The whole is worth your reprinting, and at your service, if you will send a copyist to the Literary Gazette office to inspect the volume for 1827.

W.J., ED.

“Regis ad Exemplum totus componitur Orbis” (Vol. ii., p. 267.).—­This hexameter verse, which occurs in collections of Latin apophthegms, is not to be found in this form, in any classical author.  It has been converted into a single proverbial verse, from the following passage of Claudian: 

“Componitur orbis Regis ad exemplum:  nec sic inflictere sensus Humanos edicta valent, ut vita regentis.” De IV.  Consul.  Honor., 299.

L.

St. Uncumber (Vol. ii., pp. 286. 342.).—­Sir Thomas More details in his Dialoge, with his usual quaintness, the attributes and merits of many saints, male and female, highly esteemed in his day, and, amongst others, makes special mention of St. Uncumber, whose proper name, it appears, was Wylgeforte.  Of these saints he says—­

“Some serve for the eye onely, and some for a sore breast. St. Germayne onely for children, and yet will he not ones loke at them, but if the mother bring with them a white lofe and a pot of good ale:  and yet is he wiser than St. Wylgeforte, for she, good soule, is, as they say, served and contented with otys.  Whereof I cannot perceive the reason, but if it be bycause she sholde provyde an horse for an evil housebonde to ride to the Devyll upon; for that is the thing that she is so sought for, as they say.  In so much that women hath therefore chaunged her name, and in stede of St. Wylgeforte call her St. Uncumber, bycause they reken that for a pecke of otys she will not fayle to uncumber theym of theyr housbondys.”—­(Quoted in Southey’s Colloquies, vol. i. p. 414.)

St. Wylgeforte is the female saint whom the Jesuit Sautel has celebrated (in his Annus Sacer Poeticus) for her beard—­a mark of Divine favour bestowed upon her in answer to her prayers.  She was a beautiful girl, who wished to lead a single life, and that she might be suffered to do so free from importunity, she prayed earnestly to be rendered disagreeable to look upon, either by wrinkles, a hump on the back, or in any other efficacious way.  Accordingly the beard was given her; and it is satisfactory to know that it had the desired {382} effect to the fullest extent of her wishes. (Vid.  Southey’s Omniana, vol. ii. p. 54., where Sautel’s lines are quoted.)

J.M.B.

West (James), President of Royal Society (Vol. ii., p. 289.).—­T.S.D. states there “has certainly never been a president or even a secretary of the Royal Society, of the name of James West.”  Your readers will remember that West is mentioned by Mr. Cunningham in his London, as having filled the former distinguished office:  his statement, which T.S.D. thus contradicts, is perfectly correct.