J.H.M.
Bath.
Gwyn's London and Westminster (Vol. ii., p. 297.).—Under this head § N. inquires, "Will you permit me, through your useful publication, to solicit information of the number and date of the Literary Gazette which recalled public attention to this very remarkable fact:" namely, that stated by Mr. Thomas Hunt, in his Exemplars of Tudor Architecture (Longmans, 1830), to the effect that the Literary Gazette had referred to the work entitled London and Westminster Improved, by John Gwynn. London, 1766, 4to., as having "pointed out almost all the designs for the improvement of London which have been devised by the civil and military architects of the present day."
In answer to the above, your correspondent will find two articles in the Literary Gazette on this interesting subject; the first in No. 473., Feb. 11. 1826, in which it is mentioned that Mr. Gwynn, founding himself in some degree upon the plan of Sir C. Wren, proposed
"To carry a street from Piccadilly through Coventry Street, Sydney's Alley, Leicester Fields, Cranbourn Alley, and so to Long Acre, Queen Street, and Lincolns Inn Fields, and thus afford an easy access to Holborn; he also recommends the widening the Strand in its narrow parts," &c.
I need hardly notice that by the removal of Exeter Change, the alterations near Charing Cross, and the more recent openings from Coventry Street, along the line suggested by Mr. Gwynn, his designs have been so far carried out.
The second paper in the Literary Gazette was rather a long one, No. 532., March 31. 1827. In it Mr. Gwynn's publication is analysed, and all the leading particulars bearing on the "old novelties of our modern improvements" are brought to light.
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: