s. Mr Rawlet) have questioned this, and think that to have been a different tree, which was cut down some years ago, and was indeed much larger than this. I remember being once in the hollow of the present oak with the late Sir John Cullum; and his opinion then was, that its antiquity was greater than the period assigned. But, I assure you, the tradition of this place is constant for this tree; and, in confirmation of it, an old lady of 94 years of age, now living, has told me, that all the tenants used to furnish themselves with boughs from this tree, to stick in their hats, whenever they went to meet the carls of Leicester, as was always the custom to do at the end of the park when they came to reside at their seat here. This fine old oak stands upon a plain about 500 yards from their venerable mansion, near a large piece of water called Lancut-well. Ben Jonson and Waller have particularly noticed it; and from the distinguished owners of this place, it may be truly said to stand on classic ground. Within the hollow of it there is a seat, and it is capable of containing five or six persons with ease. The bark round the entrance was so much grown up, that it has lately been cut away to facilitate the access. The dimensions of the tree are these:

Girth close to the ground
Ditto one foot from ditto

Ditto five feet from ditto

Height taken by shadow

Girth of lowest, but not largest, limb

73 6 9 With respect to longevity, Linnæus gives account of an oak 260 years old: but we have had traditions of some in England (how far to be depended upon we know not) that have attained to more than double that age. Mr Marsham, in a letter to Thomas Beevor, Esq. Bath Papers, vol. i. p. 79, makes some very ingenious calculations on the age of trees, and concludes from the increase of the Bentley oak, &c. that the Fortworth chesnut is 1100 years old.

Besides the grand purposes to which the timber is applied in navigation and architecture, and the bark in tanning of leather, there are other uses of less consequence, to which the different parts of this tree have been referred. The Highlanders use the bark to dye their yarn of a brown colour, or, mixed with copperas, of a black colour. They call the oak the king of all the trees in the forest; and the herdsman would think himself and his flock unfortunate if he had not a staff of it. The acorns are a good food to fatten swine and turkeys; and, after the severe winter of the year 1709, the poor people in France were miserably constrained to eat them themselves. They are, however, acorns produced from another species of oak, which are caten to this day in Spain and Greece, with as much pleasure as chesnuts, without the dreadful compulsion of hunger.

QUERCUS Marina, the Sea Oak, in Botany, the name of a broad-leaved dichotomous sea-fucus. It is not agreed, among the late botanists, what was the seaoak of Theophrastus; and the most ancient botanists, Clusius and Casalpinus, suppose it to have been a species of the shrubby coralline; but that seems by no means to have been the case, since Theophrastus says his sea-oak had a long, thick, and fleshy leaf; whence we

QUERIA, a genus of plants, beloning to the tri- Quevedo. andria class; and in the natural method ranking under the 22d order, Caryophyllei. See BOTANY Index.

QUESNE, ABRAHAM DU, marquis of Quesne, admiral of the naval forces of France, and one of the greatest men of the 17th century, was born in Normandy in 1610. He contributed to the defeating of the naval power of Spain before Gattari; was dangerously wounded before Barcelona in 1642, and on other occasions he went into the service of the Swedes, and became vice-admiral; gave the Danes an entire defeat, killed their admiral, and took his ship. He was recalled into France in 1647, and commanded the squadron sent to Naples. The sea-affairs of France being much fallen, he fitted out divers ships for the relief of the royal army that blocked up Bourdeaux; which was the principal cause of the surrender of the town. He was very fortunate in the last wars of Sicily, where he beat the Dutch thrice, and De Ruyter was killed. He also obliged the Algerines to sue in a very humble manner for peace from France. In short, Asia, Africa, and Europe, felt the effects of his valour. He was a Protestant; yet the king bestowed on him the land of Bouchet, and to immortalize his memory gave it the name of that great man. He died in 1688.

QUESTION, in Logic, a proposition stated by way of interrogation.

QUESTION, or Torture. See RACK.

QUESTOR, or QUESTOR, in Roman antiquity, an officer who had the management of the public treasure.

The questorship was the first office any person could bear in the commonwealth, and have a right to sit in the senate.

At first there were only two; but afterwards two ethers were created, to take care of the payment of the armies abroad, of selling the plunder, booty, &c. for which purpose they generally accompanied the consuls in their expeditions; on which account they were called peregrini, as the first and principal two were called urbani.

