nology of the earth as a _habitation for man_, for on
the pre-human earth Scripture is silent: not upon the six thousand years
does our doubt revolve, but upon a very different thing, viz. to what age
in man these six thousand years correspond by analogy in a planet. In man
the sixtieth part is a very venerable age. But as to a planet, as to our
little earth, instead of arguing dotage, six thousand years may have
scarcely carried her beyond babyhood. Some people think she is cutting her
first teeth; some think her in her teens. But, seriously, it is a very
interesting problem. Do the sixty centuries of our earth imply youth,
maturity, or dotage?]

[NOTE 3.

"_Everywhere the ancients went to bed, like good boys, from seven to nine
o'clock_."--As we are perfectly serious, we must beg the reader, who
fancies any joke in all this, to consider what an immense difference
it must have made to the earth, considered as a steward of her own
resources-whether great nations, in a period when their resources were so
feebly developed, did, or did not, for many centuries, require candles;
and, we may add, fire. The five heads of human expenditure are,--1, Food;
2, Shelter; 3, Clothing; 4, Fuel; 5, Light. All were pitched on a lower
scale in the Pagan era; and the two last were almost banished from ancient
housekeeping. What a great relief this must have been to our good mother
the earth! who, at _first_, was obliged to request of her children that
they would settle round the Mediterranean. She could not even afford them
water, unless they would come and fetch it themselves out of a common tank
or cistern.]

[NOTE 4.

"_The manesalutantes_."--There can be no doubt that the _levees_ of modern
princes and ministers have been inherited from this ancient usage of Rome;
one which belonged to Rome republican, as well as Rome imperial. The
fiction in our modern practice is--that we wait upon the _leve_, or rising
of the prince. In France, at one era, this fiction was realized: the
courtiers did really attend the king's dressing. And, as to the queen, even
up to the revolution, Marie Antoinette almost from necessity gave audience
at her toilette.]

[NOTE 5.

"_Or again, 'siccum pro biscodo, ut hodie vocamus, sumemus_?'"--It is odd
enough that a scholar so complete as Salmasius, whom nothing ever escapes,
should have overlooked so obvious an alternative as that of _siccus_,
meaning without _opsonium--Scotice_, without "kitchen."]

[NOT