nomalous repetition of twice
twelve, we may still trace the remains of the twelve-hour day; we have
changed the initial point, but we have retained the measure of duration.

It is, however, certain that the two methods of reckoning time continued
for a long time to exist contemporaneously. Hence it became necessary to
distinguish one from the other _by name_, and thus the notation from
midnight gave rise, as I have remarked in one of my papers on Chaucer, to
the English idiomatic phrase "of the clock;" or the reckoning of the clock,
commencing at midnight, as distinguished from Roman equinoctial hours,
commencing at six o'clock A.M. This was what Ben Jonson was meaning by
attainment of majority at _six o'clock_, and not, as PROFESSOR DE MORGAN
supposes, "probably a certain sunrise." Actual sunrise had certainly
nothing to do with the technical commencement of the day in Ben Jonson's
time. For convenience sake, six o'clock had long been taken _as
conventional sunrise all the year round_; and even amongst the Romans
themselves, equinoctial hours were frequently used at all seasons. Actual
sunrise, in after times, had only to do with "hours inequall," which are
said to have fallen into disuse, in common life, so early as the fifth or
sixth century.

I trust I may now have shown reasonable grounds for the belief that Ben
Jonson may, after all, have had better authority than his license as a
dramatic poet, for dating the attainment of majority at six o'clock A.M.;
and that nothing short of contemporary evidence directly contradictory of
the custom so circumstantially alluded to by him, ought to be held
sufficient to throw discredit upon it. It is one of the singular
coincidences attending the discussion of this matter by Gellius, that, at
the conclusion of the chapter I have been expatiating upon, he should cite
the authority of Virgil; observing that the testimony of _poets_ is very
valuable upon such subjects, even when veiled in the obscurity of poetic
imagery.

A. E. B.

Leeds.

* * * * *

LORD HALIFAX AND MRS. CATHERINE BARTON.

(Vol. viii., p 429.)

Your Correspondent PROF. DE MORGAN has so ingeniously analysed the facts,
which he already possesses, bearing on the connexion of Sir Isaac Newton's
niece with Lord Halifax, and her designation in the _Biographia
Britannica_, that I am tempted to furnish him with some additional
evidence. This question of Mrs. Catherine Barton's wido