436 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 16QQ. 



they are first obliged to adjust their calculations to the Julian year, and thence 

 transfer them to their new Gregorian. It would be much more reasonable that 

 the Papists should quit their new Gregorian and return to their old Julian 

 year. 



As to what Mr. Locke advises, viz. that for 1 1 leap-years we should omit the 

 intercalation of Feb. 2g, and then go on with the Gregorian account, the last 

 of which 11 leap-years should be 1744. But if we begin in the change, as it is 

 suggested, at the year 1700, the last of those 11 leap-years must be 1740, not 

 1744. This is the same expedient that was suggested at Oxford in the year 

 1645, viz. that from thenceforward we should omit ten such intercalations. 

 Against which there seems to me this great objection ; In the time of Julius 

 and Augustus Caesar, there was a year which was called annus confusionis, and 

 which happened on the settling, unsettling, and resettling, the Julian year ; 

 and the like happened in the year 1582, when Pope Gregory at once struck out 

 10 days of that year. But should this advice take place, we should now, instead 

 of one annus confusionis, have a confusion for 44 years together, wherein we 

 should agree neither with the old nor with the new account ; but be sometimes 

 10, sometimes 9, and sometimes 8 days, and so on, later than the one and 

 sooner than the other account; and a foreigner would not be able to judge of 

 an English date without knowing in which of these years we vary 10, Q, or 8, 

 &c. days, from either of these accounts ; and this for 44 years together. Which 

 seems to me a much greater confusion than if, as in 1582, we should once for 

 all cast out 1 1 days. But I cannot think it advisable to do either. 



As to ourselves, this cannot be done without altering the act of uniformity, 

 and the common prayer book ; for at least all the calendar must be new framed, 

 and it is well known how strenuous some were lately against touching that in 

 the least. If yet it be thought necessary that the seat of Easter should be rec- 

 tified, that may easily be done without altering the civil year : for if in the rule 

 for Easter, instead of saying next after the 21st of March, we say, next after 

 the vernal equinox, the work is done ; and we might be excused the trouble of 

 Paschal tables, and the intricate perplexities of the Gregorian epacts ;, for then 

 every almanac will inform when it is the equinox, and when it is full moon, for 

 the current year, without disturbing the civil account : and this Pope Gregory 

 might as well have done without troubling the accounts of Christendom. But 

 if he must needs disturb the civil year, he should have rectified it, not to the 

 time of tlieNicene council, but to the time of our Saviour's birth ; for our epoch 

 is not from the Nicene council but from the birth of Christ. And it is certain, 

 that at our Saviour's birth, the vernal equinox was not on the 21st of March, as 

 this new account supposes, but nearer to the 25th. 



