Chapter Umbra to Unigenitus of U by Brewer's Readers Handbook

Uncommercial Traveller (The), twenty-eight miscellaneous papers published by Dickens in All the Year Round, and reproduced in 1860.

Uncumber (St.), another name for St. Wilgeforte. Sir Thomas More says—

The women hathe changed her name…because they reken that for a pecke of otes she wil not faile to vncumber them of their housbondes.—Works, p. 195.

Underground Railroad (The), a term used in the United States as the embodiment of the various ways by which slaves from the southern states made their escape either to the north or to Canada.

Undine [Oon-deen], a water-sylph, who was in early childhood changed for the young child of a fisherman living on a peninsula near an enchanted forest. One day, sir Huldbrand took shelter in the fisherman’s hut, fell in love with Undine, and married her. Being thus united to a man, the sylph received a soul. Not long after the wedding, sir Huldbrand returned homeward; but stopped awhile in the city which lay on the other side of the forest, and met there Bertalda, a haughty beauty. Sir Huldbrand and his bride invited Bertalda to go with them to their home, the Castle Ringstettin. For a time the knight was troubled with visions, but Undine had the mouth of a well closed up, and thus prevented the water-sprites from getting into the castle. In time, the knight neglected his wife and became attached to Bertalda, who was in reality the changeling. One day, sailing on the Danube, Huldbrand rebuked Undine in his anger, and immediately she was snatched away by sister sylphs to her water home. Not long after, the knight proposed to Bertalda, and the wedding day arrived. Bertalda requested her maid to bring her some water from the well; so the cover was removed, Undine rose from the upheaving water, went to the chamber of sir Huldbrand, kissed him, and he died. They buried him, and a silver stream bubbled round his grave; it was Undine who thus embraced him, true in life and faithful in death.—De la Motte Fouqué: Undine (1807).

This romance is founded on a tale by Theophrastus Paracelsus, in his Treatise on Elemental Sprites.

Unfortunate Lady (Elegy to the Memory of an), by Pope (1717). The lady meant is supposed to be Mrs. Weston, who was separated from her husband.

Ungrateful Bird (The). The pewit or green plover is so called in Scotland.

The green plover or pewit…is called ‘the ungrateful bird,” for that it comes to Scotland to breed, and then returns to England with its young to feed the enemy.—Captain Burt: Letters from the North of Scotland (1726).

Ungrateful Guest (The), a soldier in the army of Philip of Macedon, who had been hospitably entertained by a villager. Being asked by the king what he could give him in reward for his services, the fellow requested he might have the farm and cottage of his late host. Philip, disgusted at such baseness, had him branded with the words, The Ungrateful Guest.

Unicorn. The unicorn and lion are always like cat and dog, and as soon as a lion sees his enemy he betakes him to a tree. The unicorn, in his blind fury running pell-mell at his foe, darts his horn fast into the tree, and then the lion falls upon him and devours him.—Gesner: Historiœ Animalium (1551-87).

Wert thou the unicorn, pride and wrath would confound thee, and make thine own self the conquest of thy fury.—Shakespeare: Timon of Athens, iv. 3 (1699).

Unigenitus, the name given to the famous bull issued by pope Clement XI., in 1713, against the French translation of the New Testament with notes, by Pasquier Quesnel. It began with the words, “Unigenitus Dei Fihus.”