26 JULY 1913, Page 18

BREVITY.

[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."] SIR,—Your "little girl" compressed the life-history of Joan of Are into some dozen words. But the most impressive instance of brevity I know is the description of Orosius of Alaric's sack of Rome :— " Adest Alaricus; trepidam Romam obsidet, turbat, irrumpit." "Apropos, as the French valets say," may I enter here the best palindrome I know, brought to my notice long years ago by John Robert Seeley ? Moths attracted by the candle :— " In girnm imus nocte, ecce, et consumimnr igni."

I am given to understand that this was invented by the devil gloating over the fate of the damned. But, if so, he did not know the Greek upsilon.--I am, Sir, &c.,