_Its_ leads me to reflect how ignorant people were of the old languages in the last century. If ever there was a palpable forgery, it is the Poems of Rowley: yet, if my memory does not deceive me, {161} Tyrwhitt regarded them as genuine; and Malone authoritatively affirmed that "no one except the nicest judges of English poetry, from Chaucer to Pope, was competent to test their genuineness." Why, this little word _its_ might have tested it. You see we have not been able to trace it in poetry higher up than the end of the sixteenth century; and I am quite sure that it is not to be found in either Chaucer or Spenser: and yet, in the very first page of Rowley, we meet with the following instances of it: "The whyche in _yttes_ felle use doe make moke dere." "The thynge _yttes_ (_ytte is?_) moste bee _yttes_ owne defense." But there is a still surer test. We can hardly read a line of Chaucer, Gower, or any other poet of the time, without meeting with what the French term the feminine _e_, and which must be pronounced as a syllable to make the metre. From one end to the other of the Poems of Rowley, there is not a single instance of it! THOS. KEIGHTLEY. * * * * * COMMENCEMENT OF THE YEAR. (Vol. vi., p. 563.) It may be of service to the inquirer as to the commencement of the year, to call his attention to the note appended to the "Table of moveable Feasts" in editions prior to 1752. As given by Keeling, from the editions antecedent and subsequent to the last review, in 1662, they are as follows: "_Note._--That the supputation of the year of our Lord in the Church of England beginneth the xxvth day of March, the same day supposed to be the first day upon which the world was created, and the day when Christ was conceived in the womb of the Virgin Mary" [1604]. "_Note._--That the supputation of the year of our Lord in the Church of England beginneth the xxvth day of March" [1662]. Of course, after the act for alteration of the style (24 Geo. II. c. 23.) was passed, this note was omitted. But up to that date the old supputation was authoritative and legal. Reference to Hampson's _Medii Ævi Kalendarium_ might further illustrate the point. To this Note allow me to append a Query. After the collect for St. Stephen's Day follows this rubric: "Then shall follow the collect of the Nativity, which shall be said continually until New Year's Eve." Query, Was this collect to be repeated from December 25 to March 24? for, according to the above supputation, that would be New Year's Eve. The following note, from the preface to Granger's _Biographical History_, may not be out of place: