an authentic testimony in writing, contained in rolls of parchment, and preserved in a court of record. See Court.

Trial by RECORD, a species of trial which is used only in one particular instance: and that is where a matter of record is pleaded in any action, as a fine, a judgment, or the like; and the opposite party pleads, nulli 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 inquired of by the record, and the other doth the like;" and hereupon the 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 judgement 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 witnes, 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, 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 demesday in the king's exchequer.

RECOLE, ROBERT, physician and mathematician, was descended of a respectable family in Wales, and lived in the time of Henry VIII., Edward VI., and Mary. The time of his birth is not exactly known, but it must have been about the beginning of the 16th century, for he was entered of the university of Oxford about 1525, and was elected fellow of All Souls college in 1531. As he made physic his profession, he went to Cambridge, where he was honoured with the degree of doctor in that faculty in 1545, and very much esteemed by all who were acquainted with him, for his extensive knowledge of many of the arts and sciences. He afterwards returned to Oxford, where he publicly taught arithmetic and mathematics, as he had done prior to his going to Cambridge, and that with great applause. It appears that he afterwards went to London, and was, it is said, physician to Edward VI. and to Mary, to whom some of his books are dedicated; yet he died in the king's-bench prison, Southwark, where he was confined for debt, in the year 1558, at a very immature age.

He published several works on mathematical subjects, chiefly in the form of dialogue between master and scholar, of which the following is a list.

The Pathway to Knowledge, containing the first principles