Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 2.djvu/481

 9* s. ii. DEO. 10,

NOTES AND QUERIES.

473

Queen going in state to open Parliament

Mayor's quaint procession, the

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police in the crowd being readily distin- guishable by the shiny tops of their tall hats 1 he view of the Houses of Parliament was partly obscured by houses that stood then on the south side of Bridge Street, and at the corner was a public-house from which at 1 o clock issued chops under flat round metal covers on their way to neighbouring offices. Ihe Institution of Civil Engineers then had a more modest home than in these days ; the number of members was smaller, the per- centage of great men higher; the young men listened to them with awe and hoped. MR. WALTER HAMILTON has done a kindly act in recalling pleasant though fading memories W. C. L. FLOYD.

Whitehall is also dear to me on account of the kindness I received while on a visit in a house in that highly historic locality when passing through London in 1857. The house was called " The Irish Office " (a relation of mine was one of the officials in the head office in Dublin Castle) ; and I am really sorry that MR. WALTER HAMILTON has omitted all men- tion of it in his very interesting reminiscences of 'Old Parliament Street.' However, I request permission to remark that I shall much appreciate any information anent the house I have referred to that may be in the possession of readers of ' N. & Q.' There is an illustration of the old mansion it was at the northern end of Parliament Street, and faced Charing Cross in 'Old and New London,' vol. iii. p. 391, from a view published by Smith in 1807; and with regard to the de- molition of the houses in the neighbourhood,

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perhaps attention may be called to the fol- lowing, quoted from vol. iii. p. 382 of the same work :

"Pope, as usual, minutely accurate in details, thus writes in a spirit of prophecy, which it is needless to say has never yet been fulfilled to the letter :

Behold ! Augusta's glittering spires increase, And temples rise, the beauteous works of peace. I see, I see where two fair cities bend The ample bow, a new Whitehall ascend ; There mighty nations shall enquire their doom, The World's great oracle in times to come : There kings shall sue, and suppliant states be seen Once more to bend before a British Queen. And yet, after all, the seer may be regarded as not so very wide of the mark, if we interpret ' a new Whitehall ' to mean the new Houses of Parliament, and the new Foreign, Indian, and Colonial Offices, which have lately risen on the Park side of White- hall."

In conclusion, I beg to say that as Parlia- ment Street is now "past all surgery," I venture to think the quotation of a remark

of a gentleman in 'King Henry VIII.' will not be inappropriate :

Sir,

You must no more call it York Place, that 's past ; For since the cardinal fell that title 's lost : Tis now the king's, and called Whitehall.

Act IV. sc. i. HENRY GERALD HOPE.

GEORGE AS A FEMININE NAME (9 th S.ii. 307), The giving of the name George to a girl, though unusual, is not so singular as might be thought. I have only recently talked with a young lady who was thus named at her registration, and who is always known by the appellation to her friends. DUNHEVED.

George Hannah probably represents an attempt at writing Georgiana from pro- nunciation. In Bardsley's 'Curiosities of Puritan Nomenclature,' 1888, p. 224, there is :

" The following is interesting : ' 1616, July 13, being Saturday, about half an hour before 10 of the clocke in the forenoon was born the Lady Georgi- Anna, daughter to the Right Hon. Lady Frances, Countess of Exeter. And the Same Ladie Georgi- Anna was baptized 30th July.' "

This also answers in the affirmative, so early at least as 1616, the question as to the term " Right Honourable " as applied to a lady. ED. MARSHALL, F.S.A. [See ante, pp. 307, 436.]

I would like to suggest that the name George Hannah as it appears in the list referred to is probably the attempt of an unready writer to put down the not uncom- mon name of Georgiana. Mr. George Hannah was for several years the accomplished librarian of the Long Island Historical JOHN E. NORCROSS.

Society. Brooklyn, U.S.

George Anne Bellamy was a noted actress of the last century. M. N. G.

[George Anne Bellamy owed her name, it is said, to a mistake of the parish clerk. She was to have been really christened Georgiana, but stuck to the quaint names that appeared in the register.]

ERA IN ENGLISH MONKISH CHRONOLOGY (8 th S. xi. 387 ; xii. 421, 466 ; 9 th S. i. 10, 92, 231 ; ii. 29, 292). As I withdrew from this fruitless controversy in my note at the sixth reference, and as I have neither time nor inclination to reopen the discussion, I must content myself with stating that MR. ANS- COMBE'S quotation from Prof. Ruhl, which was cited by me in the note just referred to, in no way controverts the assertion of mine in the ' Crawford Charters ' that was attacked by MR. ANSCOMBE. My contention is that the era of the Incarnation for the dating of legal