C. Forbes.
Temple.
Sotades (Vol. viii., p. 520.).—Your correspondent Charles Reed says that Sotades was a Roman poet 250 B.C.; and that to him we owe the line, "Roma tibi subito," &c. Sotades was a native of Maroneia in Thrace, or, according to others, of Crete; and flourished at Alexandria B.C. 280 (Smith's Dictionary of Biography, Clinton, F. H., vol. iii. p. 888.). We have a few fragments of his poems, but none of them are palindromical. The authority for his having written so, is, I suppose, Martial, Epig. II. 86. 2.:
"Nec retro lego Sotaden cinædum."
Zeus.
The Third Part of "Christabel" (Vol. viii., pp. 11. 111.).—Has the Irish Quarterly Review any other reason for ascribing this poem to Maginn than the common belief which makes him the sole and original Morgan Odoherty? If not, its evidence is of little value, as, exclusive of some pieces under that name which have been avowed by other writers, many of the Odoherty papers contain palpable internal evidence of having been written by a Scotchman, or at least one very familiar with Scotland, which at that time he was not; even the letter accompanying the third part of Christabel is dated from Glasgow, and though this would in itself prove nothing, the circumstances above mentioned, as well as Dr. Moir's evidence as to the time when Maginn's contributions to Blackwood commenced, seems strongly presumptive against his claim. Some of the earliest and most distinguished writers in Blackwood are still alive, and could, no doubt, clear up this point at once, if so inclined.
J. S. Warden.
Attainment of Majority (Vol. viii., pp. 198. 250.).—In my last communication upon this subject I produced undeniable authority to prove that the law did not regard the fraction of a day; this, I think, A. E. B. will admit. The question is, now, does the day on which a man attains his majority commence at six o'clock A.M., or at midnight? We must remember that we are dealing with a question of English law; and therefore the evidence of an English decision will, I submit, be stronger proof of the latter mode of reckoning than the only positive proof with which A. E. B. has defended Ben Jonson's use of the former, viz. Roman.
In a case tried in Michaelmas Term, 1704, Chief Justice Holt said:
"It has been adjudged that if one be born the 1st of February at eleven at night, and the last of January in the twenty-first year of his age at one o'clock in the morning, he makes his will of lands and dies, it is a good will, for he was then of age."—Salkeld, 44.; Raymond, 480, 1096; 1 Siderfin, 162.