The Countess of Desmond (Vol. ii., pp. 153. 186. 219. 317.).—Touching this venerable lady, the following "Note" may not be unacceptable.
In the year 1829, when making a tour in Ireland, I saw an engraving at Lansdowne Lodge, in the county of Kerry, the residence of Mr. Hickson, on which the following record was inscribed:—
"Catherine Fitzgerald, Countess of Desmond (from the original in the possession of the Knight of Kerry on Panell).
"She was born in 1464; married in the reign of Edw. IV.; lived during the reigns of Edw. V., Rich. III., Hen. VII., Hen. VIII., Edw. VI., Mary, and Elizabeth; and died in the latter end of James' or the beginning of Charles I.'s reign, at the great age of 162 years."
On my return home I was much surprised and gratified to find in my own house, framed and glazed, a very clever small-sized portrait in crayon, which at once struck me a a fac-simile (or nearly so) of the engraving I had seen at Lansdowne Lodge.
Your correspondent C. in p. 219. appears very sceptical about this female Methuselah! and speaks of a reputed portrait at Windsor "as a gross imposition, being really that of an old man"—
"Non nostrum tantus componere lites:"
but I would remind your correspondent C. that such longevity is not impossible, and the traditions of the Countess of Desmond are widely diffused. The portrait in my possession is not unlike an old man; but old ladies, like old hen pheasants, are apt to put on the semblance of the male.
A Borderer.
Aristophanes on the Modern Stage (Vol. iii., p. 105.).—In reply to a Query of our correspondent C. J. R., I beg leave to state, that, after having made inquiry on the subject, I cannot find that any of the Comedies of Aristophanes have ever been introduced upon the English stage, although I agree with him in thinking that some of them might be advantageously adapted to the modern theatre; and I am more confirmed in this opinion from having witnessed at the Odéon in Paris, some years since, a dramatic piece, entitled "Les Nuées d'Aristophane," which had a great run there. It was not a literal translation from the Greek author, but a kind of mélange, drawn from the Clouds and Plutus together. The characters of Socrates and his equestrian son were very well performed; but the scenic accessories I considered very meagre, particularly the choral part, which must have been so striking and beautiful in the original of the former drama. Upon my return to England I wrote to the then lessee of Drury Lane Theatre, recommending a similar experiment on our stage from the free version by Wheelwright, published some time before by the late D. A. Talboys, of Oxford. The answer I received was, that the manager had then too much on his hands to admit of his giving time to such an undertaking, which I still think might be a successful one (as is the case with the "Antigone"
of Sophocles, so often represented at Berlin), and such as to ensure the favourable attention of an English audience, particularly as the subject turns so much upon the danger and uselessness of the meteoric or visionary education, then so prevalent at Athens.