The Buckingham Motto

Permit me to suggest that your correspondents "S." and "P." (No. 18. pp. 283, 284.) are labouring under a mistaken notion in supposing that the line *Sovente me sorene*, belongs to the French idiom, and answers to our phrase "Forget me not." Such a sentiment would be sufficiently appropriate as the parting prayer or injunction of a lover, but does not possess the essential characteristic of a *motto*, which one selects for the purpose of declaring his own sentiments of conduct towards *others*, not to deprecate or direct those of others towards *himself*. The language employed is, in part, pur…