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94-471: William Cowper ( / ˈ k uː p ər / KOO -pər ; 15 November 1731 ( Julian ) / 26 November 1731 ( Gregorian ) – 14 April 1800 ( Julian ) / 25 April 1800 ( Gregorian )) was an English poet and Anglican hymnwriter . One of the most popular poets of his time, Cowper changed the direction of 18th-century nature poetry by writing of everyday life and scenes of the English countryside. In many ways, he

188-424: A tropical year . However, since the pontifices were often politicians, and because a Roman magistrate's term of office corresponded with a calendar year, this power was prone to abuse: a pontifex could lengthen a year in which he or one of his political allies was in office, or refuse to lengthen one in which his opponents were in power. Caesar's reform was intended to solve this problem permanently, by creating

282-499: A 21 years lease on the estate and spent a sum of the £1,887 5s 8d (equivalent to £679,211 in 2023) on renovations and repairs. The commission declared in June 1577 that Ely Place should stay with Bishop Cox if he could reimburse Sir Christopher Hatton in whole for the outlay but he could not. A new lease was drawn up giving Sir Christopher Hatton control of the property freehold. He gave his name to Hatton Garden which occupies part of

376-477: A 48-hour day, and that the intercalated day was the "posterior" half. An inscription from AD 168 states that a.d. V Kal. Mart. was the day after the bissextile day. The 19th century chronologist Ideler argued that Celsus used the term "posterior" in a technical fashion to refer to the earlier of the two days, which requires the inscription to refer to the whole 48-hour day as the bissextile. Some later historians share this view. Others, following Mommsen , take

470-516: A Mysterious Way "), which remain some of Cowper's most familiar verses. Several of Cowper's hymns, as well as others originally published in the Olney Hymns, are today preserved in the Sacred Harp , which also collects shape note songs. In 1773, Cowper experienced an attack of insanity, imagining not only that he was eternally condemned to hell , but that God was commanding him to make

564-540: A body of commissioners for paving, lighting, watching, cleansing and improving Ely Place and Ely Mews, Holborn, in the County of Middlesex . While the commissioners have lost most of their powers to local authorities established under the Metropolis Management Act 1855 ( 18 & 19 Vict. c. 120) and later legislation, they retain their "watching" duties, with a beadle discharging these duties. To

658-569: A broader movement in the 18th and 19th centuries to make classical literature more accessible to English-speaking audiences. While his translations may not be as widely read today as some others, they were influential in their time and contributed to the ongoing appreciation of Homer's works in English-speaking countries. William Cowper is represented with fifteen hymns in Edwin F. Hatfield 's 1872 Presbyterian opus The Church Hymn Book for

752-491: A calendar that remained aligned to the sun without any human intervention. This proved useful very soon after the new calendar came into effect. Varro used it in 37 BC to fix calendar dates for the start of the four seasons, which would have been impossible only 8 years earlier. A century later, when Pliny dated the winter solstice to 25 December because the sun entered the 8th degree of Capricorn on that date, this stability had become an ordinary fact of life. Although

846-623: A calendar that would be a combination between the old Roman months, the fixed length of the Egyptian calendar, and the 365 + 1 ⁄ 4 days of Greek astronomy. According to Macrobius, Caesar was assisted in this by a certain Marcus Flavius. Caesar's reform only applied to the Roman calendar . However, in the following decades many of the local civic and provincial calendars of the empire and neighbouring client kingdoms were aligned to

940-579: A career in law. During this time, he spent his leisure at the home of his uncle Bob Cowper, where he fell in love with his cousin Theodora, whom he wished to marry. But as James Croft, who in 1825 first published the poems Cowper addressed to Theodora, wrote, "her father, from an idea that the union of persons so nearly related was improper, refused to accede to the wishes of his daughter and nephew." This refusal left Cowper distraught. He had his first severe attack of depression / mental illness , referred to at

1034-451: A closer walk with G OD , A calm and heav'nly frame; A light to shine upon the road That leads me to the Lamb! God made the country, and man made the town. There is a pleasure in poetic pains Which only poets know. Variety's the very spice of life, That gives it all its flavour. I am monarch of all I survey, My right there is none to dispute; From the centre all round to

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1128-517: A corruption of Winnimanoth "pasture-month"), Brachmanoth (" fallow -month"), Heuuimanoth ("hay month"), Aranmanoth (" reaping month"), Witumanoth ("wood month"), Windumemanoth ("vintage month"), Herbistmanoth ("harvest month"), and Heilagmanoth ("holy month"). The calendar month names used in western and northern Europe, in Byzantium, and by the Amazigh (Berbers) , were derived from

