I am much obliged to your correspondent LAICUS for his inquiry respecting the proposed Society (Vol. ii., p. 464).  Will you allow me to express to him my confident hope, that the proposed plan, or some modification of it by a committee (when one shall exist) may in due time be carried out.  But there seems to be no reason for haste; and in the formation of such body it is desirable to have as many avowed supporters to select from as possible.  I do not think that the matter is much known yet, though I have to thank you for a kind notice; and I need not tell some of your correspondents that I have received very encouraging letters.  But, in truth, as I did not expect any profit, or desire any responsibility as to either money or management, and only wished to lay before the public an idea which had existed in my own mind for some years, and which had obtained the sanction of some whom I thought competent judges; and as I had, moreover, published pamphlets enough to know that a contribution of waste paper to any object is often one of the most costly, I did not feel myself called on to go to so much expense in advertising as I perhaps might have done if I had been spending the money of a society instead of my own.  I sent but few copies; none, I believe, except to persons with whom I had some acquaintance, and whom I thought likely to take more or less interest in the subject.

I trust, however, that the matter is quietly and solidly growing; and from communications which I have received, and resources on which I believe I may reckon, I feel no doubt that if it were considered desirable, friends and money enough to set such a society going might be immediately brought forward.  It is one advantage of the proposed plan, that it may be tried on almost any scale.  A society so constituted would NOT begin its existence {481} with great promises of returns to subscribers, and heavy engagements to printers, papermakers, and editors.  Its only necessary expenses would be those of management; and if the society were very small, these expenses would be so too.  It is, indeed, hardly possible to imagine that they should be such as not to leave something to be funded for future use, if they did not furnish means for immediate display; but it seems better to wait patiently until such real substantial support is guaranteed as may prevent all apprehension on that score.

S.R.  MAITLAND.

* * * * *

DEFENDER OF THE FAITH.

(Vol. ii., p. 442.)

It is quite startling to be told that the title of “Defender of the Faith” was used by any royal predecessor of Henry VIII.

Selden (Titles of Honour, ed 1631, p. 54) says: