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RECONQUER, v. a. - Fr. reconquerir. Re and conquer. To conquer again.

Chatterton undertook to reconquer Ogier. Davies. RECONVENE', v. a.. Re and convene. To

assemble anew.

A worse accident fell out about the time of the two houses reconvening, which made a wonderful impression. Clarendon.

RECON'SECRATE, v. a. Re and consecrate. To consecrate anew.

If a church should be consumed by fire, it shall, in such a case, be reconsecrated.. Ayliffe's Parergon. RECONVEY', v. n. Re and convey. To convey again.

As rivers lost in seas, some secret vein Thence reconveys, there to be lost again. Denham. RECORD', v. a. & n. s. Į Fr. recorder; Lat. RECORD'ER, n. s. S recordor. To register; celebrate; recite: a register; authentic memorial; remembrance: a recorder is he whose business it is to keep records; the rolls of a city, &c.; also a kind of flute.

I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death. Deut. xxx. 20.

Those things that are recorded of him, and his impiety, are written in the chronicles. 1 Esdras i. The shepherds went among them, and sung an eclogue, while the other shepherds, pulling out recorders, which possest the place of pipes, accorded their music to the others voice. Sidney.

He shall record a gift

Here in the court of all he dies possessed, Unto his son Lorenzo.

Is it upon record? or else reported Successively, from age to age?

Shakspeare.

Id.

I never shall have length of life enough, To rain upon remembrance with mine eyes, That it may grow and sprout as high as heaven For recordation to my noble husband.

I asked, what meant this wilful silence? His answer was, the people were not used

To be spoke to except by the recorder.

I but your recorder am in this,

Or mouth and speaker of the universe,

A ministerial notary; for 'tis

Not I, but you and fame that make the verse.

Id.

Id.

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Prior.

Thy elder look, great Janus! cast Into the long records of ages past; Review the years in fairest action drest. The office of recorder to this city being vacant, five or six persons are soliciting to succeed him. Swift. RECORD, TRIAL BY, is where a matter of record is pleaded in any action, as a fine, a judgment, or the like; and the opposite party pleads, nul tiel record, that there is no such matter of record existing. Upon this, issue is tendered and joined in the following form, and this he prays may be enquired of by the record; and the other does the like;' and hereupon the

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party pleading the record has a day given him to bring it in, and proclamation is made in court for him to bring forth the record by him in pleading alleged, or else he shall be condemned;"' and, on his failure, his antagonist shall have judgment to recover. The trial, therefore, of this issue is merely by the record; for, as Sir Edward Coke observes, a record or enrolment is a monument of so high a nature, and importeth in itself such absolute verity, that if it be pleaded that there is no such record, it shall not receive any trial by witness, jury, or otherwise, but only by itself. Thus titles of nobility, as whether earl or not earl, baron or not baron, shall be tried by the king's writ or patent only, which is matter of record. Also, in case of an alien, whether alien, friend, or enemy, he shall be tried by the league or treaty between his sovereign and ours; for every league or treaty is of record. And also, whether a manor be held in ancient demesne or not, shall be tried by the record of doomsday in the king's exchequer.

The RECORDER is a person whom the mayor and other magistrates of a city or corporation associate with themselves, for their direction in matters of justice and proceedings in law; on which account this person is generally a counsellor well skilled in the law. No recorder of London is mentioned before 1304. He is the first officer in order of precedence that is paid a salary, which originally was no more than £10 sterling per annum, with some perquisites; but it has from time to time been augmented to upwards of £1000 per annum. This office has sometimes been executed by a deputy.

RECORDE (Robert), M. D., an English physician and antiquarian of the sixteenth century. He was educated at Cambridge, where he took his degrees, and was the first Englishman who wrote on Algebra. He was also well versed in the Saxon language, and collected many historical and other ancient MSS. His learning, however, unfortunately did not prevent his being imprisoned in the King's Bench prison for debt, where he died in 1558. RECOUCH', v. a. down again.

