the name of an instrument for beheading persons condemned to death, so called after the person who suggested the employment of it, Joseph Ignace Guillotin, a physician of Paris. Elected a member of the states- Guimaras general, Guillotin conducted himself with moderation in the National Assembly, occupying himself with projects of public utility, and, amongst these, with a plan for what he called the organization of medicine. But when the National had merged in the Constituent Assembly, and it had been decided that crimes were personal, inferring no forfeiture, Guillotin proposed to substitute decapitation instead of the ordinary punishments; founding upon this, that, in the opinion of the French, this species of death was not infamous for the family of the condemned. The proposition was adopted, and the author of it indicated an instrument which had been long known as calculated to inflict death without causing almost any pain to the sufferer. Many honourable men applauded the humane motives which had induced the philanthropic deputy to recommend the employment of such an instrument, and he appears to have merited this commendation. But, unhappily for Guillotin, some wags gave his name to the instrument, which he did not invent, but only recommended; and, more unhappily still, the machine became, in the hands of the monsters who during two years were masters of France, the instrument of the most horrible excesses; whilst Guillotin himself, imprisoned, and expecting to figure as a victim in the daily scenes of carnage which then took place, had deep cause to lament seeing his name attached to the devastating axe with which these cannibals had armed their executioners. After terminating his political career, Guillotin resumed his functions as physician, which he should never have quitted; and died in the year 1814.

Of the machine to which his name is now for ever affixed, and which in Italian is called mannaia, an engraving will be found in the Questiones Symbolicae of Bocchi, 1553, in 4to.

GUIMARAS, one of the Philippine Islands, about thirty miles in circumference, covered with trees, and producing a quantity of sarsaparilla. Long. 122° 30'. E. Lat. 40° 45'. N.