1222-511: A leap day was inserted in 41 BC to ensure that the first market day of 40 BC did not fall on 1 January, which implies that the old 8-day cycle was not immediately affected by the Julian reform. However, he also reports that in AD ;44, and on some previous occasions, the market day was changed to avoid a conflict with a religious festival. This may indicate that a single nundinal letter

1316-518: A regular intercalary month in February. When Caesar decreed the reform, probably shortly after his return from the African campaign in late Quintilis (July), he added 67 more days by inserting two extraordinary intercalary months between November and December. These months are called Intercalaris Prior and Intercalaris Posterior in letters of Cicero written at the time; there is no basis for

1410-439: A revised calendar. The Julian calendar has two types of years: a normal year of 365 days and a leap year of 366 days. They follow a simple cycle of three normal years and one leap year, giving an average year that is 365.25 days long. That is more than the actual solar year value of approximately 365.2422 days (the current value, which varies), which means the Julian calendar gains one day every 129 years. In other words,

1504-441: A sacrifice of his own life. Mary Unwin took care of him with great devotion, and after a year he began to recover. In 1779, after Newton had moved from Olney to London, Cowper started to write poetry again. Mary Unwin, wanting to keep Cowper's mind occupied, suggested that he write on the subject of The Progress of Error. After writing a satire of this name, he wrote seven others. These poems were collected and published in 1782 under

1598-648: Is 1.53 days longer than eight mean Julian years . The length of nineteen years in the cycle of Meton was 6,940 days, six hours longer than the mean Julian year. The mean Julian year was the basis of the 76-year cycle devised by Callippus (a student under Eudoxus) to improve the Metonic cycle. In Persia (Iran) after the reform in the Persian calendar by introduction of the Persian Zoroastrian (i. e. Young Avestan) calendar in 503 BC and afterwards,

1692-416: Is a simple cycle of three "normal" years followed by a leap year and this pattern repeats forever without exception. The Julian year is, therefore, on average 365.25 days long. Consequently, the Julian year drifts over time with respect to the tropical (solar) year (365.24217 days). Although Greek astronomers had known, at least since Hipparchus , a century before the Julian reform, that the tropical year

1786-569: Is mentioned in Cowper's "The Task". The folly was dedicated to Cowper by the Buckinghamshire county council green belt estate, and a plaque with the verse from "The Task" referencing the alcove was installed. Modern literary scholar Conrad Brunstrom described Cowper's relationships with women and men at this time as queer and radically anti- heteronormative . "Not only did Cowper refuse a traditional heterosexual role, he also refused many of

1880-532: Is the former private chapel of the Bishops of Ely . It is one of two surviving buildings in London from the reign of Edward I (1272–1307) although it was badly damaged during World War II . The 13th-century crypt survived remarkably unscathed and is occasionally used for private functions. St Etheldreda , a seventh-century queen and founding abbess of the monastery at Ely, was the saint in whose name Ely Cathedral

1974-548: The Iliad and the Odyssey , which ignited his lifelong scholarship and love for Homer 's epics. He grew skilled at the interpretation and translation of Latin, an ability he put to use for the rest of his life. He was skilled in the composition of Latin as well and wrote many verses of his own.add verse After education at Westminster School, Cowper was articled to Mr Chapman, solicitor, of Ely Place , Holborn , to be trained for

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2068-630: The Abolitionist campaign . Cowper wrote a poem called " The Negro's Complaint " (1788) which rapidly became very famous, and was often quoted by Martin Luther King Jr. during the 20th-century civil rights movement . He also wrote several other less well-known poems on slavery in the 1780s, many of which attacked the idea that slavery was economically viable. Cowper was born in Berkhamsted , Hertfordshire , where his father John Cowper

2162-822: The Alexandrian calendar and the Ancient Macedonian calendar ─which had two forms: the Syro-Macedonian and the 'Asian' calendars. Other reformed calendars are known from Cappadocia , Cyprus and the cities of (Roman) Syria and Palestine. Unreformed calendars continued to be used in Gaul (the Coligny calendar ), Greece, Macedon, the Balkans and parts of Palestine, most notably in Judea. The Asian calendar

2256-644: The Amazigh people (also known as the Berbers). The Julian calendar was proposed in 46 BC by (and takes its name from) Julius Caesar , as a reform of the earlier Roman calendar , which was largely a lunisolar one. It took effect on 1 January 45 BC , by his edict . Caesar's calendar became the predominant calendar in the Roman Empire and subsequently most of the Western world for more than 1,600 years, until 1582 when Pope Gregory XIII promulgated