Re and couch. To lie

Thou mak'est the night to overvail the day; Then lions' whelps lie roaring for their prey, And at thy powerful hand demand their food; Who when at morn they all recouch again, Then toiling man till eve pursues his pain. Wotton. RECOVER, v. a. & v. n. Fr. recouvrir; RECOVERABLE, adj. Lat. recupero. To restore; repair;

Recovery, n. s.

renew; regain; release: grow healthy or free from disease or evil: recoverable is, possible to be regained recovery, restoration; act or power of regaining: in law, act of cutting off an entail.

Would my lord were with the prophet; for he would recover him of his leprosy. 2 Kings v. 3.

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, to preach the gospel to the poor, and recovering of sight to the

blind. Luke iv. 18. of the devil, who are taken captive by him. That they may recover themselves out of the snare

2 Timothy ii. 26. These Italians, in despight of what could be done, recovered Tiliaventum. Knolles.

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Adam, by this from the cold sudden damp Recovering, his scattered spirits returned. Milton. The clouds dispelled, the sky resumed her light, And nature stood recovered of her fright. Dryden. Any other person may join with him that is injured, and assist him in recovering from the offender so much as may make satisfaction.

Locke.

The sweat sometimes acid, is a sign of recovery after acute distempers. Arbuthnot on Aliments. RECOVERY, OF COMMON RECOVERY, in English law. Common recoveries were invented by the ecclesiastics to elude the statutes of mortmain; and afterwards encouraged by the finesse of the courts of law, in order to put an end to all fettered inheritances, and bar not only estatestail, but also all remainders and reversions expectant thereon. A common recovery is a suit or action, either actual or fictitious; and in it the lands are recovered against the tenant of the freehold; which recovery, being a supposed abjudication of the right, binds all persons, and vests a free and absolute fee-simple in the reThere must be three persons at least to make a common recovery, a recoverer, a recoveree, and a vouchee. The recoverer is the plaintiff or demandant, that brings the writ of entry. The recoveree is the defendant or tenant of the land, against whom the writ is brought. The vouchee is he whom the defendant or tenant voucheth or calls to warranty of the land in demand, either to defend the right, or to yield him other lands in value, according to a supposed agreement. And, this being by consent and permission of the parties, it is therefore said that a recovery is suffered.

coverer.

The operation of this legal fiction not being generally well understood, judge Blackstone has endeavoured to explain it in detail.

'Let us,' says he, in the first place, suppose David Edwards to be tenant of the freehold, and desirous to suffer a common recovery, in order to bar all entails, remainders, and reversions, and to convey the same in fee-simple to Francis Golding. To effect this, Golding is to bring an action against him for the lands; and he accordingly sues out a writ, called a præcipe quod reddat, because those were its initials or most operative words, when the law proceedings were in Latin. In this writ the demandant, Golding, alleges that the defendant, Edwards (here called the tenant), has no legal title to the land; but that he came into possession of it after one Hugh Hunt had turned the demandant out of it. The subsequent proceedings are made up into a VOL. XVIII

record or recovery roll, in which the writ and complaint of the demandant are first recited; whereupon the tenant appears, and calls upon one Jacob Moreland, who is supposed, at the original purchase, to have warranted the title to the tenant; and thereupon he prays that the said Jacob Moreland may be called in to defend the title, which he so warranted. This is called the voucher, vocatio, or calling of Jacob Moreland to warranty; and Moreland is called the vouchee. Upon this, Jacob Moreland, the vouchee, appears, is impleaded, and defends the title. Whereupon Golding, the demandant, desires leave of the court to imparl, or confer with the vouchee in private; which is (as usual) allowed him. And soon afterwards the demandant, Golding, returns to court, but Moreland the vouchee disappears, or makes the default. Whereupon judgment is given for the demandant, Golding, now called the recoverer, to recover the lands in question against the tenant, Edwards, who is now the recoveree; and Edwards has judgment to recover of Jacob Moreland lands of equal value, in recompense for the lands so warranted by him, and now lost by his default; which is agreeable to the doctrine of warranty. This is called the recompense, or recovery in value. But Jacob Moreland having no lands of his own, being, usually the cryer of the court (who, from being frequently thus vouched, is called the common vouchee) it is plain that Edwards has only a nominal recompense for the lands so recovered against him by Golding; which lands are now absolutely vested in the said recoverer by judgment of law, and seisin thereof is delivered by the sheriff of the county. So that this collusive recovery operates merely in the nature of a conveyance in fee-simple, from Edwards the tenant in tail, to Golding the purchaser.'

