Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 4.djvu/212

 174 NOTES AND QUERIES. [io» s. iv. AUG. », wo, created the New Style in October, 1582. The difference then between the Old Style and the New was ten days, and it was ten days only in the seventeenth century, seeing that the centurial year 1600 was a multiple of 400, and therefore was a leap year. The centurial years 1700, 1800, 1900, were non-leap years. The years 2000 and 2400, being multiples of 400, will be leap years. The Protestant countries would not for a long time accept the change of calendar. England, the last of all, adopted it by statute 24 Geo. II. c. 23 (amended by stat. 25 Geo. II. c. 30). The 3rd of September, 1752. became the 14th. Even the Gregorian style is not perfect, but it will go wrong by only one day in 3,546 years. As to the true " birthday " of George III., a reference to the Acts of Parliament which I have mentioned will show that it was provided by statute that no person or persons whatsoever should be deemed or taken to have attained the age of one-arid-twenty years, or any other such age, until the full number of years and days should be elapsed on which such person or persons respectively would have attained such age in case the Act had not been made. The Act, however, provided that the several solemn days of Thanksgiving, and of Fasting and Humiliation, which by virtue of any Act of Parliament then in being were to be kept and observed, should be kept and observed on the same respective nominal days on which the same were then kept and observed, i.e., eleven days sooner than the actual anniversaries. Thus the days of "Gunpowder Treason," "King Charles the Martyr," &c., were by statute observed on the nominal, but not the actual anniversaries. The anniversary of the birthday of George III. is actually and by statute 4 June. On 24 May, 1753, the nominal anniversary of George Ill.'s birth, he was fourteen years and 354 days old ; on 4 June he was fifteen years old. Therefore the latter day was and is his birthday. Toone's ' Chronological Historian,' referred to in my letter to The Times, shows that in 1755 George II.'s birthday was celebrated on 10 November, although he was born on 30 October, 1683 (Old Style): also that, whereas before 1752 the Lord Mayors of London were sworn in at Westminster on 29 October, they were in 1752 and after- wards sworn in on 9 November. Besides the books which I have mentioned, reference may be made to 'The Tutor's Assistant' or 'Crosby's Walkinghame,' edited by S. Maynard, 1848, p. 39. and the Eccle- siastical History Society's 'Book of Common Prayer: with Notes, Legal and Historical, by Archibald John Stephens,' 1849, vol. i. p. 272. ROBERT PlERPOINT. The Gregorianizing of the birthday of George III. is by no means unique. The battle of the styles, in fact, still continues sub rosa in print. Whilst some writers adopt the Old Style up to 1752 in dealing with English affairs, others are under the impression that the rectification of the calendar of that year should be deemed retro- spective for at least a century and a half, and still other precisians apply the correc- tion to dates before 1582. On this account an element of uncertainty not infrequently exists as to whether a date is given in the New or the Old Style. Considering the diffi- culty of establishing the exact days on which many events occurred, this additional uncer- tainty has assuredly no right to existence where a simple N.S. or O.S. would declare the true state of affairs. Yet how often a few minutes spent on the examination of a few dates mentioned consecutively, and appa- rently in the same style, reveal the N.S. alternating with the O.S. ! Take, for example, a few pages from Green's ' Short History (1875). One finds the O.S. date of Queen Anne's accession followed by N.S. dates for Blenheim and Ramillies, whilst presently we have the O.S. again for the queen's death, to say nothing of an abnormal " 31st of May " for Fontenoy.* Or, again, take the case mentioned by Carlyle. Cervantes and Shake- speare are said to have died on 23 April, 1616 —a striking coincidence likely to assist the memory. But unfortunately the coincidence is only apparent, not real, the Spanish date being in N.S., the English in O.S.; and most works of reference will supply similar in- stances of reformed continental dates jostling English unregenerate ones. The reader is evidently supposed to remember exactly when the Gregorian style was adopted in the various countries, though the chances are that if he is inquisitive enough to test the chronology a little, and assure himself that, e.g., a French seventeenth-century date is N.S., he finds that the O.S. has crept into the unsettlement of his convictions. Luckily, however, faith is so often mothered by lazi- ness that one rarely cares to distrust one's author in such a trifling matter as the date of a month. It is infinitely pleasant er to believe that he has achieved the impossible in chronological impeccability ; and though there is not much fragrance in dates, a philo- works 1 May, 10 May, 11 May, and 30 April.
 * Which is variously dated in recent standard