TOL. XLVI.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. SQ 



or those full moons, which happen between the 2 1st day of March and the 18th 

 of April, both inclusive. Since no 14th day or full moon, which happens before 

 the 21st of March, or after the 18th day of April, can have any share in fixing 

 the time of Easter. By which means the trouble of counting to the 14th day, 

 and the mistakes which sometimes arise from it, would be avoided. We do as 

 yet in England follow the Julian account or the old style in the civil year; as also 

 the old method of finding those moons on which Easter depends, both of which 

 have been shown to be very erroneous. 



If therefore this nation should ever judge it proper to correct the civil year, 

 and to make it conformable to that of the Gregorians, it would surely be advise- 

 able to correct the time of the celebration of the feast of Easter also, and to 

 bring it to the same day on which it is kept and solemnized by the inhabitants 

 of the greatest part of Europe, that is, by those who follow the Gregorian ac- 

 count. For though their method of finding the time of Easter is not quite ex 

 act, but is liable to some errors: yet all other practicable methods of doing it 

 would be so too; and if they were more free from error, they would probably be 

 more intricate, and harder to be understood by numbers of people, than the 

 method of determining that feast either by a cycle of epacts, as is practised by 

 the Gregorians, or by that of IQ years or the golden numbers, in the manner 

 proposed in the following part of this paper: and it is of no small importance, 

 that a matter of so general a concern, as the method of finding Easter is, should 

 be within the reach of the generality of mankind, at least as far as the nature of 

 the thing will admit. 



For which reason, in case the legislature of this country should, before the 

 year IQOO, think fit to make our civil year correspond with that of the Grego- 

 rians, and also to celebrate all the future feasts of Easter on the same days on 

 which they celebrate them; this last particular might be easily effected, without 

 altering the rule of the church of England for the finding of that feast; and this 

 only by advancing the golden numbers, prefixed to certain days in the calendar, 

 8 days forwarder for the new moons, or 21 days forwarder for the 14th days or 

 full moons, than they now stand in our calendar. 



In order to explain this, it must be observed, that the Gregorian account, or 

 the new style, is 1 1 days forwarder than the Julian account or the old style, 

 which we still make use of; that is, the last day of any of our months, is the 

 nth day of their next succeeding month. If therefore their ecclesiastical new 

 moons fell on the same days with those of the church of England, the golden 

 number 14, which now stands against the last day of February in our, that is 

 the Julian calendar, should, when we should have adopted the Gregorian calendar 

 be prefixed to the 1 1th day of March. But since their ecclesiastical new moons 

 happen 3 days earlier than our ecclesiastical new moons at present do; so much 