2350-550: The liturgical calendar of the Roman Catholic Church. However, Celsus' definition continued to be used for legal purposes. It was incorporated into Justinian's Digest , and in the English Statute De Anno et Die Bissextili of 1236, which was not formally repealed until 1879. The effect of the bissextile day on the nundinal cycle is not discussed in the sources. According to Dio Cassius,

2444-493: The month names reflected Ottoman tradition. Ely Place Ely Place / ˈ iː l i / is a gated road of multi-storey terraces at the southern tip of the London Borough of Camden in London, England. It hosts a 1773-rebuilt public house, Ye Olde Mitre , of Tudor origin and is adjacent to Hatton Garden . It is privately managed by its own body of commissioners and beadles . Ely Place sits on

2538-533: The Bard had John of Gaunt – who was living there in 1382 – says his "This royal throne of Kings, this sceptre’d isle" speech. On 17 October 1546, James Butler, 9th Earl of Ormond , was visiting London with his household. Butler, a powerful Munster landowner who had served in the household of Cardinal Wolsey in his youth, had crossed Sir Anthony St Leger , the quarrelsome Lord Deputy of Ireland . Butler and his entourage were invited to dine at Ely Palace as guests of

2632-467: The Bishop of Ely. Ormond was poisoned along with his steward and 16 of his household, it was widely assumed, at the instructions of St Leger. The estate was granted to Sir Christopher Hatton in 1577 after a commission was set up by Queen Elizabeth I, headed by John Aylmer (Bishop of London) to investigate the claims that Sir Christopher Hatton should be granted the freehold of the land after he acquired

2726-514: The Gregorian calendar diverges from astronomical observations by one day in 3,030 years). Although the new calendar was much simpler than the pre-Julian calendar, the pontifices initially added a leap day every three years, instead of every four. There are accounts of this in Solinus, Pliny, Ammianus, Suetonius, and Censorinus. Macrobius gives the following account of the introduction of

2820-605: The Holborn area was bought by John de Kirkby in 1280. He was appointed Bishop of Ely in 1286 and on his death in 1290, he left the estate to the see of Ely. In medieval times, bishops of Ely frequently held high state office requiring them to live in London; Ely Palace was the bishop's official residence. References to Ely Palace grounds occur in Shakespeare ’s plays. It was at the house that in King Richard II ,

2914-511: The Johnsons, after Mary Unwin became paralysed. Mary Unwin died in 1796, plunging Cowper into a gloom from which he never fully recovered. He did continue to revise his Homer for a second edition of his translation. Aside from writing the powerful and bleak poem "The Castaway", he penned some English translations of Greek verse and translated some of the Fables of John Gay into Latin. Cowper

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3008-464: The Julian calendar by transforming them into calendars with years of 365 days with an extra day intercalated every four years. The reformed calendars typically retained many features of the unreformed calendars. In many cases, the New Year was not on 1 January, the leap day was not on the traditional bissextile day , the old month names were retained, the lengths of the reformed months did not match

3102-406: The Julian calendar gains 3.1 days every 400 years. Gregory's calendar reform modified the Julian rule, to reduce the average length of the calendar year from 365.25 days to 365.2425 days and thus corrected the Julian calendar's drift against the solar year : the Gregorian calendar gains just 0.1 day over 400 years. For any given event during the years from 1901 through 2099, its date according to

3196-417: The Julian calendar is 13 days behind its corresponding Gregorian date (for instance Julian 1 January falls on Gregorian 14 January). Most Catholic countries adopted the new calendar immediately; Protestant countries did so slowly in the course of the following two centuries or so; most Orthodox countries retain the Julian calendar for religious purposes but adopted the Gregorian as their civil calendar in

3290-444: The Julian calendar: Caesar's regulation of the civil year to accord with his revised measurement was proclaimed publicly by edict, and the arrangement might have continued to stand had not the correction itself of the calendar led the priests to introduce a new error of their own; for they proceeded to insert the intercalary day, which represented the four quarter-days, at the beginning of each fourth year instead of at its end, although

3384-487: The Kalends of March'), usually abbreviated as a.d. bis VI Kal. Mart. ; hence it is called in English the bissextile day. The year in which it occurred was termed annus bissextus , in English the bissextile year. There is debate about the exact position of the bissextile day in the early Julian calendar. The earliest direct evidence is a statement of the 2nd century jurist Celsus , who states that there were two-halves of

