superscribe B.C. and A.D. upon their pages, but they neglect the origin and the principles of chronology. I found that an historian would burden a paragraph with one Gregory,[1] some now forgotten spy, but about Gregory the famous Pope and his Calendar (bringing in the New Style), you will find scanty references in the usual histories. Truly we may say that the golden number is a cipher, and the dominical a dead, neglected letter—to the majority of writers upon historical subjects. And yet all these styles, numbers, and letters are indispensably required in order to obtain a proper and valid foundation for the sequence of dates, which proves so essential to every page of history.
5. A quotation will emphasise this:—'Suppose[2] that some thousands of years hence, and in the absence of authentic records, the invasion of England by William the Conqueror were referred to the period in which Augustus swayed the sceptre at Rome: would it be possible for posterity to understand the real import and connection of that incident in the manner in which we now do? Assuredly not. But every anachronism is similar in its bearing to this example; and though perhaps by no means so great in degree, would be found as fatal in the nature of its tendency if prosecuted to its conclusions. It is with no little justice, then, that chronology has been styled the eye, and even the soul, of history; or that without it the subjects of this art could be considered no other than a dark chaos, a wreck of fragments void of order and every other indication of design. Unfortunately the discordances of chronologers in cases of the highest consequence are as enormous as the difference between the truth and the
