A. T. C.
[In Pepys's Diary, vol. i. p. 2. edit. 1848, occurs the following notice of Sir George Downing:—"Wood has misled us in stating that Sir George Downing was a son of Dr. Calibut Downing, the rector of Hackney. He was beyond doubt the son of Emmanuel Downing, a London merchant, who went to New England. It is not improbable that Emmanuel was a near kinsman of Calibut; how related has not yet been discovered. Governor Hutchinson, in his History of Massachusetts, gives the true account of Downing's affiliation, which has been farther confirmed by Mr. Savage, of Boston, from the public records of New England. Wood calls Downing a sider with all times and changes; skilled in the common cant, and a preacher occasionally. He was sent by Cromwell to Holland, as resident there. About the Restoration, he espoused the King's cause, and was knighted and elected M. P. for Morpeth, in 1661. Afterwards, becoming Secretary to the Treasury and Commissioner of the Customs, he was in 1663 created a Baronet of East Hatley, in Cambridgeshire, and was again sent ambassador to Holland. His grandson of the same name, who died in 1749, was the founder of Downing College, Cambridge. The title became extinct in 1764, upon the decease of Sir John Gerrard Downing, the last heir male of the family." According to Hutchinson, Sir George died in 1684.]
Unkid.—Can any of your readers inform me as to the derivation of this word, or give any instance of its recent use? I have frequently heard it in my childhood (the early part of the present century) among the rural population of Oxon and Berks. It was generally applied to circumstances of a melancholy or distressing character, but sometimes used to express a peculiar state of feeling, being apparently intended to convey nearly the same meaning as the ennui of the French. I
recollect an allusion to the phrase somewhere in Miss Mitford's writings, who speaks of it as peculiar to Berks; but as I was then ignorant of Captain Cuttle's maxim, I did not "make a note of it," so that I am unable to lay my hand on the passage.
G. T.
Reading.
[Mr. Sternberg also found this word in Northamptonshire: for in his valuable work on The Dialect and Folk Lore of that county occurs the following derivation of it:—"Unked, Hunkid, s. lonely, dull, miserable. 'I was so unked when ye war away.' 'A unked house,' &c. Mr. Bosworth gives, as the derivative, the A.-S. uncyd, solitary, without speech. In Batchelor's List of Bedfordshire Words, it is spelt ungkid.">[
Pilgrim's Progress.—The common editions contain a third part, setting forth the life of Tender-conscience: this third part is thought not to have been written by Bunyan, and is omitted from some, at least, of the modern editions. Can any of your readers explain by whom this addition was made, and all about it? The subject of the Pilgrim's Progress generally—the stories of a similar kind which are said to have preceded—especially in Catholic times—the history of its editions and annotations, would give some interesting columns.
M.
[Mr. George Offor, in his Introduction to The Pilgrim's Progress, published by the Hanserd Knollys Society in 1847, notices the third part as a forgery:—"In a very few years after Bunyan's death, this third part made its appearance; and although the title does not directly say that it was written by Bunyan, yet it was at first generally received as such. In 1695, it reached a second edition; and a sixth in 1705. In 1708, it was denounced in the title to the ninth edition of the second part, by a 'Note, the third part, suggested to be J. Bunyan's, is an imposture.' The author of this forgery is as yet unknown." Mr. Offor has also devoted fifty pages of his Introduction to the conjectured prototypes of Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. He says, "Every assertion or suggestion that came to my knowledge has been investigated, and the works referred to have been analysed. And beyond this, every allegorical work that could be found, previous to the eighteenth century, has been examined in all the European languages, and the result is a perfect demonstration of the complete originality of Bunyan.">[