3478-578: The Latin names. However, in eastern Europe older seasonal month names continued to be used into the 19th century, and in some cases are still in use, in many languages, including: Belarusian , Bulgarian , Croatian , Czech , Finnish, Georgian , Lithuanian , Macedonian , Polish , Romanian , Slovene , Ukrainian . When the Ottoman Empire adopted the Julian calendar, in the form of the Rumi calendar,

3572-636: The Nile delta in October 48 BC and soon became embroiled in the Ptolemaic dynastic war, especially after Cleopatra managed to be "introduced" to him in Alexandria . Caesar imposed a peace, and a banquet was held to celebrate the event. Lucan depicted Caesar talking to a wise man called Acoreus during the feast, stating his intention to create a calendar more perfect than that of Eudoxus (Eudoxus

3666-570: The SOFA for a subject. He obeyed; and, having much leisure, connected another subject with it; and, pursuing the train of thought to which his situation and turn of mind led him, brought forth at length, instead of the trifle which he at first intended, a serious affair – a Volume! In the same volume Cowper also printed " The Diverting History of John Gilpin ", a notable piece of comic verse. G. K. Chesterton , in Orthodoxy , later credited

3760-505: The Worship of God . References: https://www.hymnologyarchive.com/william-cowper https://hymnary.org/person/Cowper_W https://www.hymnal.net/en/home G OD moves in a mysterious way, His wonders to perform; He plants his footsteps in the sea, And rides upon the storm. There is a fountain fill'd with blood Drawn from Emmanuel 's veins; And sinners, plung'd beneath that flood, Lose all their guilty stains. Oh! for

3854-471: The approximation of 365 + 1 ⁄ 4 days for the tropical year had been known for a long time, ancient solar calendars had used less precise periods, resulting in gradual misalignment of the calendar with the seasons. The octaeteris , a cycle of eight lunar years popularised by Cleostratus (and also commonly attributed to Eudoxus ) which was used in some early Greek calendars, notably in Athens ,

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3948-759: The attributes attached to those who were supposed to have refused such a role...making him anti-heteronormative and anti- homonormative at one and the same time." Cowper's 18th century understanding of his own predicament was that—being "what the world calls an old bachelor"—he was nevertheless "a rational creature", much abused by those who would make sport of him. References: Selected Works of William Cowper https://www.poetryfoundation.org https://mypoeticside.com https://poetryprof.com William Cowper translated Homer's two epic poems: "The Iliad" and "The Odyssey." His translations of these ancient Greek classics are considered significant contributions to English literature. Cowper's translations of Homer were part of

4042-404: The best philosophers and mathematicians of his time to solve the problem of the calendar. Pliny says that Caesar was aided in his reform by the astronomer Sosigenes of Alexandria who is generally considered the principal designer of the reform. Sosigenes may also have been the author of the astronomical almanac published by Caesar to facilitate the reform. Eventually, it was decided to establish

4136-560: The century. Later critics have faulted Cowper's Homer for being too much in the mould of John Milton . In 1789 Cowper befriended a cousin, Dr John Johnson , a Norfolk clergyman, and in 1795 Cowper and Mary moved to Norfolk to be near him and his sister Catharine. They originally stayed at North Tuddenham , then at Dunham Lodge near Swaffham and then Mundesley before finally settling in East Dereham (all places in Norfolk ) with

4230-507: The character of the associated dates to be changed to NP . However, this practice was discontinued around the reign of Claudius , and the practice of characterising days fell into disuse around the end of the first century AD: the Antonine jurist Gaius speaks of dies nefasti as a thing of the past. The old intercalary month was abolished. The new leap day was dated as ante diem bis sextum Kalendas Martias ('the sixth doubled day before

4324-595: The correct Julian calendar. Due to the confusion about this period, we cannot be sure exactly what day (e.g. Julian day number ) any particular Roman date refers to before March of 8 BC, except for those used in Egypt in 24   BC which are secured by astronomy. An inscription has been discovered which orders a new calendar to be used in the Province of Asia to replace the previous Greek lunar calendar. According to one translation Intercalation shall commence on

4418-469: The date in both calendars was the same. The dates in the Alexandrian and Julian calendars are in one-to-one correspondence except for the period from 29 August in the year preceding a Julian leap year to the following 24 February. From a comparison of the astronomical data with the Egyptian and Roman dates, Alexander Jones concluded that the Egyptian astronomers (as opposed to travellers from Rome) used

4512-408: The day after 14 Peritius [a.d. IX Kal. Feb, which would have been 15 Peritius] as it is currently constituted in the third year following promulgation of the decree. Xanthicus shall have 32 days in this intercalary year. This is historically correct. It was decreed by the proconsul that the first day of the year in the new calendar shall be Augustus' birthday, a.d. IX Kal. Oct. Every month begins on

