ANCIENT WIDOWS.

and a third in the house of Mr Herbert at Mucross Abbey, Killarney. On the back of the last is the following inscription: Catharine Countesse of Desmonde, as she appeared at ye court of our Sovraigne Lord King James, in this preasent A.D. 1814, and in ye 140th yeare of her age. Thither she came from Bristol to seek relief, ye house of Desmonde having been ruined by Attainder. She was married in the Reigne of King Edward IV., and in ye course of her long Pilgrimage renewed her teeth twice. Her principal residence is at Inchiquin in Munster, whither she undoubtedlye proposeth (her purpose accomplished) incontinentlie to return. LAUS DEO.' Another portrait considered to be that of the old

THE OLD COUNTESS OF DESMOND.

posses

Countess of Desmond has long been in the sion of the Knight of Kerry. It was engraved by Grogan, and published in 1806, and a transcript of it appears on this page. The existence of so many pictures of old date, all alleged to represent Lady Desmond, though some doubt may rest on them all, forms at least a corroborative evidence of her existence. It may here be remarked that the inscription on the back of the Mucross portrait is most probably a production, not of her own day, as it pretends to be, but of some later time. On a review of probabilities, with which we need not tire the reader, it seems necessary to conclude that the old Countess died in 1604, and that she never performed the journey in question to London. Most probably, the Earl of Leicester mistook her in that particular for the widow of the forfeited Garrett Earl of Desmond, of whom we shall presently have to speak.

The question as to the existence of the socalled Old Countess of Desmond was fully discussed a few years ago by various writers in the Notes and Queries, and finally subjected to a thorough sifting in an article in the Quarterly

ANCIENT WIDOWS.

Review, evidently the production of one well acquainted with Irish family history. The result was a satisfactory identification of the lady with Katherine Fitzgerald, of the Fitzgeralds of Dromana, in the county of Waterford, the second wife of Thomas twelfth Earl of Desmond, who died at an advanced age in the year 1534. The family which her husband represented was one of immense possessions and influence-able to bring an array of five or six thousand men into the field; but it went to ruin in consequence of the rebellion of Garrett the sixteenth Earl in 1579. Although Countess Katherine was not the means of carrying on the line of the family, she continued in her widowhood to draw her jointure from its wealth; did so even after its forfeiture. Thus a state paper dated 1589 enumerates, among the forfeitures of the attainted Garrett, the castle and manor of Inchiquin, now in the hands of Katherine Fitz-John, late wife to Thomas, sometyme Earl of Desmond, for terme of lyef as for her dower.' It appears that Raleigh had good reason to know the aged lady, as he received a grant out of the forfeited Desmond property, with the obligation to plant it with English families; and we find him excusing himself for the non-fulfilment of this engagement by saying, "There remaynes unto me but an old castle and demayne, which are yet in occupation of the old Countess of Desmond for her jointure.'

After all, Raleigh did lease at least two portions of the lands, one to John Cleaver, another to Robert Reve, both in 1589, for rents which were to be of a certain amount after the decease of the Lady Cattelyn old Countess Dowager of Desmond, widow,' as the documents shew.f

Another important contemporary reference to the old Countess is that made by the traveller Fynes Morrison, who was in Ireland from 1599 to 1603, and was, indeed, shipwrecked on the very coast where the aged lady lived. He says in his Itinerary: 'In our time the Countess of Desmond lived to the age of about one hundred and forty years, being able to go on foot four or five miles to the market-town, and using weekly so to do in her last years; and not many years before she died, she had all her teeth renewed.' After hearing on such good authority of her ladyship's walking powers, we may the less boggle at the tradition regarding the manner of her death, which has been preserved by the Earl of Leicester. According to him, the old lady might have drawn on the thread of life somewhat longer than she did, but for an accident. She must needs,' says he, climb a nut-tree to gather nuts; so, falling down, she hurt her thigh, which brought a fever, and that brought death.'

It is plain that, if the Countess was one hundred and forty in 1604, she must have been born in the reign of Edward IV. in 1464, and might be married in his reign, which did not terminate till 1483. It might also be that the tradition about the Countess was true, that she had danced at the English Court with the Duke of Gloucester (Richard III.), of whom it is said she used to affirm that 'he was the handsomest man in the *Quarterly Review, March 1853.

+ The Old Countess of Desmond; an Inquiry, &c., by Richard Sainthill. Dublin, 1861. p. 30.

