616 YONGE STREET AND DUNDAS STREET, 



the story really wrapped up in the name of a given place cannot be 

 unwelcome. 



Sir Thomas Browne, in his " Urn-burial," says : " To be content 

 that times to come should only know there was sueh a man, without 

 caring whether they knew more of him, was a frigid ambition in 

 Cardan. For who careth," he asks, "to subsist like Hippocrates' 

 patients, or Achilles' horses in Homer, under naked nominations, 

 withoiit deserts and noble acts, which are the balsam of our memories^ 

 the entelechia and soul of our subsistences'?" 



And even so in respect of local names amongst us, borrowed from, 

 worthies of a former day — it may be taken for granted that thoughtful 

 persons will not wish to rest content with " naked nominations;" but, 

 on the contrary, will desire to become- familiar with the " entelechia," 

 as Sir Thomas Browne chooses learnedly to' express himself — ^the true 

 motive and "soul of their subsistences." 



I accordingly proceed to summon up, so far as I may, the shaded 

 of two partially forgotten personages, commemorated and honoured 

 in the style and title of two great thoroughfares familiar to Toronto 

 people and "Western Canadians generally — Yonge Street and Dundas 

 Street. I refer to Sir George Yonge and the Right Hon. Henry 

 Dundas, from whom those two well-known main-roads of the Province 

 of Ontario respectively have their appellations. 



I am assisted in my attempt to revive the forms of these two men 

 of mark in a former generation, by the possession of an engraved 

 portrait of each of them. That of Sir George Yonge is from a paint- 

 ing by Mather Brown, engraved by E. Scott, •' engraver to the Duke 

 of York and Prince Edward." It shows a full, frank, open, English 

 countenance, smoothly shaven, with pleasant intelligent eyes; the 

 mouth rather large, but expressive ; the chin double ; the hair natural 

 and abundant, but white with powder. The inscription below is : 

 " The Right Honourable Sir George Yonge, Bart., Secretary at War, 

 Knight of the Bath, One of Her Majesty's Most Honourable Privy 

 Council, F.R.S., F.A^., &c., M.P." 



I.— SIR GEORGE YONGE. 



Sir George Yonge was the chief representative of an ancient 

 Devonshire family. He was born in 1732, and sat in Parliament 

 for the borough of Honiton from 1754 to 1796. His father, the 

 fourth baronet, Sir "William Yonge, sat for the same place before 