The number of questors was afterwards greatly increased. They had the keeping of the decrees of the senate and hence came the two offices of questor principis, or augusti, sometimes called candidutus principis, whose office resembled in most respects that of our secretaries of state, and the questor palatii, answering in a great measure to our lord-chancellor.

QUEUE, in Heraldry, signifies the tail of a beast; thus, if a lion be borne with a forked tail, he is blazoned double-queued.

QUEUE d'Aronde, or Swallow's Tail, in Fortification, a detached or outwork, the sides of which open towards the champaign, or draw closer towards the gorge. Single or double tenailles are of this kind, and some hornworks, the sides of which are not parallel, but narrow at the gorge, and open at the head, resembling a swallow's tail. When the sides are less than the gorge, the work is called centre queue d'aronde.

QUEUE d'Aronde, in carpentry, a method of jointing, also called dovetailing.

QUEVEDO DE VILLEGAS, FRANCISCO, a celebrated Spanish poet, born at Madrid in 1570. He was descended

To my great astonishment, not one of them died; and Qiin two years they became as good thorns as the average of those I had purchased. The thorns I purchased were three years old when I got them. In April 1802, I had occasion to move a fence, from which I procured as many roots of thorns as made me upwards of two thousand cuttings, of which I did not lose five in the hundred.

"In the spring of 1803, I likewise planted as many cuttings of thorn roots as I could get. In 1804, İ did the same; and this year I shall plant many thousands.

Quevedo, descended from a noble family, and was made a knight Quick. of St James; but was thrown into prison by order of Count Olivarez, whose administration he satirized in his verses, and was not set at liberty till after that minister's disgrace. Quevedo wrote some heroic, lyric, and facetious poems. He also composed several treatises on religious subjects, and has translated some authors into Spanish. He died in 1644. The most known of his works are, 1. The Spanish Parnassus. 2. The Adventurer Buscon. 3. Visions of Hell Reformed, &c. Quevedo was one of the greatest scholars and most eminent poets of his time. His youth was spent in the service of his country in Italy, where he distinguished himself with the utmost sagacity and prudence. His moral discourses prove his sound doctrine and religious sentiments, while his literary pieces display his infinite judgment and refined taste. His great knowledge of Hebrew is apparent from the report of the historian Mariana to the king, requesting that Quevedo might revise the new edition of the Bible of Arias Montanus. His translations of Epictetus and Phocylides, with his imitations of Anacreon, and other Greek authors, show how well he was versed in that language: that he was a Latin scholar, his constant correspondence, from the age of twenty, with Lipsius, Chifflet, and Scioppius, will sufficiently illustrate. As a poet, he excelled both in the serious and burlesque style, and was singularly happy in that particular turn we have since admired in Butler and Swift. His library, which consisted of about five thousand volumes, was reduced at his death to about two thousand, and is preserved in the convent of St Martin at Madrid.

QUICK, or QUICKSET Hedge, among gardeners, denotes all live hedges, of whatever sort of plants they are composed, to distinguish them from dead hedges; but in a more strict sense of the word, it is restrained to those planted with the hawthorn, under which name those young plants or sets are sold by the nursery-gardeners who raise them for sale.

The following method of propagating the common white thorn for hedges is recommended by Mr Taylor of Moston near Manchester, in a letter addressed to the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, &c. After premising that we have successfully repeated the experiment, we shall give the account of the process in his own words.

Every one of you, I think, will allow that fences are material objects to be attended to in agriculture; you must also be convinced that there is no plant in this kingdom of which they can so properly be made as the cratagus oxyacantha Linnæi, or common white thorn. In consequence of my being convinced of this, I have been induced to make a few experiments to effect the better propagation of that valuable plant; the result of which, along with specimens of my success, I beg leave to submit to your inspection.

"In the year 1801, I had occasion to purchase a quantity of thorns, and finding them very dear, I was determined to try some experiments, in order if possible to raise them at a less expence. I tried to propagate them from cuttings of the branches, but with little or no success. I likewise tried if pieces of the root would grow; and I cut from the thorns which I had purchased about a dozen of such roots as pleased me, and planted them in a border along with those I had bought.

