On the return of the C.I.V. from the Boer War a prize was offered by Truth for the best motto appropriate to them. This was to consist of three words of which the first must begin with C the second with I and the third with V.
The prize was taken by the following Latin motto which is singularly happy both in construction and in meaning:—
| CIVI | IVI | VICI |
| I roused | I went | I won. |
The sequence of events is perfect; no letters but C.I.V. are used and the motto is a palindrome if read by syllables.
THE MUSICAL SCALE
As in olden days some of the Psalms and other writings were constructed in acrostic form, so in the Middle Ages even serious writers would juggle with letters, as though they felt that such tricky methods were an aid to memory.
It was in this spirit that Guido Aretino, a Benedictine monk of Tuscany in 1204, gave names to the notes used in the musical scale from the first syllables of the lines of a Latin hymn. “Ut” is still used in France, though we and the Italians have substituted “do.”
| UT queant laxis | REsonare fibris, |
| MIra gestorum | FAmuli tuorum, |
| SOLve polutis | LAbii reatis |
| O Pater alme! | |
ALL THE ALPHABET!
Many of us know that there is a long verse in the Book of Ezra in which all the letters of the alphabet are used, taking “j” as “i” (Ezra vii., v. 21).