ned, so far as
its commencement at sunrise was concerned, 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-_rising_?"

This way of reconciling seeming anomalies, by the supposition of probable
misprints, receives great encouragement in the occasional occurrence of
similar mistakes in the most carefully printed modern books. I lately
noticed, while reading Sir James Ross'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." outlet 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" for _sun-rising_, 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 carefully examined data from which a
scientific deduction 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 especially 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
oriente in occidentem et ab occidente iterum in orientem."

{542}

But there is another way of reconciling the discrepancy--Hopton may not
have intended the words "holding till sun-setting" to apply to the
Babylonians, but only to "the lawyers in England," whose day, he says,
_commenced_ at the same time as the Babylonian day. The transposition of
the words in question to the end of the sentence would give such a meaning,
viz. "The Babylonians begin their day at sun-rising, and so do our lawyers
count it in England, holding till sun-setting." Alte