other foreign ministers at Paris? Do you frequent the Dutch Ambassador or
Ambassadress? Have you any footing at the Nuncio's, or at the Imperial
and Spanish ambassadors? It is useful. Be more particular in your letters
to me, as to your manner of passing your time, and the company you keep.
Where do you dine and sup oftenest? whose house is most your home? Adieu.
'Les Graces, les Graces'.




LETTER CXXXV

LONDON, March 18, O. S. 1751.

MY DEAR FRIEND: I acquainted you in a former letter, that I had brought a
bill into the House of Lords for correcting and reforming our present
calendar, 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