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Raymond of Pennafort was a Spanish saint, who derived his fame from having been one of the earliest and most devoted of the order of St Dominick. By wonderful exertions as a missionary preacher, he restored large portions of his country to Christianity, which had previously been wholly in possession of the Moors. Towards the end of his life, having been taken by James king of Arragon to the island of Majorca, he met there with the most brilliant success in converting the pagan inhabitants, but found all his happiness blighted by the personal immorality of the king, Failing to bring him to a better life, he desired to leave the island; but this the king would not permit. He even threatened with death any one who should help the holy man to make his escape. What followed may be stated in the words of Butler. The saint, full of confidence in God, said to his companion, A king of the earth endeavours to deprive us of the means of retiring; but the King of heaven will supply them." He then walked boldly to the waters, spread his cloak upon them, tied up one corner of it to a staff for a sail, and having made the sign of the cross, stepped upon it without fear, whilst his timorous companion stood trembling and wondering on the shore. On this new kind of vessel the saint was wafted with such rapidity that in six hours he reached the harbour of Barcelona, sixty leagues distant from Majorca. Those who saw him arrive in this manner met him with acclamations. But he, gathering up his cloak dry, put it on, stole through the crowd, and entered his monastery. A chapel and a tower, built on the place where he landed, have transmitted the memory of this miracle to posterity. This relation,' says our author, with all desirable gravity, 'is taken from the bull of his canonization, and the earliest historians of his life. The king became a sincere convert, and governed his conscience, and even his kingdoms, by the advice of St Raymond, from that time till the death of the

saint.'

Died.-James Earl of Moray, Regent of Scotland, 1570; William Pitt, statesman, 1806; Sir Francis Burdett, political character, 1844; Archdeacon Hare,

1855.

DEATH OF MR PITT.

DEATH OF MR PITT.

The last months of the life of this great statesman were embittered by a succession of defeats and reverses, such as might break the proudest or the most stoical spirit that ever swayed the destinies of a great nation. The overthrow of the new coalition which he had succeeded in forming against the French ascendency in the latter part of 1805, is supposed to have combined with the vexation arising from the impeachment of his friend, Lord Melville, to destroy him. Nevertheless, the vigour of his intellectual faculties, and the intrepid haughtiness of his spirit, remained to appearance unaltered. But he could health, and the constant anxiety which gnawed at not conceal from the public eye the decay of his his heart. He had staked everything on a great venture. When the news came of Napoleon's defeat of the great Austrian army and the surrender of Ulm, the minister would give no credit to the rumour; when it was confirmed, he tried to bear up, but death was in his face. The news of the victory of Trafalgar, which arrived in a few days, seemed to revive him; and in two days more, when he dined on Lord Mayor's day in Guildhall, in returning thanks for his health being drunk, he said, "Let us hope that England, having saved herself by her energy, may save Europe by her example." These were the last words that he uttered in public. But Austerlitz soon completed what Ulm had begun; and the peculiar look which Pitt wore after this calamitous event, was described by Wilberforce as the Austerlitz look.

He

Early in December, Pitt retired to Bath, hoping that he might there gather strength for the coming session of Parliament. While there the news reached him of a decisive battle that had been fought and lost in Moravia, and that the coalition was dissolved. He sank under the blow. came up from Bath by slow journeys, and on the 11th of January, 1806, reached his villa at Putney. On the 20th was to be the parliamentary dinner at the house of the First Lord of the Treasury, in Downing-street; and the cards were already issued. But the days of the great minister were numbered.

The villa is pleasantly situated upon Putney Heath, surrounded by a few acres of pleasure ground; and the minister's only chance for life was, that he should spend some months in such repose as this rural retreat afforded. His colleagues in the ministry paid him short visits, and carefully avoided conversation on politics. But his spirit was not quenched even in this extremity. His friend, the Marquess Wellesley, had, a few days before Mr Pitt's return to Putney, arrived in England, after an absence of eight years in India. He wrote to Mr Pitt, who, on the 12th of January, replied from Putney Hill, acknowledging to have received, with inexpressible pleasure, the Marquess's most friendly and affectionate letter, requesting to see him at the first possible moment,' adding, 'I am recovering rather slowly from a series of stomach complaints, followed by severe attacks of gout; but I believe I am now in the way of real amendment.'

This was one of the last letters Mr Pitt ever

wrote. He received the Marquess with his usual kindness and good humour; he talked cheerfully, and with an unclouded mind, and spoke in the warmest terms of commendation of the Marquess's brother, Arthur, saying, 'I never met with any military officer with whom it was so satisfactory to converse. He states every difficulty before he undertakes any service, but none after he has undertaken it.' But the Marquess saw that the hand of death was upon the minister, although the melancholy truth was not known nor believed by either his friends or his opponents.

The excitement of this interview was too much for the sick man; he fainted away, and Lord Wellesley left the house, convinced that the close was fast approaching.

