Page:EB1911 - Volume 22.djvu/983

 The best guide for Federal records is the work of Leland and Valentine; for a general bibliographical work of reference see E. C. Burnett’s List of Printed Guides (Historical MSS. Commission Report, 1897).

In various ways records are apt to wander from their proper custody and to lose their legal character. But in spite of this loss the historian is bound to pursue them either into the hands of private collectors or on to the shelves of some museum. No attempt can be made to discuss private collections or the manuscripts of foreign libraries. Even among English libraries it must be sufficient to mention the British Museum as the principal destination of wandering records. Of the collections in that library the most important to the student of records are the Cottonian, the Harleian and the Lansdowne, all catalogued by the Record Commission; the Additional, catalogued from time to time as fresh matter accrues; the Egerton, catalogued with the Additional; the Sloane and the Stowe, both catalogued. No distinction is made between documents that have been technically “ records ” and others. The whole collection is divided technically into Manuscripts, by which are meant volumes, and Charters and Rolls, meaning detached documents. To the latter class an Index locorum, compiled by H. F. Ellis and F. B. Bickley, has been printed.

RECORDE, ROBERT (c. 1510–1558), Welsh physician and mathematician, was descended from a respectable family of Tenby in Wales. He entered the university of Oxford about 1525, and was elected fellow of All Souls’ College in 1531. Having adopted medicine as a profession, he went to Cambridge, where he took the degree of M.D. in 1545. He afterwards returned to Oxford, where he publicly taught mathematics, as he had done prior to his going to Cambridge. It appears that he afterwards went to London, and acted as physician to Edward VI. and to Queen Mary, to whom some of his books are dedicated. He died in the King’s Bench prison, Southwark, where he was confined for debt, in 1558.

RECORDER, in its original sense, one who sets down or records. Hence applied to a person with legal knowledge who was appointed by the mayor and aldermen to “ record ” or keep in mind the proceedings of their court, as well as the customs of the city. The word is now chiefly used of the principal legal officer of a city or borough having a separate court of quarter sessions. He must be a barrister of five years' standing, appointed by the crown and holding office during good behaviour, and receiving “ such yearly salary, not exceeding that stated in the petition on which the grant of a separate court of quarter sessions was made,” as the sovereign directs (Municipal Corporations Act 1882, s. 163). The recorder holds, once in every quarter of a year, or oftener, if he thinks fit, a court of quarter sessions in and for the borough. He is sole judge of the court, “ having cognizance of all crimes, offences, and matters cognizable by courts of quarter sessions for counties in England,” except that he may not allow or levy any borough rate, or grant licences (s. 165). He is not eligible to serve in parliament for the borough, or to be an alderman or councillor, or stipendiary magistrate for the borough, though he may be revising barrister and is eligible to serve in Parliament except for the borough. He may be appointed recorder for two or more boroughs conjointly. He may, in case of sickness or unavoidable absence, appoint in writing a barrister of five years’ standing to act as deputy recorder for him. A recorder is ex officio a justice for the borough.

The recorder of London is judge of the lord mayor’s court, and one of the commissioners of the central criminal court. His salary is £4000 a year. He is appointed by the lord mayor and aldermen, but by the Local Government Act 1888, s. 42, sub-s. 14, after the vacancy next after the beginning of the act, no recorder may exercise any judicial function unless he is appointed by the sovereign to exercise such function. See.

RECORDER, or  (Fr. flûte-à-bec, flûte douce, flûte anglaise or flûte à neuf trous; Ger. Block- or Plockflöte, Schnabelflöte, Langflöte; Ital. flauto dolce, flauto diritto), a medieval flute, blown by means of a whistle mouthpiece and held vertically in front of the performer like a clarinet. The recorder only survives in the now almost obsolete flageolet and in the so-called penny-whistle. The recorder consisted of a wooden tube, which was at first cylindrical or nearly so, but became, as the instrument developed and improved, an inverted cone. The whistle mouthpiece has been traced in almost prehistoric times in Egypt and other Oriental countries. The principle of the whistle mouthpiece is based on that of the simplest flutes without embouchure, like the Egyptian nay, with this modification, that, in order to facilitate the production of sound, the air current, instead of being directed through ambient air to the sharp edge of the tube (or the lateral embouchure in the modern flute), is blown through a chink directly into a narrow channel. This channel is so constructed within the mouthpiece that the stream of air impinges with force against the sharp edge of a lip or fipple cut into the pipe below the channel. This throws the air current into the state of vibration required in order to generate sound-waves in the main column of air within the tube. The inverted cone of the bore has the effect of softening the tone of the recorder still further, earning for it the name of flûte douce. Being so easy to play, the recorder always enjoyed great popularity in all countries until the greater possibilities of the transverse flute turned the tide against it. The want of character which distinguishes the timbre of the whistle-flute is due to the paucity of harmonic overtones in the clang. The recorder had seven holes in front and one at the back for the thumb. As long as the tube was made in one piece the lowest hole stopped by the little finger was generally made in duplicate to serve equally well for right- and left-handed players, the unused hole being stopped with wax. Being an open pipe, the recorder could overblow the octave and even the two following harmonics (i.e. the twelfth and second, octave). The holes produced the diatonic scale, and by means of harmonics and cross-fingering the second and part of a third octave were obtained.