GUA 
how indisputable; for it is clearly agreed, 
that the king, as pater patriae, is universal 
guardian of all infants, idiots, and lunatics, 
who cannot take care of themselves, and as 
this care cannot be exercised otherwise than 
by appointing them proper curators or com- 
mittees, it seems also agreed, that the king 
may, as he has done, delegate the authority 
to his chancelLor : and that therefore at 
this day the Court of Chancery is the only 
proper court, that hath jurisdiction in ap- 
pointing and removing guardians, and in 
preventing them and others from abusing 
their persons or estates. And as the Court 
of Chancery is now vested with this autho- 
rity, hence in every day’s practice we find 
that court determining, as to the right of 
guardianship, who is the next of kin, and 
who the most proper guardian; as also 
orders are made by that court on petition 
or motion, for the provision of infants dur- 
ing any dispute therein ; as likewise guard- 
ians removed or compelled to give security ; 
they and others punished for abuses com- 
mitted on infants, and effectual care taken 
to prevent any abuses intended them in 
their persons or estates; all such wrongs 
and injuries being reckoned a contempt of 
that court, that hath, by an established 
jurisdiction, the protection of all persons 
nnder natural disabilities. All courts of 
justice appoint guardians to infants, to see 
and prosecute their rights in their respec- 
tive courts, when the occasion calls for it. 
There are also some cases where an in- 
fant may elect a guardian, and the Court 
of Chancery allows him to do so after four- 
teen. 
Guardian of the Spiritualties, is he to 
whom the spiritual jurisdiction of any dio- 
cese is committed, during the vacancy of 
the see. The. archbishop is guardian of 
the spiritualties, on the vacancy of any see 
within his province; but when the archi- 
episcopal see is vacant, the dean and 
chapter of the archbishop’s diocese are 
guardians of the spiritualties. 
GUAREA, in botany, a genus of the 
Octandria Monogynia class and order. Na- 
tural order of Meliae, Jussieu. Essential 
character : calyx four-cleft; petals four ; 
nectary cylindric, bearing the anthers at its 
mouth; capsule .four- celled, four-valved ; 
seeds solitary. There is only one species, 
viz. G. trichilioides, ash leaved guarea. This 
tree is remarkable for its strong odour of 
musk, particularly the bark, and is used in- 
stead of that perfume for many purposes. 
The wood is full of a bitter resinous sub- 
VOL. III. 
GUE 
stance, which renders it unfit for rum hogs- 
heads, having been observed to communi- 
cate both its smell and taste to spirituous 
liquors. It is a native of South America 
and the West India islands. The English 
call it muskwood. 
GUDGEONS, in a ship, are the eyes 
drove into the stern-post, into which the 
pintles of the rudder go, to hang it. 
GUERICKE, Otto, or Qtiio, a very 
eminent German experimental philosopher 
in the seventeenth century, who, with Tor- 
ricelli, Pascal, and Boyle, greatly contri- 
buted to explain the various properties of 
the air and their effects, was born in the year 
1602, and died, at Hamburgh, in the year 
1686. He was councellor to the Elector of 
Brandenburg ; and burgomaster, or consul, 
of Magdeburg; but his memory derives great- 
er honour from his philosophical discoveries, 
than from the civil dignities to which he 
was raised. To him is to be attributed the 
invention of the air-pump, for though Mr. 
Boyle had, about the same lime, made some 
approaches towards a similar discovery, 
yet he ingenuously acknowledged in a letter 
to his nephew. Lord Dungarvhn, that the 
information which he received from Schot- 
tus’s “ Mechanica HydrauliCo Pneumafi- 
ca,’’ published in 1657, in which was an 
account of Guericke’s experiments, first 
enabled him to bring his design to any 
thing like maturity. Guericke was also the 
inventor of the two brass hemispheres, to 
illustrate the pressure of the air, which, 
being applied to each other, and the air 
exhausted, resisted the force of sixteen 
horses to draw them asunder. He like- 
wise invented an instrument to show the 
variations in the state of the atmosphere, 
consisting of a tube, in which was a 
little image of glass, that descended in 
rainy or stormy weather, and rose again 
when the weather became fine and se- 
rene. This last machine fell into disuse 
on the invention of the barometer, and 
especially after the improvements made 
in that instrument by Huygens and Am on- 
tons. By consulting his tube, Guericke 
would frequently foretel approaching storms; 
whence the ignorant populace gave him the 
character of a sorcerer. In this opinion of 
him they were confirmed by a thunder 
storm discharging itself one day upon his 
house, and shivering to pieces several ma- 
chines of which he had made use in his 
experiments. That event they considered 
to be an unequivocal indication of the anger 
of Heaven, and a just punishment inflicted 
Dd 