The

Lord Wellesley having learned that an amendment hostile to Mr Pitt was to be proposed in the House of Commons, warned Lord Granville of the minister's approaching death; he received the fatal intelligence with a burst of tears, and on the first day there was no debate. It was rumoured that evening that Mr Pitt was better; but on the following morning his physicians pronounced that there were no hopes. commanding faculties,' says Lord Macaulay, of which he had been too proud, were now beginning to fail. His old tutor and friend, the Bishop of Lincoln, informed him of his danger, and gave such religious advice and consolation as a confused and obscured mind could receive. Stories were told of devout sentiments fervently uttered by the dying man. But these stories found no credit with anybody who knew him. Wilberforce pronounced it impossible that they could be true." "Pitt," he added, "always said less than he thought on such topics." It was asserted in many after-dinner speeches, Grub-street elegies, and academic prize poems, and prize declamations, that the great minister died exclaiming, Oh! my country!" This is a fable; but it is true that the last words which he uttered, while he knew what he said, were broken exclamations about the alarming state of public affairs. He ceased to breathe on the morning of the 23rd of January 1806, the twenty-fifth anniversary of the day on which he first took his seat in Parliament. He was in his forty-seventh year, and had been, during near nineteen years, excepting for a short interval, First Lord of the Treasury, and undisputed chief of the administration. Since parliamentary government was established in England, no English statesman had held supreme power so long. Walpole, it is true, was First Lord of the Treasury during more than twenty years; but it was not till Walpole had been some time First Lord of the Treasury that he could be properly called Prime Minister.'

66

With respect to the last moments of the great minister, it was told to a visitor to the house at Putney Hill, in 1817, by a person who was in the chamber a little before Mr Pitt's death, that it was heated to a very high and oppressive temperature; and that the deep voice of the dying minister, as he asked his valet a question, startled the visitor who had been unused to it. He died calmly, and apparently under none of those political perturbations which, at the period, were ascribed to his last moments.'

OPENING OF ROYAL EXCHANGE.

A public funeral and a monument were voted to Pitt by Parliament. The funeral took place on the 22nd of February: the corpse, having lain in state during two days in the Painted Chamber, was borne, with great pomp, to the northern transept of Westminster Abbey. A splendid train of princes, nobles, and privy councillors followed. The grave of Pitt had been made near to the spot where his great father, Lord Chatham, lay, and near also to the spot where his great rival (Fox) was soon to lie:

"The mighty_chiefs sleep side by side;
Drop upon Fox's grave the tear,

"Twill trickle to his rival's bier.'-Scott. Wilberforce, who carried the banner before Pitt's hearse, described the ceremony with deep feeling. As the coffin descended into the earth, he said, the eagle face of Chatham from above seemed to look down with consternation into the dark house which was receiving all that remained of so much power and glory.

OPENING OF THE FIRST ROYAL EXCHANGE.

In the sixteenth century, Antwerp had led the way in preparing a house specially for the daily assembling of merchants-what was then called a Byrsa or Burse, a term of mediæval Latin, implying expressly a purse, but more largely a place of treasure. The want of such a point of daily rendezvous was felt in London as early as the reign of Henry VIII.; but it was not till the days of his lion-hearted daughter that the idea was realised, through the exertions and liberality of the celebrated Sir Thomas Gresham, a London merchant, who had been royal agent at Antwerp, and ambassador at the minor Italian Court of Parma.

Sir Thomas met with innumerable difficulties in the preliminary arrangements for building his Burse. Some of the merchants preferred the old place of assembling in Lombard-street; others advocated a site between Lombard-street and Cornhill. At length we find the wardens of the twelve principal companies calling upon Gresham at his mansion in Bishopsgate-street, at eight o'clock in the morning, to make arrangements for the site. It was then settled that the houses to be removed for the site including a 'little old house in Cornehill, inhabited by a widow, which the cytte was driven to buy' for 100 marks— should all be cleared away for the workmen 'to fall in hand with the foundation.' Thirty-eight houses-some of them cottages, a store-house, and two gardens were demolished in order to make room for the Burse.

The simple manner in which the edifice was given to the citizens is not the least striking incident. On the 9th of February 1565-6, Sir Thomas Gresham, at the house of Alderman Rivers, in company with Sir William Garrard, Sir William Cheeton, Thomas Rowe, and other citizens, most frankly and lovingly promised that within a month after the Burse should be fully finished, he would present it, in equal moieties, to the City and the Mercers' Company. In token of his sincerity, he thereupon gave his hand to Sir William Garrard, and, in the presence of his assembled friends, drank a carouse to his kinsman, Thomas Rowe. How rarely,' remarks

WONDERS IN THE AIR.

WONDERS IN THE AIR.