RECOUNT', v. a. I RECOUNT MENT. relation; recital.

Fr. reconter. To relate in detail; tell distinctly:

Bid him recount the fore-recited practices.

Shakspeare.

Tears our recountments had most finely bathed ; As how I came into that desart place.

When from the first to last, betwixt us too,

Id.

Plato in Timao produces an Egyptian priest, who recounted to Solon out of the holy books of Egypt the story of the flood universal, which happened long before the Grecian inundation. Raleigh.

The talk of worldly affairs hindereth much, although recounted with a fair intention: we speak willingly, but seldom return to silence. Taylor.

Say from these glorious seeds what harvest flows, Recount our blessings, and compare our woes.

Dryden. RECOURSE', n. s. Į Fr. recours; Lat. reRECOURSE'FUL, adj. cursus. Frequent pas

sage; return; renewed attack or application; hence the common sense of application for help or protection; access: recourseful is, moving alternately.

The doors be lockt,
That no man hath recourse to her by night.

Shakspeare. Drayton.

In that recourseful deep. Thus died this great peer, in a time of great recourse unto him and dependance upon him, the house and town full of servants and suitors. Wotton. 2 E

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grace

From out the bars to force his opposite,
Or kill, or make him recreant on the plain,
The prize of valour and of love shall gain. Dryden.

RECREATE, v. n. Fr. recreer; Lat. reRECREATION, n. s. creo. To refresh; reRECREATIVE, adj. vive; relieve after or avert weariness; delight: the noun-substantive and adjective corresponding.

The chief recreation she could find in her anguish was sometime to visit that place, where first she was so happy as to see the cause of her unhap. Sidney. I'll visit

The chapel where they lie, and tears shed there, Shall be my recreation. Shakspeare. Winter's Tale. Let the musick be recreative, and with some strange changes. Bacon.

Take a walk to refresh yourself with the open air, which inspired fresh doth exceedingly recreate the lungs, heart, and vital spirits. Harvey.

Let not your recreations be lavish spenders of your time; but choose such as are healthful, recreative, and apt to refresh you; but at no hand dwell upon them. Taylor.

He walked abroad, which he did not so much to recreate himself, as to obey the prescripts of his physician. Fell. These ripe fruits recreate the nostrils with their aromatick scent. More's Divine Dialogues.

The access these trifles gain to the closets of ladies seem to promise such easy and recreative experiments, which require but little time or charge. Boyle. You may have the recreation of surprising those with admiration who shall hear the deaf person pronounce whatsoever they shall desire, without your seeming to guide him. Helder's Elements of Speech.

Nor is that man less deceived, that thinks to maintain a constant tenure of pleasure, by a continual pursuit of sports and recreations: for all these things, as they refresh a man when weary, so they weary him when refreshed.

South.

RECREATION ISLAND, a fertile island in the Southern Pacific Ocean, discovered in the year 1722 by Roggewin. It is twelve leagues in circuit, and some of the ship's company obtained a quantity of antiscorbutic herbs here, but venturing into the country, were assaulted by the natives, who stoned some of them to death, and wounded almost all. Many of the islanders were killed in return by their fire-arms. The

soil is elevated, and produces sugar-canes, cocoanuts, pomegranates, Indian figs, &c. The inhabitants are well-made, robust, and full of vivacity; their bodies were painted. REC'REMENT, n. s. Į Lat. recrementum. RECREMENTAL, adj. Dross; spume; superfluity: drossy.

The vital fire in the heart requires an ambient body of a yielding nature, to receive the superfluous serosities and other recrements of the blood. Boyle.

