ndar, which is the Julian, and for adopting the Gregorian. I will now
give you a more particular account of that affair; from which reflections
will naturally occur to you that I hope may be useful, and which I fear
you have not made. It was notorious, that the Julian calendar was
erroneous, and had overcharged the solar year with eleven days. Pope
Gregory the Thirteenth corrected this error; his reformed calendar was
immediately received by all the Catholic powers of Europe, and afterward
adopted by all the Protestant ones, except Russia, Sweden, and England.
It was not, in my opinion, very honorable for England to remain, in a
gross and avowed error, especially in such company; the inconveniency of
it was likewise felt by all those who had foreign correspondences,
whether political or mercantile. I determined, therefore, to attempt the
reformation; I consulted the best lawyers and the most skillful
astronomers, and we cooked up a bill for that purpose. But then my
difficulty began: I was to bring in this bill, which was necessarily
composed of law jargon and astronomical calculations, to both which I am
an utter stranger. However, it was absolutely necessary to make the House
of Lords think that I knew something of the matter; and also to make them
believe that they knew something of it themselves, which they do not. For
my own part, I could just as soon have talked Celtic or Sclavonian to
them as astronomy, and they would have understood me full as well: so I
resolved to do better than speak to the purpose, and to please instead of
informing them. I gave them, therefore, only an historical account of
calendars, from the Egyptian down to the Gregorian, amusing them now and
then with little episodes; but I was particularly attentive to the choice
of my words, to the harmony and roundness of my periods, to my elocution,
to my action. This succeeded, and ever will succeed; they thought I
informed, because I pleased them; and many of them said that I had made
the whole very clear to them; when, God knows, I had not even attempted
it. Lord Macclesfield, who had the greatest share in forming the bill,
and who is one of the greatest mathematicians and astronomers in Europe,
spoke afterward with infinite knowledge, and all the clearness that so
intricate a matter would admit of: but as his words, his periods, and his
utterance, were not near so good as mine, the preference was most
unanimously, though most unjustly, given to me.