4606-494: The early part of the twentieth century. The ordinary year in the previous Roman calendar consisted of 12 months, for a total of 355 days. In addition, a 27- or 28-day intercalary month , the Mensis Intercalaris , was sometimes inserted between February and March. This intercalary month was formed by inserting 22 or 23 days after the first 23 days of February; the last five days of February, which counted down toward

4700-726: The ephemeral month names of the post-Augustan Roman emperors were the Old High German names introduced by Charlemagne . According to his biographer, Einhard, Charlemagne renamed all of the months agriculturally in German. These names were used until the 15th century, over 700 years after his rule, and continued, with some modifications, to be used as "traditional" month names until the late 18th century. The names (January to December) were: Wintarmanoth ("winter month"), Hornung , Lentzinmanoth ("spring month", " Lent month"), Ostarmanoth (" Easter month"), Wonnemanoth (" joy -month",

4794-525: The extra days were added immediately before the last day of each month to avoid disturbing the position of the established religious ceremonies relative to the Nones and Ides of the month. The inserted days were all initially characterised as dies fasti ( F – see Roman calendar ). The character of a few festival days was changed. In the early Julio-Claudian period a large number of festivals were decreed to celebrate events of dynastic importance, which caused

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4888-528: The first day of the year (1 Farvardin= Nowruz ) slipped against the vernal equinox at the rate of approximately one day every four years. Likewise in the Egyptian calendar , a fixed year of 365 days was in use, drifting by one day against the sun in four years. An unsuccessful attempt to add an extra day every fourth year was made in 238 BC ( Decree of Canopus ). Caesar probably experienced this "wandering" or "vague" calendar in that country. He landed in

4982-424: The hymn " Amazing Grace ") led to much of the poetry for which he is best remembered, and to the series of Olney Hymns . His poem " Light Shining out of Darkness " gave English the phrase: "God moves in a mysterious way/ His wonders to perform." He also wrote a number of anti-slavery poems, and his friendship with Newton, who was an avid anti-slavery campaigner, resulted in Cowper's being asked to write in support of

5076-569: The implied proleptic Julian date for the first day of Caesar's reformed calendar and the first Julian date on which the Roman calendar date matches the Julian calendar after the completion of Augustus' reform. By the systems of Scaliger, Ideler and Bünting, the leap years prior to the suspension happen to be BC years that are divisible by 3, just as, after leap year resumption, they are the AD years divisible by 4. Pierre Brind'Amour argued that "only one day

5170-587: The inscription "Salvation to the dying man, And to the rising God" (a line from Cowper's poem "The Saviour, what a noble flame"); and in the north aisle, an etched glass window is inscribed with lines from "Oh! for a closer walk with God" and "The Task". In the same church there is also a memorial tablet to the poet's mother, Ann Cowper. Cowper is also commemorated (along with George Herbert ) by another Clayton & Bell stained-glass window in St George's Chapel, Westminster Abbey . In 1823, Cowper's correspondence

5264-429: The intercalation ought to have been made at the end of each fourth year and before the beginning of the fifth. This error continued for thirty-six years by which time twelve intercalary days had been inserted instead of the number actually due, namely nine. But when this error was at length recognised, it too was corrected, by an order of Augustus, that twelve years should be allowed to pass without an intercalary day, since

5358-413: The kalends of the corresponding Roman month; thus the year began on 23 September, Augustus's birthday. The first step of the reform was to realign the start of the calendar year (1 January) to the tropical year by making 46 BC 445 days long, compensating for the intercalations which had been missed during Caesar's pontificate. This year had already been extended from 355 to 378 days by the insertion of

5452-428: The lengths of Julian months, and, even if they did, their first days did not match the first day of the corresponding Julian month. Nevertheless, since the reformed calendars had fixed relationships to each other and to the Julian calendar, the process of converting dates between them became quite straightforward, through the use of conversion tables known as "hemerologia". The three most important of these calendars are

5546-479: The new one as 24 January, a.d. IX Kal. Feb 5 BC in the Julian calendar, which was a leap year. Thus from inception the dates of the reformed Asian calendar are in one-to-one correspondence with the Julian. Another translation of this inscription is Intercalation shall commence on the day after the fourteenth day in the current month of Peritius [a.d. IX Kal. Feb], occurring every third year. Xanthicus shall have 32 days in this intercalary year. This would move