5

"I have sent for your inspection specimens of the produce of 1802, 1803, and 1804, raised after my method, with the best I could get of those raised from haws in the common way, which generally lie one year in the ground before they vegetate. They are exactly one, two, and three years old, from the day they were planted. I was so pleased with my success in raising so valuable an article to the farming interest of this kingdom, at so trifling an expence (for it is merely that of cutting the roots into lengths and planting them), that I was determined to make it known to the world, and could think of no better method than communicating it to your society; and should you so far approve of this method of raising thorns, as to think me entitled to any honorary reward, I shall receive it with gratitude, but shall feel myself amply repaid for any trouble I have been at, should you think it worthy a place in the next volume of your Transactions.

The method of raising the thorns from roots of the plant, is as follows.

"I would advise every farmer to purchase a hundred or a thousand thorns, according to the size of his farm, and plant them in his orchard or garden, and when they have attained the thickness of my three-year-old specimens, which is the size I always prefer for planting in fences, let him take them and prune the roots in the manner I have pruned the specimen sent you, from which he will upon an average get ten or twelve cuttings from each plant, which is as good as thorns of the same thickness; so that you will easily perceive that in three years he will have a succession of plants fit for use, which he may if he pleases increase tenfold every time he takes them up.

"The spring (say in all April) is the best time to plant the cuttings, which must be done in rows half a yard asunder, and about four inches from each other in the row; they ought to be about four inches long, and planted with the top one-fourth of an inch out of the ground, and well fastened; otherwise they will not succecd so well.

"The reason why I prefer spring to autumn for planting the roots, is, that were they to be planted in autumn, they would not have got sufficient hold of the ground before the frost set in, which would raise them all from the ground: and, if not entirely destroy the plants, would oblige the farmer to plant them afresh.

"I have attached the produce of my three-year-old specimen to the plants it came from, cut in the way I always practise; on the thick end of the root I make two, and on the other end one cut, by which means the proper end to be planted uppermost, which is the thick one, may easily be known.

Although I recommend the roots to be planted in April,

Quick April, yet the farmer may, where he pleases, take up the thorns he may want, and put the roots he has prunQuicked off into sand or mould, where they will keep until silver. he has leisure to cut them into proper lengths for planting; he will likewise keep them in the same way until planted.

"The great advantage of my plan is: first, that in case any one has raised from haws a thorn with remark ably large prickles, of vigorous growth, or possessing any other qualification requisite to make a good fence, he may propagate it far better and sooner, from roots, than any other way. Secondly, in three years he may raise from roots a better plant than can in six years be raised from haws, and with double the quantity of roots; my three-year-old specimen would have been half as big again, had I not been obliged to move all my cuttings the second year after they were planted.

"It would not be a bad way, in order to get roots, to plant a hedge in any convenient place, and on each side trench the ground two yards wide, and two grafts deep; from which, every two or three years, a large quantity of roots might be obtained, by trenching the ground over again, and cutting away what roots were found, which would all be young and of a proper thickness.”

QUICK LIME, a general name for all calcareous substances when deprived of their fixed air; such as chalk, limestone, oyster-shells, &c. calcined. See LIME, CHE. MISTRY, for an account of the properties and combina tions of lime.

QUICKSILVER, or MERCURY, one of the metals, and so fusible that it cannot be reduced to a solid state but at a degree of cold, equal to 40 below o of Fahrenheit's thermometer. For the method of extracting quicksilver from its ore, &c. see ORES, Reduction of For the various preparations, &c. see CHEMISTRY and MATERIA MEDICA Index; and for the natural history of the ores of quicksilver or mercury, see MINERALOGY Inder.

Mines of quicksilver are very rare, insomuch that, according to the calculations of Hoffman, there is 50 times more gold got every year out of the mines than mercury and its ores. But Dr Lewis, in his notes upon Newmann, says, that Cramer suspects that Hoffman only meant five times instead of 50; but neither the Latin nor the English edition of this author expresses any such thought; on the contrary, he adopts the same opinion; and only adds, that mercury is much more frequently met with than is commonly believed; but being so volatile in the fire, it often flies off in the roasting of ores, and escapes the attention of metallurgists.

