[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 {222} 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.