The Pontiffs, still negligent of the trust committed to them, permitted the year to run on with increasing confusion, until JULIUS CAESAR'S third consulship, when the beginning of the year was found to have anticipated its real station 67 days, the whole of which that great man intercalated between the months of November and December, whereby this year (being that in which NUMA's appropriated 23 days were added to February), consisted of 445 days, or 15 months:

viz.

NUMA'S Common year

Supplementary days to February
JULIUS CAESAR'S addition of days lost

and this year, immediately preceding what is denominated the Julian Period, has been distinguished by the name of "the year of confusion:" CENSORINUS and SUETONIUS thus explain the matter: "CASAR finding that the PONTIFFS of ROME, whose business it was to intercalate the years which were to be luna-solar years, had abused their authority, and managed this intercalation with a regard to their own conveniency, or to oblige their friends, according as they were inclined to keep the magistrates in their places a longer or a shorter time; upon a view of these abuses, he took the resolution to redress the growing corruption."

JULIUS CAESAR, who was no less renowned for his general learning and acquirements, than for his military talents, after having rectified the errors of the old computations by this augmented year, endeavoured to put the calendar upon such a basis, as should obviate the recurrence of a similar inconsistency: accordingly, with the assistance of SOSIGENES a celebrated Egyptian astronomer and mathematician, he caused calculations to be made of the annual course of the sun, which he found to consist of 365 days and about 6 hours; and agreeably thereto a new calendar was formed, by FLAVIUS a scribe, and established by public edicts.

To bring to account the six hours in each year unprovided for by this regulation, he directed that one day should be intercalated every

fourth year; making such year to consist of 366 days. This supplementary day was not added at the end of the year, nor was it placed at the end of any month, but introduced between the 23d and 24th of February, which they called the 6th kalendas Martii, or the 23d of February, reckoned twice over, by accounting those two days as one. This practice of reckoning the 23d and supplementary day as one was adopted and confirmed by an act of the English Legislature, which, "to prevent all ambiguity that may arise on the account of the intercalation of a day every 4th year, appoints by the statute De Anno Bissextile, 21st Henry III. that the day increasing the leap year, and that next before, shall be accounted but as one day." Whence the Roman term yet retained of Bissextile, i. e. Bis, twice; and Sextus, the sixth while it is also called by us Leap year; because though in common years any fixed day of the week changes in the succeeding common year to the next day in rotation, in the Bissextile years the day of the week changes again on the 29th February, and we leap, as it were, to the next but one. In leap-years, therefore, there are two Dominical letters; for example, if C be the original dominical letter, it will last until the Sunday prior to, and change on the Sunday next following, the 29th of February, when it will be superseded by the letter B. Thus, in the Bissextile year, St. MATTHIAS's festival, which was disturbed by the introduction of the intercalary

day, was removed from the 24th to the 25th of February, in order that it might be kept on the 6th day, inclusive, from the month of March, agreeably to its original station. In the Common Prayer Books of KING EDWARD, that old rubric was altered, and the following instituted in its stead: "This is also to be noted, that the 25th of February, which in Leap-years is counted for two days, shall in those two days alter neither psalm nor lesson, but the same psalms and lessons which be said on the first day shall serve also for the second day." After which some persons kept Sr. MATTHIAS'S festival on the 24th in Leap-years, while others considered it a mistake in the Reformers, and still adhered to the practice of removing that holiday to the 25th of the month. But after queen ELIZABETH'S Common Prayer Book was compiled, the 25th of February was again universally held as the festival of St. MATTHIAS, conformably to the following rubric, viz.

"When the years of our Lord may be divided into four even parts, which is every fourth year, then the Sunday letter leapeth; and that year the psalms and lessons which serve for the 23d day of February shall be read again, the day following, except it be Sunday, which hath proper lessons from the Old Testament appointed in the table to serve for that purpose."

Upon the Restoration of CHARLES the Second, the revivers of the Liturgy, in solemn council, once more altered the regulation of ST. MAT

THIAS'S festival, by causing the 29th day of February, in the ecclesiastical computation, to be regarded as the supplementary day, and not the one between the 23d and 24th of that month, thereby making the church regulation conform to the civil mode of reckoning, which had adopted the 29th as the intercalary day. From that period, until the present time, ST. MATTHIAS has been commemorated by the Reformed Church on the 24th day of February, except in some few instances arising from misconception. But many eminent critics contend that it is still erroneous, because as we adopted the Roman calendar, and the Roman term for that embolymean day, we ought either to intercalate such additional day in the Leap year in the manner the Romans did, that is, by reckoning the calends of March twice, or else explode that term, and apply another to the additional or 29th day, expressive of its present situation in our calendar.

Notwithstanding JULIUS CAESAR was very careful in adjusting the exact time of the intercalation of the Bissextile day, the Pontiffs still erroneously or wilfully made so great an error, that AUGUSTUS CÆSAR was induced to reform the calendar again, as may be seen by MACROBIUS: "The priests," that author, "gave occasion to a new error by their intercalations.-For whereas they ought to have intercalated that day which is made up out of the four times six hours, at the latter end of each fourth year, and the beginning of the fifth,

says