According to Newmann, the mines of Idria have produced at the rate of 231,778 pounds weight of mercury per annum; but those of Almaden in Spain produce much more. The chemists of Dijon inform us, that their annual produce is five or six thousand quintals, or between five and six hundred thousand pounds weight. In the year 1717 there were upwards of 2,500,000 pounds of quicksilver sent from them to Mexico, for the amalgamation of the gold and silver ores of that coun

Villa Rica, where such a quantity of cinnabar, and native running mercury, are found near the surface of the earth, that the black slaves often collect it in good quantities, and sell it for a trifling price to the apothecaries; but none of these mines have ever been worked or takennotice of by the owners. Gold naturally amalgamated with mercury is likewise met with in the neighbourhood of that place; and it is said that almost all the gold mines of that country are worked out by simply washing them out with running water, after reducing into powder the hard ores, which are sometimes imbedded in quartzose and rocky matrices.

In the duchy of Deux Ponts and in the Lower Au-stria the quicksilver flows from a schistose or stony ma trice, and is probably, says Mr Kirwan, mixed with some other metal, as its globules are not perfectly spherical. The mines of Friuli are all in similar beds or strata. The metal is likewise found visibly diffused through masses of clay or very heavy stone, of a white, red, or blue colour; of which last kind are the minesof Spain, some of Idria, and of Sicily. Mascagni found fluid quicksilver, as well as native cinnabar and mineral ethiops, near the lake of Travale in the duchy of Sienna; but the quantity was so small as not to be worth the expence of working. On the other hand, the following mines afford profits to the owners after clearing all expences, viz. those at Kremnitz in Hungary; at Horowitz in Bohemia; Zorge in Saxony; Wolfstein, Stahlberg, and Moeschfeld in the Palatinate. Mercury is also brought from Japan in the East Indies; but the greatest part of what is sold in Europe as Japan cinnabar is said to be manufactured in Holland.

Lemery, Pomet, and others, lay down some external marks by which those places are distinguished where there are mines of quicksilver, viz. thick vapours like clouds arising in the months of April and May; the plants being much larger and greener than in other places the trees seldom bearing flowers or fruit, and putting forth their leaves more slowly than in other places; but, according to Newmann, these marks are far from being certain. They are not met with in all places where there is quicksilver, and are observed in places where there is none. Abundance of these cloudy exhalations are met with in the Hartz forest in Germany, though no mercury has ever been found there; to which we may add, that though vast quantities of mercurial ores are found at Almaden in Spain, none of the above-mentioned indications are there to be met with..

Native mercury was formerly sought from the mines of Idria with great avidity by the alchemists for the purpose of making gold; and others have showed as ridiculous an attachment to the Hungarian cinnabar, supposing it to be impregnated with gold; nay, we are informed by Newmann, that not only the cinnabar, antimony, and copper of Hungary, but even the vine treesof that country, were thought to be impregnated with the precious metal. Not many years ago a French chemist advertised that he had obtained a considerable quantity of gold from the ashes of vine twigs and stems, as well as of the garden soil where they grew but the falsehood of these assertions was demonstrated by the count de Lauragais to the satisfaction of the Royal Academy of Sciences.

The reduction of mercury into a solid state, so tha it

silver,

Quietists.

Quick it might be employed like silver, was another favourite alchemical pursuit. But all processes and operations of this kind, says Newmann, if they have mercury in them, are no other than hard amalgams. When melted lead or tin are just becoming consistent after fusion, if a stick be thrust into the metal, and the hole filled with quicksilver, as soon as the whole is cold, the mercury is found solid. Macquer informs us, that mercury becomes equally solid by being exposed to the fumes of lead. Maurice Hoffman, as quoted by Newmann, even gives a process for reducing mercury, thus coagulated, to a state of malleability, viz. by repeatedly melting and quenching it in linseed oil. Thus, he tells us, we obtain a metal which can be formed into rings and other utensils. But here the mercury is entirely dissipated by the repeated fusions, and nothing but the original lead is left. Wallerius, after mentioning strong soap-leys, or caustic lixivium, and some other liquors proper for fixing quicksilver, tells us, that by means of a certain gradatory water, the composition of which he learned from Creuling de Aureo Vellere, he could make a coagulum of mercury whenever he pleased, of such consistency that great part of it would resist cupellation; but what this gradatory water was, he has not thought proper to lay before the public.