23rd January 1642 [1643], was published A great Wonder in Heaven, shewing, &c.,'-a thin brochure now exceedingly rare. Its statement was to the effect, that on a Saturday in the by-past Christmas time, there had occurred at Keniton, in Northamptonshire, the apparition and noise of a battle in the air, a ghostly repetition of the conflict which two months before had taken place on the adjacent fields at Edgehill between the forces of the King and the Parliament. It was between twelve and one in the morning that there was 'heard, by some shepherds and other countrymen and travellers, first the sound of drums afar off, and the noise of soldiers, as it were, giving out their last groans; at which they were much amazed, and amazed stood still, till it seemed by the nearness of the noise to approach them; at which, too much affrighted, they sought to withdraw as fast as possibly they could; but then on a sudden, while they were in these cogitations, appeared in the air the same incorporeal soldiers that made those clamours, and immediately, with ensigns displayed, drums beating, muskets going off, cannons discharged, horses neighing, which also to these men were visible, the alarum or entrance to this game of death was struck up; one army, which gave the first charge, having the King's colours, and the other the Parliament's, in their head or front of the battles, and so pell-mell to it they went; the battle that appeared to [be] the King's forces seeming at first to have the best, but afterwards to be put into apparent rout. But till two or three in the morning in equal scale continued this dreadful fight, the clattering of arms, noise of cannons, cries of soldiers, so amazing and terrifying the poor men, that they could not believe they were mortal, or give credit to their ears and eyes. Run away they durst not, for fear of being made a prey to these infernal soldiers; and so they, with much fear and affright, stayed to behold the success of the business. After some three hours' fight, that army which carried the King's colours withdrew, or rather appeared to fly; the other remaining, as it were, masters of the field, stayed a good space triumphing, and expressing all the signs of joy and conquest, and then, with all their drums, trumpets, ordnance, and soldiers, vanished. The poor men, glad they were gone, made with all haste to Keniton; and there knocking up Mr Wood, a justice of the peace, who called up his neighbour, Mr Marshall, the minister, they gave them an account of the whole passage, and averred it upon their oaths to be true.'

What follows is most remarkable of all. The gentlemen thus apprised of what had taken place, suspending their judgments till the next night about the same hour, they, with the same men, and all the substantial men of that and the neighbouring parishes, drew thither; where, about half an hour after their arrival, on Sunday, being Christmas night, appeared, in the same tumultuous warlike manner, the same two adverse armies, fighting with as much spite and spleen as formerly.. The next night they appeared not, nor all that week.

But on

HON. CHARLES TOWNSHEND.

the ensuing Saturday night, in the same place, and at the same hour, they were again seen with far greater tumult, fighting in the manner above mentioned for four hours, or very near, and then vanished, appearing again on Sunday night, and performing the same actions of hostility and bloodshed.... Successively the next Saturday and Sunday the same tumults and prodigious sights and actions were put in the state and condition they were formerly. The rumour whereof coming to his Majesty at Oxford, he immediately dispatched thither Colonel Lewis Kirke, Captain Dudley, Captain Waithman, and three other gentlemen of credit, to take the full view and notice of the said business; who, first hearing the relation of Mr Marshall and others, stayed there till Saturday night following, wherein they saw and heard the fore-mentioned prodigies, and so on Sunday, distinctly knowing divers of the apparitions by their faces, as that of Sir Edmund Varney, and others that were there slain; of which, upon oath, they made testimony to his Majesty."

HON. CHARLES TOWNSHEND.

January 23, 1748, the Hon. Charles Townshend, writing to a friend, says, 'I cannot go to the Opera, because I have forsworn all expense which does not end in pleasing me.' If this were a rule generally followed, and the reserved means bestowed in judicious efforts for the good of others, what an improved world it would be!

Charles Townshend is one of the minor celebrities of the last century: he died in 1767, at the age of forty-two. Burke, referring some years after to his services in parliament, said he could not even then speak of Charles Townshend without some degree of sensibility. He was the delight and ornament of this House, and the charm of every private society which he honoured with his presence. Perhaps there never arose in this country, nor in any country, a man of more pointed and finished wit, and (where his passions were not concerned) of a more refined, exquisite and penetrating judgment.'

It was the good fortune of Charles to gain favour with a young and noble widow, the Countess of Dalkeith (daughter of John Duke of Argyll, and mother of Henry Duke of Buccleuch). Sir Walter Scott relates the following anecdote regarding this alliance: When he [Charles Townshend] came to Scotland [after the marriage], the tide of relations, friends, and vassals, who thronged to welcome the bride, were so negligent of her husband, as to leave him in the hall, while they hurried his lady forwards into the state apartments, until he checked their haste by exclaiming, "For Heaven's sake, gentlemen, consider I am at least Prince George of Denmark!"'+

This union introduced Mr Townshend to the society of the then brilliant circle of Scottish literati. But, if we may depend upon the judgment of the Rev. Alexander Carlyle, these gentlemen judged his talents to be more of a showy

*Copied (with modernised spelling) from the transcript of the original brochure, Appendix to Lord Nugent's Life of John Hampden, ii. 468.

† Jesse's Life of George Selwyn.
Quarterly Review, xxxiv. 202.