The discrepancy of these two accounts is obvious--if it "_be written in an old hand, 'The Mother of Rembrandt,'_" on the back of the picture, it seems strange that Pennant should _omit_ the first three words; if they be not so written, it seems equally strange that Walpole should venture to _add_ them. I presume the picture at Windsor is still extant; and probably some reader of "N. & Q." having access to it, will be so good as to settle the question of accuracy and veracity between two gentlemen, of whom one must be guilty of _suppressio veri_, or the other of _suggestio falsi_. Horace Walpole, or his editor, must have corrected his "Fugitive Pieces" since the "Strawberry Hill edition," to which J. H. M. refers, was printed; for in the edition I have consulted, instead of saying "I can make no sense of the word _noie_," the meaning is correctly given in a foot-note to the inscription; and the passage given by J. H. M. is altogether omitted from the text. I must now proceed in my bold attempt to show that Horace Walpole knew nothing of a matter, into which he made a "minute inquiry." This may seem presumptuous in a tyro towards one of the old masters of antiquarian lore and research; but I plead in apology the great advance of the science since Horace Walpole's days, and the greater plenty of materials for forming or correcting a judgement. It has been well said, that a single chapter of Mr. Charles Knight's _Old England_ would full furnish and set up an antiquarian of the last century; and this is true, such and so many are the advantages for obtaining information, which we modern antiquaries possess over those who are gone before us; and lastly, to quote old Fuller's quaintness, I would say that "a dwarf on a giant's shoulders can see farther than he who carries him:" thus do I explain and excuse my attempt to impugn the conclusion of Horace Walpole. Walpole's first conjectures applied to a Countess of Desmond, whose tomb is at Sligo in Ireland, and who was widow to that _Gerald_, the sixteenth earl, _ingens rebellibus exemplar_, who was outlawed, and killed in the wood of _Glanagynty_, in the county of Kerry, A.D. 1583. Walpole applied to an Irish correspondent for copies of the inscriptions on her tomb; but we need not follow or discuss the supposition of her identity with "the old Countess" further, for he himself abandons it, and writes to his Irish correspondent thus:--"_The inscriptions you have sent me have not cleared away the difficulties relating to the Countess of Desmond; on the contrary, they make me doubt whether the lady interred at Sligo was the person reported to have lived to such an immense age._"