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result of my consideration is, that there is not the slightest probability 
that her likeness ever was taken. 
Judging from what I have seen, and from my inquiries, addressed to 
the present representatives of old and estated families, I am strongly 
impressed with the conviction that family portraiture in Ireland was 
diffused by the Cromwellians. Settling down on the lands which their 
swords had transferred to them, they seem to have placed a picture of their 
chief in their castles and mansions as the penates, or protecting power, 
of their acquired possessions. At the mansion of a Cromwellian family, 
in the county of Tipperary, I saw the great Lord Protector, the only 
portrait in the house; another came under my ken, from a county of 
Cork family ; and I have a third, a very fine painting, the features much 
softened down, but the characteristic likeness preserved; it descended 
to the gentleman who sold it to me from Colonel Barrachia Wallis, who 
wrested the castle and lands of Carrigrohane, county of Cork, from the 
Philistine Barrett, when the image of Dagon gave place to that of 
Oliver, whose head subsequently became a favourite seal. I have two 
letters, addressed to William Crosbie, of Ardfert, Kerry, afterwards cre- 
ated Karl of Glandore—one, from its tenour, rather earlier than 1758, 
has Oliver’s profile, copied from his shilling, inscribed ‘‘ The Glorious 
Protector ;” the other, dated ‘‘ Decem’ 4, 1760,” is also a profile, evi- 
dently from the marble bust at the residence of the Cromwell family at 
Cheshunt, Hertfordshire. 
At the expulsion of James II., the victors set up their idol, King 
William, in rivalry of the Protector; and family portraits seem from this 
period, though very slowly, to make their appearance. In private fa- 
milies I have seen few authenticated before the close of George II.’s 
reign; nor did the taste seem to have had much existence among the 
nobility. At Portumna Castle there was a portrait of the great Marquis 
' of Clanricarde, of the time of Charles I., and the only other was that of 
the late earl. Both must have perished when the castle was burnt. At 
Rostellan Castle the oldest portrait, and, in my estimation, the only 
family painting of merit, was that of the celebrated Morrough O’ Bryen, 
sixth Baron of Inchiquin, created earl by Charles II. So, at length, I 
‘come to the conclusion, that at the period of our old Countess, portrait 
painting was an art not practised in Iretand. 
Nor can this conclusion be a matter of any,surprise, when we quietly 
recollect what was the social, or rather utterly unsocial, state of the 
kingdom without the small territory called ‘‘The Pale,” of which Dublin 
was the capital. 
The island was occupied, with but rare exceptions, by native Irish 
chieftains, and so-called English nobles, ‘‘ more Irish than the Ivish,”’ 
who, if not banded for the time in league against the Lord Deputy, 
always found pleasant little differences between themselves to prevent 
their swords becoming rusty for want of employment, and were more 
intent on destroying than preserving the image of heaven’s master-piece, 
even in its fairest type,—woman! Seriously ask yourselves, when you 
recall those times, and the persons who flourished, what arts found favour 
