[Footnote 1: At this time, and until the establishment of New Style, from 1752, the legal year began in England on the 25th of March, while legally in Scotland, and by common usage throughout the whole kingdom, the customary year began on the 1st of January. The _Spectator_ dated its years, according to custom, from the first of January; and so wrote its first date March 1, 1711. But we have seen letters in it dated in a way often adopted to avoid confusion (1710-11) which gave both the legal and the customary reckoning. March 24 being the last day of the legal year 1710, in the following papers, until December 31, the year is 1711 both by law and custom. Then again until March 24, while usage will be recognizing a new year, 1712, it will be still for England (but not for Scotland) 1711 to the lawyers. The reform initiated by Pope Gregory XIII. in 1582, and not accepted for England and Ireland until 1751, had been adopted by Scotland from the 1st of January, 1600. [This reform was necessary to make up for the inadequate shortness of the previous calendar (relative to the solar year), which had resulted in some months' discrepancy by the eighteenth century.]] [Footnote 2: [that] [Footnote 3: In Dugdale's 'Origines Juridiciales' we read how in the Middle Temple, on All Saints' Day, when the judges and serjeants who had belonged to the Inn were feasted, 'the music being begun, the Master of the Revels was twice called. At the second call, the Reader with the white staff advanced, and began to lead the measures, followed by the barristers and students in order; and when one measure was ended, the Reader at the cupboard called for another.'] [Footnote 4: See Sir W. Temple's Essay on Heroic Virtue, Section 4. 'This part of Scythia, in its whole Northern extent, I take to have been the vast Hive out of which issued so many mighty swarms of barbarous nations,' &c. And again, 'Each of these countries was like a mighty hive, which, by the vigour of propagation and health of climate, growing too full of people, threw out some new swarm at certain periods of time, that took wing and sought out some new abode, expelling or subduing the old inhabitants, and seating themselves in their rooms, if they liked the conditions of place and commodities of life they met with; if not, going on till they found some other more agreeable to their present humours and dispositions.' He attributes their successes and their rapid propagation to the greater vigour of life in the northern climates; and the only reason he gives for the absence of like effects during the continued presence of like causes is, that Christianity abated their enthusiasm and allayed 'the restless humour of perpetual wars and actions.'] * * * * * No. 22. Monday, March 26, 1711. Steele. 'Quodcunque ostendis mihi sic incredulus odi.' Hor.