YEAR. 



Year, Lunar /Iftronomical, confifts of twelve lunar 

 fy nodical months; and therefore contains 354 days, 8 hours, 

 48 minutes, 36 feconds ; and is, therefore, 10 days, 21 

 hours, o minute, 12 feconds, (horter than the folar year. 

 This is the foundation of the Epaa ; which fee. 

 Year, Lunar Civil, is either common or mboUfmic. 

 Year, the Common Lunar, confifts of twelve lunar civil 

 months ; and therefore contains 354 days. 



Year, the Embolifmk or Intercalary, confifts of thirteen 

 lunar civil months; and therefore contams 384 daya. bee 

 Embolismic. . , 



Thus far we have confidered years and months, with a 

 view to the principles of aftronomy, on which the divifion is 

 founded. By this, the various forms of civil years that have 

 anciently obtained, or ftill do obtain in divers nations, are 

 to be examined. 



Year, Ancient Roman, ot Latin, was the lunar year, which, 

 as firft fettled by Romulus, only confifted of ten months ; 

 vix. I . March, containing 3 1 days. 2. April, 30. 3. May, 

 31. 4. June, 30. 5. Quintilis, 31. 6. Sextihs, 30. 7. 

 •September, 30. 8. Oaober, 31. 9. November, 30. 

 10. December, 30. In all 304 days, which came ftiort 

 of the true lunar year by 50 days ; and of the folar, by 

 61 days. Hence, the beginning of Romulus's year vyas 

 vague, and unfixed to any precife feafon ; to remove which 

 inconvenience, that prince ordered fo many days to 



Ja- 

 4- 



be 



For the manner of reckoning the days ot the Roman 

 months, fee Calends, Nones, and Ides. 



Year, Julian, is a folar year, containing, commonly, 365 

 days ; though every fourth year, called bilTextile, it con- 

 tains 366. 



The months, &c. of the Julian year Hand thus : 1 

 nuary, 31 days. 2. February, 28. 3. March, 31. 

 April, 30. 5. May, 31. 6. June, 30. 7. July, 31, 

 Auguft, 31. 9. September, 30. 10. Oftuber, 31. n. 

 November, 30. 12. December, 31. But every biffextile 

 year, a day is added after the 28th of February ; which 

 month then contains 29 days. 



The aftronomical quantity, therefore, of the Julian year 

 is 365 days, 6 hours ; which exceeds the true folar year by 

 fomevvhat more than eleven minutes; which excefs, in 131 

 years, amounts to a whole day. So that the times of the 

 equinoxes go backward, and fall earlier by one day in about 

 131 or 130 years. And thus the Roman year flood, till 

 the reformation made in it by pope Gregory. 



For this form of the year, we are indebted to Julius 

 Casfar ; who, in the contrivance of it, was affifted by 

 Sofigenes, a famous mathematician, called over from Egypt 

 for this very purpofe ; who, to fupply the defeiSt of fixty- 

 feven days, which had been loft through the fault of the 

 pontifices, and to fix the beginning of the year to the winter 

 folfticc, made that year to confifl of 15 months, or 445 

 days ; which, for that reafon, is ufed to be called annus con- 



added yearly as would make the ftate of the heavens corre- f^/;g„i. the year of confufion. See Julian Calendar 



fpond to the firft month, without incorporating thefe addi 

 tional days, or calling them by the name of any month 

 Cenforinus, Varro, and other Roman authors, agree, that the 

 ancient Latin year was divided into lo montlis, which 

 appears from a paifage in Plutarch, that two intercalary 

 months were added to every year ; which two month* were 

 not inferted in the calendar. Romulus retained the former 

 names and number of the months ; but adapted their quan- 

 tity nearly to the courfe of the fun, affigning, as we have 

 ilated, fix of them 30 days, and to the remaining four 3 1 

 days each, and he transferred the beginning of the year from 

 April to March : December was the loth month, as its 

 name implies ; after which the two intercalary months were 

 inferted, but no names were affixed to them till the fucceed- 

 ing reign. 



Numa Pompilius correfted the irregular conftitution. of 

 Romulns's year, and compofed two new months, January and 

 February, of the days that were ufed to be added to the 

 former year. Thus, Numa's year confifted of twelve 

 months; viz. i. January, containing 29 days. 2. Fe- 

 bruary, 28. 3. March, 31. 4. April, 29. 5. May, 31. 

 6. June, 29. 7. Quintihs, 31. 8. Sextilis, 29. 9. Sep- 

 tember, 29. 10. OAober, 31. 11. November, 29. 12. 

 December, 29. In all 355 days, which exceeds the quantity 

 of a lunar civil year by one day ; and that of a lunar aftro- 

 nomical year by 15 hours, 11 minutes, 24 feconds, but 

 comes fhort of the common folar year by ten days ; fo that 

 its beginning alfo was vague and unfixed. 



Numa, however, defiring to have it fixed to the winter 

 folftice, ordered 22 days to be intercalated in February 

 every fecond year, 23 every fourth, 22 every fixth, and 

 23 every eighth year, making in all 90 days. 



But this rule failing to keep matters even, recourfe was 



Year, Gregorian, is the Juhan year corrected by this 

 rule ; that whereas, on the common footing, every fecular 

 or hundredth year is biffextile ; on the new footing, three 

 of them are common years, and only the fourth ia bif- 

 fextile. 



The error of eleven minutes in the Julian year, little as 

 it was, yet, by being repeated over and over, at length 

 became confiderable ; and from the time when Caefar made 

 his corredlion, was grown into thirteen days, by which 

 means the equinoxes were greatly difturbed. In the year 

 1582, the equinoxes were fallen ten days, and the full moons 

 four days, more backwards than they were in the time of 

 the Nicene council ; /. e. the equinox, which in the year 

 325, when that council was held, fell on the twenty-firft of 

 March, was in 1582 thrown back to the tenth, and the full 

 moon was removed from the fifth to the firft of April. To 

 remedy this irregularity, which was ftill increafing, pope 

 Gregory XIII., in the year juft mentioned, called together 

 the chief aftronomers of his time, and concerted this cor- 

 reiftion ; and, to reftore the equinoxes to their place, threw 

 out the ten days that had been got from the time of the 

 council of Nice, and which had fhifted the fifth of Oftober 

 to the fifteenth. He exchanged the lunar cycle for that of 

 the epa(Sls ; and in order to reftore the fpring equinox to 

 the Nicene ftandard, fubtratled ten days out of the month 

 of Odober, in that year (1582), making the fourth to be 

 the fifteenth ; and by this means, the vernal equinox has 

 been reftored to the twenty-firft of March. Moreover, it 

 was endeavoured, by the omiflion of three intercalary days 

 in four hundred years, to make the civil year keep pace 

 with the folar for time to come. See Calendar. 



In the year 1700, the error of ten days was grown to 

 eleven; upon which the Proteftant ftates^ of Germany, to 



had to a new way of intercalating ; and, inftead of twenty- prevent farther confufion, accepted the Gregorian correc 



three days every eighth year, only fifteen were added ; and 

 the care of the whole was committed to the pontifex 

 raaximus, who neglefting the truft, let things run to the 

 utmoft confufion. And thus the Roman year ftood till 

 Julius Caefar made a reformation. See Caxendak. 



10 



tion. See Reformed Calendar, and Style. 



Yet is even the Gregorian year far from being perfeft ; 

 for we have fhewn, that in four centuries the Julian year 

 gains three days, one hour, twenty minutes ; but it is only 

 the three daye that are kept out in the Gregorian year ; fo 



that 