5640-405: The ninth day before the kalends. The date of introduction, the day after 14 Peritius, was 1 Dystrus, the next month. The month after that was Xanthicus. Thus Xanthicus began on a.d. IX Kal. Mart., and normally contained 31 days. In leap year, however, it contained an extra "Sebaste day", the Roman leap day, and thus had 32 days. From the lunar nature of the old calendar we can fix the starting date of

5734-411: The provincial calendars that were aligned to the Julian calendar. Other name changes were proposed but were never implemented. Tiberius rejected a senatorial proposal to rename September as "Tiberius" and October as "Livius", after his mother Livia. Antoninus Pius rejected a senatorial decree renaming September as "Antoninus" and November as "Faustina", after his empress . Much more lasting than

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5828-400: The realignment had been completed, in 45 BC. The Julian months were formed by adding ten days to a regular pre-Julian Roman year of 355 days, creating a regular Julian year of 365 days. Two extra days were added to January, Sextilis (August) and December, and one extra day was added to April, June, September, and November. February was not changed in ordinary years, and so continued to be

5922-409: The rest of his life. Older children bullied Cowper through many of his younger years. At Westminster School he studied under the headmaster John Nicoll. At the time, Westminster School was popular amongst families belonging to England's Whig political party . Many intelligent boys from families of a lower social status also attended, however. Cowper made lifelong friends from Westminster. He read through

6016-577: The roar she sends through all her gates At a safe distance, where the dying sound Falls a soft murmur on the uninjur'd ear. in Julian calendar The Julian calendar is a solar calendar of 365 days in every year with an additional leap day every fourth year (without exception). The Julian calendar is still used as a religious calendar in parts of the Eastern Orthodox Church and in parts of Oriental Orthodoxy as well as by

6110-402: The sea, I am lord of the fowl and the brute. No voice divine the storm allay'd, No light propitious shone; When, snatch'd from all effectual aid, We perish'd, each alone; But I beneath a rougher sea, And whelmed in deeper gulphs than he. 'Tis pleasant, through the loopholes of retreat, To peep at such a world; to see the stir Of the great Babel, and not feel the crowd; To hear

6204-503: The sequence of twelve such years would account for the three days which, in the course of thirty-six years, had been introduced by the premature actions of the priests. So, according to Macrobius, Some people have had different ideas as to how the leap years went. The above scheme is that of Scaliger (1583) in the table below. He established that the Augustan reform was instituted in 8 BC. The table below shows for each reconstruction

6298-405: The site of the London residence of the Bishops of Ely , who regularly lived there between 1290 to 1772. The bishop's palace and surrounding land was then sold and redeveloped into Ely Place, with only the bishop's medieval chapel being preserved. Ely Place stands on land that had been the site of Ely Palace or Ely House , the London townhouse of the Bishops of Ely from 1290 to 1772. Land in

6392-653: The site. The house passed to Elizabeth Hatton , who disputed her property with her second husband Edward Coke . In 1622, the Spanish ambassador Gondomar told King James that she refused him and Coke access to the house. The estate was sold to the Crown in 1772. The cul-de-sac was constructed in 1772 by Robert Taylor . Edmund Keene as Bishop of Ely commissioned a new Ely House, also built by Taylor, on Dover Street , Mayfair. St Etheldreda's Church in Ely Place

6486-458: The start of March, became the last five days of Intercalaris. The net effect was to add 22 or 23 days to the year, forming an intercalary year of 377 or 378 days. Some say the mensis intercalaris always had 27 days and began on either the first or the second day after the Terminalia (23 February). If managed correctly this system could have allowed the Roman year to stay roughly aligned to

6580-422: The starting date back three years to 8 BC, and from the lunar synchronism back to 26 January (Julian). But since the corresponding Roman date in the inscription is 24 January, this must be according to the incorrect calendar which in 8 BC Augustus had ordered to be corrected by the omission of leap days. As the authors of the previous paper point out, with the correct four-year cycle being used in Egypt and

6674-570: The statement sometimes seen that they were called " Undecimber " and " Duodecimber ", terms that arose in the 18th century over a millennium after the Roman Empire's collapse. Their individual lengths are unknown, as is the position of the Nones and Ides within them. Because 46 BC was the last of a series of irregular years, this extra-long year was, and is, referred to as the "last year of confusion". The new calendar began operation after

6768-653: The three-year cycle abolished in Rome, it is unlikely that Augustus would have ordered the three-year cycle to be introduced in Asia. The Julian reform did not immediately cause the names of any months to be changed. The old intercalary month was abolished and replaced with a single intercalary day at the same point (i.e., five days before the end of February). The Romans later renamed months after Julius Caesar and Augustus, renaming Quintilis as "Iulius" (July) in 44 BC and Sextilis as "Augustus" (August) in 8 BC. Quintilis

