The Chaldeans, Egyptians and Indians, and indeed almost all the nations of antiquity, originally estimated the year, or the periodical return of summer and winter, by 12 lunations; a period equal to 354 days, 8 hours, 48 minutes, 36 seconds. But the solar year is equal to 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, 49 seconds; or 10 days, 21 hours, 13 seconds longer than the lunar year, an excess named the epact; and accordingly the seasons were found rapidly to deviate from the particular months to which they at first corresponded; so that, in 34 years, the summer months would have become the winter ones, had not this enormous aberration been corrected by the addition or intercalation of a few odd days at certain intervals. Thus was the calendar first adjusted, and the solar year estimated to consist of 12 months, comprehending 365 days. But no account was taken of the odd hours, until their accumulation forced them into notice; and a nearer approximation to the exact measurement of a year was made about 45 years before the birth of Christ, when Julius Caesar, being led by Sosigenes, an astronomer of his time, to believe the error to consist of exactly 6 hours in the year, ordained that these should be set aside, and accumulated for four years, when, of course, they would amount to a day of 24 hours, to be accordingly added to every fourth year.

This was done by doubling or repeating the 24th of February; and, in order to commence aright, he ordained the first to be a "year of confusion," made up of 15 months, so as to cover the 90 days which had been then lost. The "Julian style" and the "Julian era" were then commenced; and so practically useful and comparatively perfect was this mode of time-reckoning, that it prevailed generally amongst Christian nations, and remained undisturbed till the renewed accumulation of the remaining error, of 11 minutes or so, had amounted, in 1582 years after the birth of Christ, to 10 complete days; the vernal equinox falling on the 11th instead of the 21st of March, as it did at the time of the council of Nice, 325 years after the birth of Christ. This shifting of days had caused great disturbances, by unfixing the times of the celebration of Easter, and hence of all the other movable feasts. And, accordingly, Pope Gregory XIII, after deep study and calculation, ordained that 10 days should be deducted from the year 1582, by calling what, according to the old calendar, would have been reckoned the 5th of October, the 15th of October, 1582. In Spain, Portugal and parts of Italy, the pope was exactly obeyed.

In France the change took place in the same year, by calling the 10th the 20th of December. In the Low Countries the change was from the 15th of December to the 25th, but was resisted by the Protestant part of the community till the year 1700. The Catholic nations in general adopted the style ordained by their sovereign pontiff, but the Protestants were then too much inflamed against Catholicism in all its relations to receive even a purely scientific improvement from such hands. The Lutherans of Germany, Switzerland, and, as already mentioned, of the Low Countries, at length gave way in 1700, when it had become necessary to omit eleven instead of ten days. A bill to this effect had been brought before the Parliament of England in 1585, but does not appear to have gone beyond a second reading in the House of Lords. It was not till 1751, and after great inconvenience had been experienced for nearly two centuries, from the difference of the reckoning, that an act was passed (24 Geo. II, 1751) for equalizing the style in Great Britain and Ireland with that used in other countries of Europe. It was enacted, in the first place, that eleven days should be omitted after the 2d of September, 1752, so that the ensuing day should be the 14th; and, in order to counteract a certain minute overplus of time, that "the years 1800, 1900, 2100, 2200, 2300, or any other hundredth year of our Lord which shall happen in time to come, except only every fourth hundredth year of our Lord, whereof the year 2000 shall be the first, shall not be considered as leap years." Our present Eastern States being then British colonies, the forefathers of the Republic, of course, used this altered calendar as soon as it was adopted.

A similar change was about the same time made in Sweden and Tuscany; and Russia is now the only country which adheres to the old style; an adherence which renders it necessary, when a letter is thence addressed to a person in another country, that the date should1 June 26 be given thus:- April - or ---------; for it will be observed, the year 1800

13 July 9 not being considered by us as leap year, has interjected another (or twelfth) day between old and new style.

The twelve calendar or civil months were so arranged by Julius Caesar, while reforming the calendar, that the odd months - the first, third, fifth, and so on, should contain 31 days, and the even numbers 30 days, except in the case of February, which was to have 30 only in what has been improperly termed leap year, while on other years it was assigned 29 days only; a number which it retained till Augustus Caesar deprived it of another day. How the changes were effected is shown in a prior chapter on "The Months."

The grand debate, The popular harangue, the tart reply, The logic, and the wisdom, and the wit, And the loud laugh - I long to know them all.

- Cowper.