Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 5.djvu/395

 io" s. v. APRIL 28, 1906.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

323

Lloyd and G. Colman.' It can easily be conceived that this collection of parodies must have been distasteful to the sensitive mind of Gray ; and even if he knew of the volume, the absence of any allusion to it in his letters is thus explicable.
 * The Bard, a Burlesque Ode, written by II.

The * Frontispiece ' is a copper engraving of the Bard "plunging to endless night deep in the roaring tide." There are also head and tail pieces engraved on copper to the ' Elegy ' : and a rough woodcut at the end of the volume, showing Pegasus unhorsing his reckless rider, illustrates the last stanza of the ' Burlesque Ode.' W. F. PEIDEAUX.

THE GUNNINGS OF CASTLE COOTE.

ABOUT three miles from the town of Ros- common, and close to the village of Fuerty, stands the castle built by Sir Charles Coote in tlie early years of tlfe seventeenth century (to check the excursions of the native rebels), which from the first has borne the name of Castle Coote. According to a time-honoured tradition, the beautiful Miss Gunnings spent a portion of their girlhood in a thatched house which stood near the walls of the ancient stronghold, on the same site as the present mansion. It is certain that their grandfather lived here, for in his will, dated 15 January, 1717, he is described as Bryan Gunning, of Castle Coote ; but there seems to be no evidence, among the numerous deeds concerning the family preserved at the Dublin Record Office, to prove that it ever was the residence of their father, John Gunning, after he was married. From a deed of settlement dated 24 August, 1731, which through the kindness of Lady liussell, the gifted authoress, I have been able to examine, it appears that at this date the father of the beauties, then a bachelor, was living at Castle Strange, about three miles from Castle Coote. Several other residences belonging to the Gunnings are mentioned in the same document, such as Holy well, where Barnaby, the brother of John Gunning, was living, and " the Manor Town and Lands of Clooniburn," which, according to a will dated 12 April, 1731 (Dublin Probate Office), had been the seat of George, the eldest brother, and the heir to the estates of his father, old Bryan, of Castle Coote. Another property is described by the deed as "a house and garden called the New Inn at Abbey town"; but although there is a de- tailed schedule of various lands, it is not declared that Castle Coote continued to form a portion of the estates. Yet it is evident

that George Gunning lived here after the- death of his father (v. Indented Deed, vol. cxix. fol. 50, No. 81351, Dublin Record Office) ; and it is equally clear that he is- described as the owner of Clooniburn when he signed his last will and testament in April, 1731. Since it appears from the deed of settlement of August in this same year that he had died recently, encumbered with debts, it seems probable that, being obliged to leave the home of his ancestors, he had taken up his residence on another estate. At all events, we do not hear of Castle Coote in connexion with the Gunning family after the year 1731.

Through the documents in the Dublin- Record Office the vicissitudes of other pro- perties belonging to the family can be traced with tolerable exactitude. Before his mar- riage, in October, 1731, to Bridget Bourke, daughter of Theobald, sixth Viscount Mayo, John Gunning had leased Castle Strange to a cousin Robert (v. Deed of Lease and Re- lease, 68, 6, 46817, Dublin Record Office) ; and on 16 June, 1742, the place was sold to- William Ousley (id, 110, 367, 77969). Appa- rently, the home of the spendthrift George met a similar fate, for on 15 September, 1743, the lands of Clooniburn were assigned to John Kelly (112, 134, 77392). With regard to the house at Holy well, it has been suggested by the Rev. J. J. Kelly (v. 'Early Haunts of Goldsmith,' p. 75) as the home of the cele- brated beauties, who are said to have acquired their incomparable complexions from the waters of St. Bridget's Pool hard by. For- tunately for romance, there is nothing in- credible in the story that the ladies tested the qualities of the magic well ; but unless the Gunnings owned two houses in the neigh- bourhood, it is improbable that they lived here. It has been shown that their uncle Barnaby resided at Holy well in August, 1731, as he continued to do after the marriage of his brother John (68, 6, 46817); and the various leases and releases granted by him, which may be found in the Dublin Record Office, prove that he did not change his* abode.

Let us now trace the movements of John, the father of the beautiful Miss Gunnings. Almost immediately after his marriage to Bridget Bourke on 23 October, 1731, as Lady Russell was the first to point out, he took up his residence at Hemingford Grey, two miles from St. Ives, in Huntingdonshire, in the Manor or Red House, which belonged to his- brother-in-law Wm. Mitchell, of Carshalton. Hitherto the date of his removal to Ireland has been the subject of conjecture. Obviously