250 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 202. 



from propriety. This is particularly remarkable in 

 his Homer, where he has numerous Irish rhymes 

 like "peace" and "race:" besides "war" and 

 "car ;" "far," " dare ;" with many other still more 

 barbarous metres. But all those were by regular 

 design : for, if ever poet " lisped in numbers," it 

 was he; and "the numbers came" at his command. 

 He introduced those uncouth rhymes to somewhat 

 roughen his too long continued melody, just as 

 certain discords are allowed in great musical com- 

 positions. It stowed good judgment, for they are 

 an agreeable change by variation. Other English 

 poets too have false rhymes : for even Gray, in his 

 celebrated Elegy, has "toil" and "smile;" "abode" 

 and " God." 



But, with respect to Irish poets, Swift should 

 not have been mentioned at all ; because, with 

 perhaps the exception of his " Cadenus and Va- 

 nessa," his poetry was of the doggerel kind ; and 

 he purposely used Irish rhymes and debased 

 English. Thus, in the "Lady's Dressing-room:" 



" Five hours, and who could do it less in ? 

 By haughty C^lia spent in dressing." 



Will any one say it was through ignorance that he 

 did not sound the g in dressing ? Pope, in his 

 " Eloisa to Abelard," which is sweetness to excess, 

 concludes with : 



" He best can paint 'era who has felt 'em most." 



Why this is a downright vulgarism compared to 

 Swift's open and undisguised doggerel : 

 " Libertas et natale solum : 

 Fine words ! I wonder where you stole 'em." 



Leaving Swift out of the question, Irish poets 

 are much more careful about their rhymes than 

 the English ; because they know that what would 

 be excused or overlooked in them, would be 

 deemed ignorance on their own parts. I venture 

 to assert, that there are more false rhymes in 

 Pope's Iliad alone than in all the poems of Gold- 

 smith and Moore together ; though I must again 

 observe that those of Pope were all intentional. 



A. B. C. 



ATTAINMENT OF MAJORITT. 



(Vol. viii., p. 198.) 



A. E. B. has not quoted quite correctly. He has 

 put two phrases of mine into Italics, which makes 

 them appear to have special relation to one another, 

 while the word which / put in Italics, " ninth,'' he 

 has made to be " 9th." Farther, he has left out 

 some words. The latter part should run thus, the. 

 words left out being in brackets : 



"... though he were born [a minute before mid- 

 night] on the 10th, he is of age to execute a settlement 

 at a minute after midnight on the morning of the 9th, 

 forty-eight hours all but two minutes before he has 

 drawn breath for the space of twenty-one years." 



Had the quotation been correct, it would have 

 been better seen that I no more make the day of 

 majority begin a minute after midnight, than I 

 make the day of birth end a minute before mid- 

 night. A second, or even the tenth of a second, 

 would have done as well. 



The old reckoning, of which I was speaking, was 

 the reckoning which rejects fractions ; and the mat- 

 ter in question was the day. For my illustration, 

 any beginning of the day would have done as well 

 as any other ; on this I must refer to the paper 

 itself. Nevertheless, I was correct in implying 

 that the day by which age is reckoned begins at 

 midnight ; and I believe it began at midniglit in 

 the time of Ben Jonson. The law recognised two 

 kinds of days; — the natural day of twenty-four 

 hours, the artificial day from sunrise to sunset. 

 The iairthday, and with it the day of majority, 

 would needs be the natural day; for otherwise 

 a child not born by daylight would have no birth- 

 day at all. I cannot make out that the law ever 

 recognised a day of twenty-four hours beginning at 

 any hour except midnight. For payment of rent, 

 the artificial day was recognised, and the tenant 

 was required to tender at such time before sunset as 

 would leave the landlord time to count the money 

 by daylight ; a reasonable provision, when we 

 think upon the vast number of different coins 

 Avhich were legal tender. But even here it seems 

 to have been held that though the landlord might 

 enter at sunset, the forfeiture could not ' be en- 

 forced if the rent were paid before midnight. A 

 legal friend suggested to me that perhaps Ben 

 Jonson had more experience of the terminus of the 

 day as between landlord and tenant, than of that 

 which emancipates a minor. This would not have 

 struck me : but a lawyer views man simply as the 

 agent or patient in distress, ejectment, quo war- 

 ranto, &c. 



A. E. B. twice makes the question refer to 

 usage, whereas I was describing laio. If I were 

 as well up in the drama as I should like to be, I 

 might perhaps find a modern plot which turns 

 upon a minor coming of age, in which the first 

 day of majority is what is commonly called the 

 birthday, instead of, as it ought to bo, the day 

 before. Writers of fiction have in all times had 

 fictitious law. If we took decisions from the 

 novelists of our own day, we should learn, among 

 other things, that married women can in all cir- 

 cumstances make valid wills, and that the destruc- 

 tion of the parchment and ink which compose the 

 material of a deed is also the destruction of all 

 power to claim under it. 



Singularly enough, this is the second case in 

 which my paper on reckoning has been both mis- 

 quoted and misapprehended in "N. & Q." My 

 knowledge of the existence of this periodical began 

 with a copy of No. 7. (containing p. 107., Vol. i.), 

 forwarded to me by the courtesy of the Editor, on 