QUICK-MATCH, among artillery men, a kind of combustible preparation formed of three cotton strands drawn into length, and dipped in a boiling composition of white-wine vinegar, saltpetre, and mealed powder. After this immersion it is taken out hot, and laid in a trough where some mealed powder, moistened with spirits of wine, is thoroughly incorporated into the twists of the cotton, by rolling it about therein. Thus prepared, they are taken out separately, and drawn through mealed powder; then hung upon a line and dried, by which they are fit for immediate service.

QUID PRO QUO, in Law, q. d. "what for what," denotes the giving one thing of value for another: or the mutual consideration and performance of both parties to a contract.

QUID pro quo, or QUI pro quo, is also used in physic to express a mistake in the physician's bill, where quid is wrote for quo, i. e. one thing for another; or of the apothecary in reading quid for quo, and giving the patient the wrong medicine. Hence the term is in the general extended to all blunders or mistakes committed in medicine, either in the prescription, the preparation, or application of remedies.

QUIDDITY, QUIDDITAS, a barbarous term used in the schools for essence. The name is derived hence that it is by the essence of a thing that it is a tale quid, such a quid, or thing, and not another. Hence what is essential to a thing is said to be quiddative.

QUIETISTS, a religious sect, famous towards the close of the last century. They were so called from a kind of absolute rest and inaction, which they supposed the soul to be in when arrived at that state of perfection which they called the unitive life; in which state they imagined the soul wholly employed in contemplating its God, to whose influence it was entirely submissive; so that he could turn and drive it where and how he would. In this state, the soul no longer needs prayers, hymns, &c. being laid, as it were, in the bosom and between the arms of its God, in whom it is in a manner swallow

ed up.

Molinos, a Spanish priest, is the reputed author of Quietists Quietism; though the Illuminati in Spain had certainly taught something like it before. The sentiments of Molinos were contained in a book which he published at Rome in the year 1681, under the title of the Spiritual Guide; for which he was cast into prison in 1685, and where he publicly renounced the errors of which he was accused. This solemn recantation, however, was followed by a sentence of perpetual imprisonment, and he died in prison in the year 1696. Molinos had numerous disciples in Italy, Spain, France, and the Netherlands. One of the principal patrons and propagators of Quietism in France was Marie Bouvieres de la Mothe Guyon, a woman of fashion, remarkable for goodness of heart and regularity of manners; but of an unsettled temper, and subject to be drawn away by the seduction of a warm and unbridled fancy. She derived all ideas of religion from the feelings of her own heart, and described its nature to others as she felt it herself. Accordingly her religious sentiments made a great noise in the year 1687; and they were declared unsound, after accurate investigation, by several men of eminent piety and learning, and professedly confuted, in the year 1697, by the celebrated Bossuet. Hence arose a controversy of greater moment between the prelate last mentioned and Fenelon archbishop of Cambray, who seemed disposed to favour the system of Guyon, and who in 1697 published a book containing several of her tenets. Fenelon's book, by means of Bossuet, was condemned in the year 1699, by Innocent XII. and the sentence of condemnation was read by Fenelon himself at Cambray, who exhorted the people to respect and obey the papal decree. Notwithstanding this seeming acquiescence, the archbishop persisted to the end of his days in the sentiments, which, in obedience to the order of the pope, he retracted and condemined in a public manner.

A sect similar to this had appeared at Mount Athos in Thessaly, near the end of the 14th century, called Hesychasts, meaning the same with Quietists. They were a branch of the mystics, or those more perfect monks, who, by long and intense contemplation, endeavoured to arrive at a tranquillity of mind free from every degree of tumult and perturbation. In conformity to an ancient opinion of their principal doctors (who thought there was a celestial light concealed in the deepest retirements of the mind), they used to sit every day, during a certain space of time, in a solitary corner, with their eyes eagerly and immoveably fixed upon the middle regions of the belly, or navel; and boasted, that while they remained in this posture, they found, in effect, a divine light beaming forth from their soul, which diffused through their hearts inexpressible sensations of pleasure and delight. To such as inquired what kind of light this was, they replied, by way of illustration, that it was the glory of God, the same celestial radiance that surrounded Christ during his transfiguration on the Mount. Barlaam, a monk of Calabria, from whom the Barlaamites derived their denomination, styled the monks, who adhered to this institution Massalians and Euchites; and he gave them also the new name of Umbilicani. Gregory Palamas, archbishop of Thessalonica, defended their cause against Barla im, who was condemned in a council held at Constantinople in the year 1341.-See Fenclon's Max. des Saints.

verse.