RECRIM'INATE, v. n. & v. a. ¿ Fr. recrimi RECRIMINATION, n. s. S ner; Lat. re and criminor. To return one accusation with another; the accusation made in return.

It is not my business to recriminate, hoping suffciently to clear myself in this matter. Stilling fleet. How shall such hypocrites reform the state, On whom the brothers can recriminate? Dryden. Did not Joseph lie under black infamy? he scoraed so much as to clear himself, or to recriminate the strumpet. South.

Public defamation will seem disobliging enough to provoke a return, which again begets a rejoinder, and so the quarrel is carried on with mutual recrimiGovernment of the Tongue. Fr. recruter.

nations.

RECRUIT, v. a., v. n., & n. s. To repair; waste; supply an army; with new wasted. Pope has used it improperly for a submen; raise new soldiers; supply of any thing stitute of something wanting; a new soldier.

He trusted the earl of Holland with the command of that army, with which he was to be recruited and assisted. Clarendon.

Increase thy care to save the sinking kind, With greens and flow'rs recruit their empty hives, And seek fresh forage to sustain their lives.

Dryden.

The pow'rs of Troy With fresh recruits their youthful chief sustain Not their's a raw and unexperienced train, But a firm body of embattel'd men.

Id.

The French have only Switzerland besides their own country to recruit in; and we know the difficulties they meet with in getting thence a single regiAddison.

ment.

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RECTANGLE, n. s. Fr. rectangle; Lat. ectangulus. A figure which has one angle or more of ninety degrees: the adjective and adverb corresponding.

between

Bricks moulded in their ordinary rectangular form, if they shall be laid one by another in a level row any supporters sustaining the two ends, then all the pieces will necessarily sink. Wotton. If all Athens should decree, that in rectangle triangle the square, which is made of the side that subtendeth the right angle, is equal to the squares which are made of the sides containing the right angle, geometricians would not receive satisfaction without demonstration. Browne's Vulgar Erreurs.

The mathematician considers the truth and properties belonging to a rectangie, only as it is in idea in his own mind.

Locke.

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Shakspeare.

That longer you defer the court, as well For your own quiet, as to rectify What is unsettled in the king. At the first rectification of some spirit of salt in a retort, a single pound afforded no less than six ounces of phlegm. Boyle.

The natural heat of the parts being insufficient for a perfect and thorough digestion, the errors of one concoction are not rectifiable by another. Browne. The substance of this theory I mainly depend on, being willing to suppose that many particularities may be rectified upon further thoughts. Burnet.

If those men of parts, who have been employed in vitiating the age, had endeavoured to rectify and amend it, they needed not have sacrificed their good sense to their fame.

Addison.

The false judgments he made of things are owned; and the methods pointed out by which he rectified Atterbury.

them.

RECTIFICATION is in fact a second distillation, in which substances are purified by their more volatile parts being raised by heat carefully managed. Sometimes indeed the rectifier has recourse to a third and even a fourth distillation, when he wishes his spirits or goods, as they are technically called, to be very clean and pure.

The objects of distillation, considered as a trade, are chiefly spirituous liquors; and the distillation of compound spirits and simple water, or those waters that are impregnated with the essential oil of plants, is commonly called rectification.

Malt spirit, and indeed spirits from other substances, must be brought into the state of alcohol, before it is adapted to internal uses, after which it is said to be more fit for all the various internal uses than even French brandy, it being by this purification a more uniform, hungry, tasteless spirit, than any other spirits which are frequently esteemed much better. A quarter of malt, according to its goodness and the season of the year, will afford from eight to fourteen gallons of alcohol. The malt distiller always gives his spirit a single rectification per se to purify it a little, and in this state, though certainly not at all adapted to internal uses, it is frequently and at once distilled into gin or other ordinary compound liquors for the common people. The Dutch never give it any farther rectification than this:-They distil the wash into low wines, and then at once into full proof spirit, from which they manufacture their celebrated Hollands' geneva, which they export to foreign countries. Malt spirit, in its unrectified state, is usually found to have the common bubble proof, which makes it a marketable commodity, and which is obtained by mixing with it a certain portion of the gross oil of the malt; this indeed gives the rectifier much trouble if he require a very fine and pure spirit, but in gere

