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 midnight. 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 matter 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 midnight 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 birthday, and with it the day of majority, would needs be the natural day; for otherwise a child not born by daylight would have no birthday 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 which 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 enforced 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 warranto_, &c. A. E. B. twice makes the question refer to _usage_, whereas I was describing _law_. 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 be, 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 circumstances make valid wills, and that the destruction of the parchment and ink which compose the material of a deed is also the destruction of all power to claim under it.