QUILLS, the large feathers taken out of the end of the wing of a goose, crow, &c. They are denominated from the order in which they are fixed in the wing; the second and third quills being the best for writing, as they have the largest and roundest barrels. Crow-quills are chiefly used for drawing. In order to harden a quill that is soft, thrust the barrel into hot ashes, stirring it till it is soft, and then taking it out, press it almost flat upon your knee with the back of a penknife, and afterwards reduce it to a roundness with your fingers. If you have a number to harden, set water and alum over the fire, and while it is boiling, put in a handful of quills, the barrels only, for a minute, and then lay them by.

QUIN, JAMES, a celebrated performer on the English stage, was born at London in 1693. He was intended for the bar; but preferring Shakespeare to the statutes at large, he on the death of his father, when it was necessary for him to do something for himself, appeared on the stage at Drury-lane. In 1720, he first displayed his comic powers in the character of Falstaff, and soon after appeared to as great advantage in Sir John Brute; but it was upon Booth's quitting the stage that Quin appeared to full advantage, in the part of Cato. He continued a favourite performer until the year 1748, when, on some disgust between him and Mr Rich the manager, he retired to Bath, and only came up annually to act for the benefit of his friend Ryan; until the loss of two front teeth spoiled his utterance for the stage. While Mr Quin continued upon the stage, he constantly kept company with the greatest geniuses of the age. He was well known to Pope and Swift; and the earl of Chesterfield frequently invited VOL. XVII. Part II.

t

Quindecemviri.

him to his table: but there was none for whom he en- Quin tertained a higher esteem than for the poet Thomson, the author of the Seasons, to whom he made himself known by an act of generosity that does the greatest honour to his character; and for an account of which see our life of THOMSON. Mr Quin's judgment in the English language recommended him to his royal highness Frederick prince of Wales, who appointed him to instruct his children in speaking and reading with a graceful propriety; and Quin being informed of the elegant manner in which his present Majesty delivered his first gracious speech from the throne, he cried out in a kind of ecstasy, "Ay-I taught the boy to speak !” Nor did his majesty forget his old tutor; for, soon after his accession to the throne, he gave orders, without any application being made to him, that a genteel pension. should be paid to Mr Quin during his life. Mr Quin indeed, was not in absolute need of this royal benefaction; for, as he was never married, and had none but distant relations, he sunk 2000l. which was half his fortune, in an annuity, for which he obtained 2001. ayear; and with about 2000l. more in the funds, lived in a decent manner during the latter part of his life at Bath, from whence he carried on a regular correspondence with Mr Garrick, and generally paid a visit to his friends in the metropolis once a-year, when he constantly passed a week or two at Mr Garrick's villa at Hampton. He died of a fever in 1766.

QUINARIUS, was a small Roman coin equal to half the denarius, and consequently worth about threepence three farthings of our money. See MONEY. It was called quinarius, because it contained the value of five asses, in the same manner as the denarius was named from its containing ten.

QUINAUT, PHILIP, a celebrated French poet, born of a good family at Paris in 1635. He cultivated poetry from his infancy, and 16 dramatic pieces of his were acted between the years 1653 and 1666. In the mean time, Quinaut was not so much devoted to poetry but that he applied himself to the study of the law; and made his fortune by marrying the widow of a rich merchant to whom he had been useful in his profession. Quinaut afterwards turned his attention to the composing of operas, which were set to music by the famous Lully; and Lully was charmed with a poet whose verses were not too nervous to yield to the capricious airs of music. He died in 1688, after having for many years enjoyed a handsome pension from Louis XIV.: and we are told he was extremely penitent in his last illness for all those of his compositions which tended to inspire love and pleasure.

QUINCE, in Botany. See CYDONIA.

QUINCUNX, in Roman antiquity, denotes any thing that consists of five-twelfths of another; but particularly of the as.

QUINCUNX Order, in Gardening, is a plantation of trees, disposed originally in a square consisting of five trees, one at each corner, and a fifth in the middle; which disposition, repeated again and again, forms a regular grove, wood, or wilderness.

QUINDECAGON, in Geometry, a plain figure with 15 sides and 15 angles.

QUINDECEMVIRI, in Roman antiquity, a college of 14 magistrates, whose business it was to preside 4 H

over