ral he does not concern himself about this, but mixes it still stronger by alkaline salts, and disguises its taste by the addition of flavoring ingredients. The spirit loses in these processes the vinous character which it had when it came out of the hands of the malt distiller, and is in all respects inferior, except in the disguise of a mixed flavor. The alkaline salts used by the rectifier, destroying the natural vinosity of the spirit, it is necessary to add an extraneous acid to give it a new one, and this is frequently what is denominated in the shops' spiritus nitri dulcis,' and the common method of applying it is the mixing it to the taste with rectified spirit; and it is said to be this that gives the English flavor is, however, very apt to fly off, and acmalt spirit a flavor something like brandy, which cordingly experienced manufacturers recommend the addition of a proper quantity of Glauber's strong spirit of nitre, to the spirit in the still. By this means the liquor comes over impregnated with it, the acid is more intimately mixed, and the flavor is retained. The action of the alkali is thus explained :-There is a greater attraction or affinity between the alkaline salt and the water than between the water and the spirit, of course the salt combines with the water contained in the spirit, and sinks with it to the bottom.

With the spirit-gauge of Messrs. Borie and Poujet, the different degrees of spirituosity are very easily ascertained by means of silver weights of various sizes; the heaviest is inscribed with the words Hollands' proof, and the lightest three-sevenths. The other weights serve to mark the intermediate degrees between these two terms. Thus, if you screw to the end of the beam of the spirit gauge the weight denoting Hollands'-proof, and plunge it into three-fifths, the instrument will descend in the liquid below the degree marked on the scale Hollands'-proof, but it returns to that point on the addition of two-fifths of water, so that three-fifths spirit is thus transformed into Hollands'-proof spirit. If, on the contrary, you screw on the three-fifths weight, and plunge the spirit gauge into Hollands'-proof, it will rise in the liquor above the latter mark, and it may be easily carried down to that degree by the addition of alcohol or spirit of wine. When spirits are distilled for the purpose of extracting alcohol, or spirit of wine, the balneum mariæ is generally employed. The heat is then more gentle and more equal, and the produce of the distillation of superior quality.

Alcohol, or spirit of wine diluted, is used as a beverage. It is the dissolvent of resins, and constitutes the basis of drying varnishes. Spirit of wine serves as a vehicle for the aromatic principle of plants, and is then called spirit of this or that plant. The apothecary likewise employs spirit of wine to dissolve resinous medicines. These dissolutions are denominated tinctures. It forms the base of almost all the different sorts of beverage called liquors. It is sweetened with sugar, or rendered aromatic with all kinds of substances of an agreeable taste or smell. Spirit of wine preserves vegetable and animal substances from fermentation or putrefaction. To

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this end it is used for preserving fruits, vegetables, and almost all the objects and preparations relating to the natural history of animals. All the liquors produced by the fermentation of saccharine substances, yield alcohol. But the quantity and quality vary according to the nature of the substances.

It is chiefly in consequence of the ascent of bodies of greater lixivity with certain bodies of greater volatility that there is so much difficulty here of imitating the foreign vinous spirits of other countries, as, for example, French brandies, and West-Indian rums. All these are remarkable by the character of the essential oil that ascends with the spirit, and which gives it the peculiar flavor by which one spirit differs from another. Now we can obtain an essential oil from any of the vegetables that furnish these different spirits; but we cannot, as we have seen, readily obtain a spirit altogether tasteless, and destitute of some sort of essential oil still combining with it. Could we do this, we could manufacture to perfection an artificial Cogniac brandy or Jamaica rum; but, as we cannot wholly separate the inherent essential oil from the purest and most colorless and most insipid spin we can obtain, when we add the essential oil with which we mean to flavor it, the union of the two oils gives us a different result, and betrays the artifice to those who are acquainted with the taste of the genuine material.

