Page:Notes by the Way.djvu/157

 NOTES BY THE WAY.

��87

��ing Street," call to mind the many notes, queries, and replies ' N. & Q.' has had on the subject. The first reference was made in the number of the 4th of May, 1850, under 'Notes from Cunning- ham's " Handbook for London," ' where it is stated that at the beginning of the nineteenth century the only official residence in the street was that of the First Lord of the Treasury, but by degrees one house was bought after another first the Foreign Office, then the Colonial Office, and afterwards a house for the Chancellor of the Exchequer. On the 7th of December " Alpha " asks for information as to Sir George Downing, to which Mr. Cooper, of Cambridge, replies on the 21st of December. On the 25th of January, 1851, J. P. C. states that

" Sir George Downing was not the son of Calibut Downing, Rector of Hackney, but of Emmanuel Downing, a London merchant, who went to New England. Governor Hutchinson, in his ' History of Massa- chusetts,' gives the true account of Downing' s affiliation, which has been further confirmed by Mr. Savage, of Boston, from the public records of New England."

On the 15th of March C. H. confirms the accuracy of the memo- randum as to Sir G. Downing's parentage by giving an extract from a letter in Carte's ' Letters,' ii. 319. The letter is from T. Howard to Charles II., written April 5, 1660. Under ' Notes on Pepys's Diary,' on the 1st of July, 1854, further reference is made to Sir George Downing ; also at 2 S. xii. 420 ; 7 S. ix. 172 ; 8 S. ii. 464 ; iii. 39.

Mr. Choate, in the course of his speech, stated that the school which he had the good fortune to attend in Massachusetts " the best colony that was ever planted under the English flag, and planted in the best way, because the colonists were driven out to shift for themselves " had over the entrance archway the inscription " Schola Publica Prima " (it was the first public school organized in Massachusetts), and underneath was inscribed the name of the first pupil of that school, George Downing, who was also the first graduate sent out by Harvard College in 1642. Mr. Choate then gave an amusing sketch of Downing's career in England, where " he hoodwinked Cromwell," and after the Protector's death " tried his arts " upon the " Rump " : then, when the Restoration came, " practised his wily arts upon the Merry Monarch," whom he induced to grant him a great tract of land at Westminster, provided that the houses to be built there should be " handsome and graceful."

"So Downing built the houses and many others between there and Westminster Abbey, and the records of the time described them as ' pleasant mansions having a back-front to St. James's Park.' "

��Sir George Downing.

��Mr. Cboate's Speech at GnUdball.

��George

Downing

hoodwinks

Cromwell.

��He builds houses.

�� �