6862-498: The time as melancholy. In 1763 he was offered a Clerkship of Journals in the House of Lords , but broke under the strain of the approaching examination; he experienced a worse period of depression and insanity . At this time he tried three times to commit suicide and was sent to Nathaniel Cotton 's asylum at St Albans for recovery. His poem beginning "Hatred and vengeance, my eternal portions" (sometimes referred to as "Sapphics")

6956-479: The title Poems by William Cowper, of the Inner Temple, Esq. In 1781 Cowper met a sophisticated and charming widow named Lady Austen who inspired new poetry. Cowper himself tells of the genesis of what some have considered his most substantial work, The Task , in his "Advertisement" to the original edition of 1785: ...a lady, fond of blank verse , demanded a poem of that kind from the author, and gave him

7050-410: The traditional 28 days. Thus, the ordinary (i.e., non-leap year) lengths of all of the months were set by the Julian calendar to the same values they still hold today. The Julian reform did not change the method used to account days of the month in the pre-Julian calendar , based on the Kalends, Nones and Ides, nor did it change the positions of these three dates within the months. Macrobius states that

7144-426: The view that Celsus was using the ordinary Latin (and English) meaning of "posterior". A third view is that neither half of the 48-hour "bis sextum" was originally formally designated as intercalated, but that the need to do so arose as the concept of a 48-hour day became obsolete. There is no doubt that the bissextile day eventually became the earlier of the two days for most purposes. In 238 Censorinus stated that it

7238-562: The writing of "John Gilpin" with saving Cowper from becoming completely insane. Cowper and Mary Unwin moved to Weston Underwood, Buckinghamshire , in 1786, having become close with his cousin Lady Harriett Hesketh (Theodora's sister). During this period he started his translations of Homer 's Iliad and Odyssey into blank verse . His versions (published in 1791) were the most significant English renderings of these epic poems since those of Alexander Pope earlier in

7332-586: Was rector of the Church of St Peter . His father's sister was the poet Judith Madan . His mother was Ann née Donne. He and his brother John were the only two of seven children to live past infancy. Ann died giving birth to John on 7 November 1737. His mother's death at such an early age troubled William deeply and was the subject of his poem " On the Receipt of My Mother's Picture ", written more than fifty years later. He grew close to her family in his early years. He

7426-411: Was an adaptation of the Ancient Macedonian calendar used in the Roman province of Asia and, with minor variations, in nearby cities and provinces. It is known in detail through the survival of decrees promulgating it issued in 8   BC by the proconsul Paullus Fabius Maximus . It renamed the first month Dios as Kaisar , and arranged the months such that each month started on the ninth day before

7520-521: Was assigned to both halves of the 48-hour bissextile day by this time, so that the Regifugium and the market day might fall on the same date but on different days. In any case, the 8-day nundinal cycle began to be displaced by the 7-day week in the first century AD, and dominical letters began to appear alongside nundinal letters in the fasti. The Julian calendar has two types of year: "normal" years of 365 days and "leap" years of 366 days. There

7614-547: Was dedicated. The gardens of St Etheldreda were said to produce the finest strawberries in London and a Strawberry Fayre is held here every June. In Shakespeare ’s Richard III , Gloucester tells the Bishop of Ely: " My Lord of Ely, when I was last in Holborn, I saw good strawberries in your garden there. I do beseech you, send for some of them ". In 1842 a local act of Parliament , the Ely Place and Ely Mews Improvement Act 1842 ( 5 & 6 Vict. c.xlviii), established

7708-514: Was inserted after the Terminalia (23 February) and was followed by the last five days of February, i.e., a.d. VI, V, IV, III and prid. Kal. Mart. (which would be 24 to 28 February in a common year and the 25th to 29th in a leap year). Hence he regarded the bissextum as the first half of the doubled day. All later writers, including Macrobius about 430, Bede in 725, and other medieval computists (calculators of Easter) followed this rule, as does

7802-467: Was intercalated between 1/1/45 and 1/1/40 (disregarding a momentary 'fiddling' in December of 41) to avoid the nundinum falling on Kal. Ian." Alexander Jones says that the correct Julian calendar was in use in Egypt in 24 BC, implying that the first day of the reform in both Egypt and Rome, 1 January 45 BC , was the Julian date 1 January if 45 BC was a leap year and 2 January if it

