6 JANUARY 1900, Page 23

[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR"

Sin,—The confusion as to the date when a new century commences seems to be no new thing. In Scott's " Life of Dryden "—Sect. viii.—occurs the following passage " It was agreed that Dryden, or, as one account says, his brother Charles, should have the profits of a third night on condition of adding to the piece a Secular Masque adapted to the sup- posed termination of the seventeenth century "; to which Scott appends a footnote : " Le., upon the 25th of March, 1700, it being supposed (as by many in our own time) that the century was concluded as soon as the hundredth year commenced;— as if a play was ended at the beginning of the fifth act."—I am,