Page:Repository of Arts, Series 1, Volume 01, 1809, January-June.djvu/14

2 and sciences, to follow their respective boundaries, to ascertain their extent, and finally, to form some opinion of their value, as they affect our morals and our manners. It is universally admitted, that to cultivate a taste tor the arts, and an acquaintance with the sciences, is a pleasure of the most refined nature: but to do this without regard to its influence upon the passions and affections, is to “tear a tree for its blossoms, which is capable of yielding the richest and most valuable fruit.” The cultivation of this taste may and ought to be subservient to higher and more important purposes: it should dignify and exalt our affections, and elevate them to the admiration and love of that Being an who is the author of every thing that is fair, sublime, and good in nature. Indeed scepticism and irreligion are hardly compatible with that sensibility of heart which results from an intimate knowledge of, and a lively relish for, the wisdom, harmony, and order subsisting in the world around us. In the discussion of subjects which occupy so much of our attention, and exercise so large a portion of our ingenuity, it is natural to begin with the most curious as well as interesting. Indeed

“The proper study of mankind, is man.”

he is the center round which the arts and sciences may be said to revolve, for whose comfort they were bestowed, and by whom they are to be enjoyed. The mind, accustomed to a beginning of things, feels an anxiety to trace him in the rude and

one of the most accurate of the monkish writers, begins the year sometimes from the Circumcision, and at others from Christmas. There is reason to believe, that the custom of computing from the Annunciation began about the year 1450.

Thomas Chandler, who was chancellor of Oxon from 1458 to 1462, in his short account of William of Wickham, printed by Warton (Aug. Sacra. ii. 355.) begins this year with the Annunciation. Bishop Godwin, who wrote at the beginning of the seventeenth century, computes from the first day of January; but then he wrote for the use of foreigners, who had no other way of computation.

At the Reformation the commencement of the year was fixed to the feast of the Annunciation, by adding the following rubric to the table of movable feasts for forty years, viz.

“Note, That the supputation of the year of our Lord in the church of England beginneth the 25th of March, the same day supposed to be the first at day upon which the World was created, and the day when Christ was conceived in the womb of the virgin Mary.” It stood thus down to the Savoy conference, soon after the Restoration, when it was thought proper to retain the order and drop the reason; in this shape it was continued until the alteration of the calendar.

In civil affairs, the year of the king’s reign seems to have been the general date even in common deeds, till after the Restoration.

During Cromwell’s usurpation the year of our Lord was introduced, because they did not choose to date by the years of the king’s reign; and this was afterwards continued for convenience.

The Scotch had from time immemorial observed the 25th day of March as the first day of the year, till November 27, 1599, when the following entry was made in the books of the Privy Council: “On Monday, proclamation was made by the king’s warrant, ordaining the first of January in tyme coming to be the beginning of the new year;” which they have constantly followed ever since.