In order, then, to prepare the oil of wine, or of the grapes from which French brandies are distilled, which are generally the worst that the country affords; the best being selected for the process of wine itself, as yielding a far ampler profit; take some cakes of dry wine-lees, dissolve them in six or eight times their weight of water, distil the liquor with a slow fire, and separate the oil, reserving, for only the nicest uses, that which comes over first, the succeeding oil being coarser and more resinous. Having procured this fine oil of wine, may be dissolved in alcohol; by which means it may be preserved a long time, fully possessed of all its flavor, but otherwise it will soon grow rancid. With a fine essential oil of wine, thus procured, and a pure and tasteless spirit, French brandies may be imitated to some degree of perfection. The essential oil, it should be observed, must be drawn from the same kind of lees as the brandy to be imitated was procured from; that is, in order to imitate Cogniac brandy, it will be necessary to distil the essential oil from Cogniac lees; and the same for any other kind of brandy, For as different brandies have different flavors, and as these flavors are entirely owing to the essential oil of the grape, it would be ridiculous to endeavour to imitate the flavor of Cogniac brandy with an essential oil procured from the lees of Bourdeaux wine. When the flavor of the brandy is well imitated, other difficulties are still behind. The flavor, though the essential part, is not the only one; the color, the proof, and the softness, must also be regarded, before a spirit that perfectly resembles brandy can be procured. With regard to the proof, it may be easily accomplished, by using a spirit rectified above proof; which, after being intimately

mixed with the essential oil of wine, may be let down to a proper standard with fair water; and the softness may, in a great measure, be obtained by distilling and rectifying the spirit with a gentle fire; and what is wanting of this criterion in the liquor when first made, will be supplied by time; for it is time alone that gives this property to French brandies, they being, at first, acrid, foul, and fiery. But, with regard to the color, a particular method is required to imitate it to perfection, which may be effected by means of treacle or burnt sugar.

The spirit distilled from molasses or treacle is tolerably pure. It is made from common treacle, dissolved in water, and fermented in the same manner as the wash for the common malt spirit. But if some particular art be not used in recti-. fying this spirit, it will not prove so vinous as malt spirit, but less pungent and acrid, though otherwise much cleaner-tasted, as its essential oil is of a less offensive flavor. Therefore, if good fresh wine-lees, abounding in tartar, be well fermented with molasses, the spirit will acquire a greater vinosity and briskness, and approach nearer to the nature of foreign spirits. Where the molasses spirit is brought to the common proof strength, if it be found not to have a sufficient vinosity, it will be very proper to add some dulcified spirit of nitre; and, if the spirit be clean worked, it may, by this addition only, be made to pass for French brandy. Great quantities of this spirit are used in adulterating foreign brandy, rum, and arrack. Much of it is also used in making cherry-brandy, and other cordials, by infusions; but in them all many persons prefer it to foreign brandies. Molasses, like all other spirits, is entirely colorless when first extracted; but rectifiers always give it as nearly as possible the color of foreign spirits.

In a similar manner we may imitate foreign spirits of all kinds. Thus, if Jamaica rum be our object instead of French brandy, it will only be necessary to procure some of the tops of the sugar canes, from which an essential oil being drawn and mixed with clear molasses spirit, will give it the real flavor; or at least a flavor as true as a spirit not totally divested of all essential flavor of its own can possibly communicate. The principal difficulty therefore must still lie in procuring a spirit totally, or nearly, free from all flavor of its own.

To rectify their spirit into Holland gin, the Dutch distillers add to every twenty gallons of spirit of the second extraction, about the strength of proof-spirit, three pounds of juniper-berries, and two ounces of oil of juniper, and distil with a slow fire, till the feints begin to ascend; then change the receiving-can. This produces the best Rotterdam gin. An inferior kind is made with a less proportion of berries, sweet fennelseeds, and Strasburgh turpentine, without a drop of juniper-oil. This last is also a better sort, and though still inferior to that of Rotterdam, is produced in very large quantities at Welsoppe.

It is remarkable that no one method of combinatory rectification, that is, of the rectification performed by means of salt, and other additions, is suited to all the several kinds of spirits; scarcely indeed will any one way serve for any two;

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