ATT 



ATT 



ment of a recruit. This certificate is to 

 bear testimony, that the said recruit has 

 been brought before him, in conformity 

 to the mutiny act, and has declared his 

 assent or dissent to such enlistment ; and 

 if duly enlisted, that the proper oaths 

 have been administered, and that the 2nd 

 and 6th sections of the articles of war 

 against desertion have been read to him. 

 ATTITUDE, in painting and sculpture, 

 the gesture of a figure, or statue ; or it is 

 such a disposition of their parts, as serves 

 to expiv-ss the action and sentiments of 

 the person represented. 



ATTORNEY general, is a great officer 

 under the king, created by letters patent, 

 whose office it is to exhibit informations, 

 and prosecute for the crown in criminal 

 causes, and to file the bills in the exche- 

 quer, for any thing concerning the king 

 in inheritance or profits. To him come 

 warrants for making of grants, pardons, 

 &c. 



ATTORNIES at law, are such persons 

 as take upon them the business of other 

 men, by whonf they are retained. By the 

 2 Geo. ft. cap. 23. s. 5, no person shall be 

 permitted to act as an attorney, or to sue 

 out any process in the name of any other 

 person in any courts of law, unless such 

 person shall have been bound, by contract 

 in writing, to serve as a clerk for five 

 years to an attorney, duly sworn and ad- 

 mitted in some of the said courts ; and 

 such person, during the said term of five 

 years, shall have continued in such ser- 

 vice ; and unless such person, after the 

 expiration of the said five years, shall be 

 examined, sworn, admitted, and inrolled. 

 And for every piece of vellum, parch- 

 ment, or paper, upon which shall be writ- 

 ten any such contract, whereby any per- 

 son shall become bound to serve as a 

 clerk aforesaid, in order to his admission 

 as solicitor or attorney, in any of the 

 courts at Westminster, there shall be 

 charged a stamp duty of 100J. 34 Geo. 

 III. c. 14. And in order to his admission 

 as a solicitor or attorney in any of the 

 great courts of sessions in Wales, or in 

 the counties palatine of Chester, Lancas- 

 ter, or Durham, or in any court of record 

 in England, holding pleas to the amount 

 of 40 shillings, and not in any of the said 

 courts in Westminster, there shall be 

 charged a stamp duty of SQL Every at- 

 torney, solicitor, notary, proctor, agent, 

 or procurator, practising in any of the 

 courts at Westminster, ecclesiastical, ad- 

 miralty, or Cinque-port courts, in his 

 Majesty's courts in Scotland, the great 

 sessions in Wales, the courts in the coun- 

 ties Palatine, or any other courts hoUing 1 



pleas to the amount of 40 shillings, or 

 more, shall take out a certificate annually, 

 upon which there shall be charged, if 

 the solicitor, &c. reside within the bills 

 of mortality, a stamp duty of 51. in any 

 other part of Great Britain 3/. Persons 

 practising 1 after the 1st day of November, 

 1797, without obtaining a certificate, shall 

 forfeit 501. and be incapable of suing for 

 any fees. An attorney shall not be elect- 

 ed^into any office against his will, such 

 as constable, overseer of the poor, or 

 churchwarden, or any office within a bo- 

 rough : but his privilege will not exempt 

 Mm from serving in the militia, or finding 

 a substitute. Black. Rep. 1123. 



ATTRACTION, a general term, used 

 to denote the power or principle by 

 which bodies mutually tend towards each 

 other, without regarding the cause or ac- 

 tion that may be the means of producing 

 the effect. 



The philosopher Anaxagoras, who lived 

 about 500 years before the Christian ?tra, 

 is generally considered as the first who 

 noticed this principle as subsisting be- 

 tween the heavenly bodies and the earth, 

 which he considered as the centre of their 

 motions. The doctrines of Epicurus and 

 of Democritus are founded on the same 

 opinion. 



Nicholas Copernicus appears to have 

 been one of the first among the moderns, 

 who had just notions of this doctrine. 



After him, Kepler brought it still near- 

 er perfection, having determined that 

 bodies tended to the centres of the larger 

 round bodies of which they formed a 

 part, and the smaller celestial bodies to 

 the great ones nearest to them, instead 

 of to the centre of the universe : he also 

 accounted for the general motion of the 

 tides on the same principle, by the at- 

 traction of the moon; and expressly calls 

 it -virtus Iractona quae in luna est; besides 

 this, he refuted the old doctrine of the 

 schools, " that some bodies were natural- 

 ly light, and for that reason ascended, 

 while others were by their nature heavy, 

 and so fell to the ground : declaring that 

 no bodies whatsoever are absolutely light, 

 but only relatively so, and that all matter 

 is subjected to the law of gravitation. 



Dr. Gilbert, a physician at London, was 

 the first in this country who adopted the 

 doctrine of attraction ; in the year 1600, 

 he published a work, entitled " De Mag 1 - 

 nete Magneticisque Corporibus;" which 

 contains a number of curious things; but 

 he did not sufficiently distinguish be- 

 tween attraction and magnetism. 



The next after him was Lord Bacon, 

 who, though not a convert to the Coper- 



