_The Countess of Desmond_ (Vol. v., p. 323.).--Having succeeded in
eliciting notices of various pictures of Oliver Cromwell attributed to
Cooper, without discovering the original miniature bequeathed to Richard
Burke by Sir Joshua Reynolds, I am tempted to mention that I once saw a
portrait of the Countess of Desmond, hitherto not described by any of
her biographers, but very much resembling the Windsor picture and
Penant's engraved print, though evidently the work of an inferior
artist. The portrait in question was a short time in my father's
possession, soon after the year 1800, having been delivered to him by
the executor of Mrs. Elizabeth Berkeley, an eccentric old lady, well
known as a correspondent of the _Gentleman's Magazine_, who left the
picture, with many others, to Lord Braybrooke. But it was soon claimed
by a Mr. Grimston of Sculcoates, in Yorkshire, who seemed to be entitled
to a great portion of the collection, and my father was glad to be
allowed to retain two fine views of Venice, painted by Canaletti for
Berkeley, Bishop of Cloyne, who was the father of Mrs. Berkeley's
husband, and which are still at Audley End. Perhaps this statement made
from memory at the end of fifty years may be of no value, but it shows
the existence of another likeness of the person always described as the
Countess of Desmond, and as it came originally from the collection of an
Irish prelate, it probably, like the lady herself, belonged to the
Emerald Isle.