Dec. 3. 1853.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



541 



the parliament in 1640, and died in 1648. What 

 theological works did he -write ? — From the Na- 

 vorsche?'. Dionysius. 



[Burton's pen was so prolific, that we cannot find 

 reom for a list of his works ; and must refer Dionysius 

 to the Bodleian Catalogue, where they fill nearly a 

 column, and to Watt's Bibliotheca, s.v.] 



British Mathematicians. — I am anxious to learn 

 if there is any book which contains an account of 

 the lives and works of eminent British arithme- 

 ticians and mathematicians ? Euclid. 



[Consult the following: — Biograplda Philosophica : 

 being an Account of the Lives, Writings, and In- 

 ventions of the most eminent Philosophers and Mathe- 

 maticians, by Benjamin Martin : London, 1764, 8vo. 

 There is also a Chronological Table of the most emi- 

 nent Mathematicians affixed to John Bossut's General 

 Histori/ of Mathematics, translated from the French by 

 •John Bonnycastle : London, 1803, 8vo. Some notices 

 of our early English mathematicians will also be found 

 in the Companion to the Almanac for 18557, and in the 

 Magazine of Popular Science, Nos. 18. 20. and 22.] 



"Zes Lettres Juices." — Will any of your corre- 

 spondents inform me who is the author of Lettres 

 Juives ? The first volume of my edition, in eight 

 volumes 12mo., has the portrait of Jean Batiste 

 B., Marquis de , nc le 29 Juin, 1704. J. R. 



JSunderland. 



[" Par le Marquis D'Argens," says Barbier.] 



aacjpitt;?. 



ATTAINMENT OF MAJOKITT. 



(Vol. viii., pp. 198. 250.) 



In replying to Professor De Morgan's last 

 communication on this subject, it may be as well, 

 in order to avoid future misunderstanding, to re- 

 vert briefly to ray original question. I pointed 

 out Ben Jonson's assertion, through a character in 

 one of his plays, that about the beginning of the 

 seventeenth century, it was the custom to regard 

 the legal rights of majority as commencing with 

 six o'clock A.M., and I asked to have that assertion 

 reconciled with our present commencement at 

 midnight, and with the statement that the latter 

 is in accordance with the old reckoning. 



Thus I started with the production of affirmative 

 evidence, to rebut which I cannot find, in the 

 replies of Professor De Morgan, any negative 

 evidence stronger than his individual opinion, 

 which, however eminent in other respects, has un- 

 doubtedly the disadvantage of being two hundred 

 years later than the contemporary evidence pro- 

 duced by me. I afterwards cited Arthur Hopton 

 as authority that lawyers in England, in his time, 

 did make use of a day which he classifies as that 

 of the Babylonians ; but inasmuch as he apparently 



restricts its duration to twelve hours, whereas all 

 ancient writers concur in assigning to the Baby- 

 lonians a day of twenty-four hours, there is evi- 

 dently a mistake somewhere, attributable either 

 to Hopton or his printers. 



This mistake may have arisen either from a 

 misprint, or from a transposition of a portion of 

 the sentence. 



The supposition of a misprint Is favoured by the 

 circumstance that Hopton was, at the time, pro- 

 fessing to describe natural days of twenty-four 

 hours; of these there are four great classes or 

 commencement, from the four principal quartei'S 

 of the day ; viz. from midnight, from mid-day, 

 from sun-setting, and from sun-rising. Hopton 

 had already assigned three of them to different 

 nations, and the fourth he had properly assigned, 

 so far as its commencement at sunrise was con- 

 cerned, to the Babylonians. What, then, can be 

 more probable than that he intended this day also, 

 like the rest, to be of twenty-four hours' duration ; 

 and that the words " holding till sun-setting " 

 ought, perhaps, to have been printed " holding till 

 sun-mino- ? " 



This way of reconciling seeming anomalies, by 

 the supposition of probable misprints, receives 

 great encouragement In the occasional occur- 

 rence of similar mistakes in the most carefully 

 printed modern books. I lately noticed, while 

 reading Sir James lloss's Southern Voyage of 

 Discovery, a work printed by the Admiralty, and 

 on which extraordinary typographical care had 

 been bestowed, the following, at page 121. of 

 vol. II. : 



" It was full moon on the 15th of September, at 

 5-38 A.M." 



But the context shows that " full moon " ought 

 to have been printed new moon, and that "5-38 a.m." 

 ought to be 5-38 p.m. : and what renders these two 

 mistakes the more remarkable Is, that they have 

 no sort of connexion, nor is the occurrence of the 

 one In any way explanatory of the other. 



Now, the misprint of " sun-setting" tot sun- 

 7-ising, which I am supposing In Hopton's book, 

 would be much more likely of occurrence than 

 these, because these form part of a series of care- 

 fully examined data from which a scientific deduc- 

 tion is to be drawn, while Hopton's is a mere loose 

 description. And, moreover, a twenty-four hour 

 day, commencing and ending with sunrise, does 

 not, after all, appear to be so wholly unknown to 

 English law as Prof. De Morgan supposes, since 

 Sir Edward Coke, to whom the Professor espe- 

 cially refers, describes such a day In these words : 



" Dies naturalis constat ea 24 horis et continet diem 

 solarem et noctem ; and therefore in Inditements for 

 Burglary and the like, we say in nocte ejusdem diei. 

 Iste dies naturalis est spatium In quo sol progreditur 

 ab orlente in occidentem et ab occldente iterum in 

 orientem." 