7896-589: Was killed in a fall from his horse; Cowper continued to live in the Unwin home and became greatly attached to the widow Mary Unwin . At Olney, Newton invited Cowper to contribute to a hymnbook that he was compiling. The resulting volume, known as Olney Hymns, was not published until 1779 but includes hymns such as "Praise for the Fountain Opened" (beginning " There is a fountain fill'd with blood ") and "Light Shining out of Darkness" (beginning " God Moves in

7990-476: Was not. This necessitates fourteen leap days up to and including AD 8 if 45 BC was a leap year and thirteen if it was not. In 1999, a papyrus was discovered which gives the dates of astronomical phenomena in 24 BC in both the Egyptian and Roman calendars. From 30 August 26 BC (Julian) , Egypt had two calendars: the old Egyptian in which every year had 365 days and the new Alexandrian in which every fourth year had 366 days. Up to 28 August 22 BC (Julian)

8084-548: Was one of the forerunners of Romantic poetry . Samuel Taylor Coleridge called him "the best modern poet", whilst William Wordsworth particularly admired his poem "Yardley-Oak". After being institutionalised for insanity, Cowper found refuge in a fervent evangelical Christianity. He continued to suffer doubt about his salvation and, after a dream in 1773, believed that he was doomed to eternal damnation . He recovered, and went on to write more religious hymns. His religious sentiment and association with John Newton (who wrote

8178-552: Was particularly close with her brother Robert and his wife Harriot. They instilled in young William a love of reading and gave him some of his first books – John Bunyan 's Pilgrim's Progress and John Gay 's Fables. Cowper was first enrolled in Westminster School in April 1742 after moving from school to school for a number of years. He had begun to study Latin at a young age, and was an eager scholar of Latin for

8272-407: Was popularly credited with having determined the length of the year to be 365 + 1 ⁄ 4 days). But the war soon resumed and Caesar was attacked by the Egyptian army for several months until he achieved victory. He then enjoyed a long cruise on the Nile with Cleopatra before leaving the country in June 47 BC. Caesar returned to Rome in 46 BC and, according to Plutarch , called in

8366-578: Was published posthumously from the original letters in the possession of his kinsman John Johnson. Near the village of Weston Underwood, Buckinghamshire , where Cowper once resided, is a folly named Cowper's Alcove. The folly was built by the Lord of the Manor of Weston House, a member of the Throckmorton family in 1753. Cowper was known to visit there frequently for inspiration for his poetry. The alcove

8460-693: Was renamed to honour Caesar because it was the month of his birth. According to a senatus consultum quoted by Macrobius, Sextilis was renamed to honour Augustus because several of the most significant events in his rise to power, culminating in the fall of Alexandria, occurred in that month. Other months were renamed by other emperors, but apparently none of the later changes survived their deaths. In AD 37, Caligula renamed September as "Germanicus" after his father ; in AD 65, Nero renamed April as "Neroneus", May as "Claudius" and June as "Germanicus"; and in AD 84 Domitian renamed September as "Germanicus" and October as "Domitianus". Commodus

8554-498: Was seized with edema , or dropsy, in the spring of 1800 and died on 25 April. He is buried in the chapel of St Thomas of Canterbury , St Nicholas's Church in East Dereham, and a stained-glass window there commemorates his life. In St Peter's Church in Berkhamsted there are two windows in memory of Cowper: The east window by Clayton & Bell (1872) depicts Cowper at his writing desk accompanied by his pet hares, and bears

8648-597: Was slightly shorter than 365.25 days, the calendar did not compensate for this difference. As a result, the calendar year gains about three days every four centuries compared to observed equinox times and the seasons. This discrepancy was largely corrected by the Gregorian reform of 1582. The Gregorian calendar has the same months and month lengths as the Julian calendar, but, in the Gregorian calendar, year numbers evenly divisible by 100 are not leap years, except that those evenly divisible by 400 remain leap years (even then,

8742-496: Was unique in renaming all twelve months after his own adopted names (January to December): "Amazonius", "Invictus", "Felix", "Pius", "Lucius", "Aelius", "Aurelius", "Commodus", "Augustus", "Herculeus", "Romanus", and "Exsuperatorius". The emperor Tacitus is said to have ordered that September, the month of his birth and accession, be renamed after him, but the story is doubtful since he did not become emperor before November 275. Similar honorific month names were implemented in many of

8836-504: Was written in the aftermath of his suicide attempt. After recovering, he settled at Huntingdon with a retired clergyman named Morley Unwin and his wife Mary . Cowper grew to be on such good terms with the Unwin family that he went to live in their house, and moved with them to Olney . There he met curate John Newton , a former captain of slave ships who had devoted his life to the Christian gospel . Not long afterwards, Morley Unwin

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