—VOL. VII. 3R 
