in Chemistry, a term generally applied to the distillation of quicksilver from cinabar.

in Physiology, the recalling of animals apparently dead, to life. There are many kinds of insects which may be revivified, after all the powers of animation have been suspended for a considerable time. Common flies, small beetles, spiders, moths, bugs, &c., after being drowned in spirit of wine, and continuing apparently dead for upwards of 15 minutes, have been restored to life merely by being thrown among wood-ashes slightly warm.

While Dr Franklin was in France, he received a quantity of Madeira wine from America, which had been bottled in Virginia. He found a few dead flies in some of the bottles, which he exposed to the sun in the month of July; and in less than three hours these seemingly dead animals recovered life which had been so long suspended. At first they appeared as if convulsed; they then raised themselves on their legs, washed their eyes with their fore feet, dressed their wings with those behind, and in a short time began to fly about.

But the most remarkable instance of revivification we have heard of, is the following. In the warmer parts of France there is an insect very pernicious to the rye, apparently beginning its operations at the foot of the plant, and gradually proceeding towards the ear. If the plant be thoroughly dried while the insect is in the root or stem, the animal is irrecoverably killed; but after it has reached the grain, the case is very different. There have been instances of these insects being brought to life in 15 minutes, by a little warm water, after the grains, in which they were lodged, had been kept dry for 30 years.

What is the metaphysician to think of these phenomena, or what conclusion is he to draw from them respecting the mind? If he be a sober man he will draw no conclusion, for this reason, that he knows nothing of the sentient principle of insects, or of any animal but man. He is conscious that it is the same individual being which in himself thinks, and wills, and feels; he knows that part of his thought is not in one place, and part of it in another; and therefore he concludes that this thinking being is not matter, while experience teaches him that it quits the material system, when that becomes unfit to discharge its functions, and cannot be recalled. Experience teaches him, on the other hand, that the sentient principle of these insects does not quit the system when unfit for its functions; and hence he ought to infer, that the minds of men and of insects are very different, and that the bond which unites the material and immaterial parts of an insect, is certainly different from that which unites the mind and body of man. This is the only inference which can be fairly drawn from Revivification from these phenomena; and he who makes them the basis of materialism, must have his judgment warped by some passion or prejudice.

COMMISSION OF REVIEW, is a commission sometimes granted, in extraordinary cases, to revile the sentence of the court of delegates, when it is apprehended they have been led into a material error. This commission the king may grant, although the statutes 24 and 25 Hen. VIII. declare the sentence of the delegates definitive; because the pope, as supreme head by the canon law, used to grant such commission of review; and such authority as the pope heretofore exerted is now annexed to the crown by statutes 26 Hen. VIII. c. 1. and 1 Eliz. c. 1. But it is not matter of right, which the subject may demand ex debito jure; but merely a matter of favour, and which therefore is often denied.