ABDALLA, one of sir Brian de Bois Guilbert’s slaves.—­Sir W. Scott, Ivanhoe (time, Richard I.).

Abdal’lah, brother and predecessor of Giaf’fer (2 syl.), pacha of Aby’dos.  He was murdered by the pacha.—­Byron, Bride of Abydos.

ABDALLAH EL HADGI, Saladin’s envoy.—­Sir W. Scott, The Talisman (time, Richard I.).

ABDALS or Santons, a class of religionists who pretend to be inspired with the most ravishing raptures of divine love.  Regarded with great veneration by the vulgar.—­Olearius, i. 971.

AB’DIEL, the faithful seraph who withstood Satan when he urged those under him to revolt.

... the seraph Abdiel, faithful found; Among the faithless faithful only he; Among innumerable false, unmoved.  Unshaken, unseduced, unterrified, His loyalty he kept, his love, his zeal.

Milton, Paradise Lost, v. 896, etc. (1665).

ABELARD and ELOISE, unhappy lovers, whose illicit love was succeeded by years of penitence and remorse.  Abelard was the tutor of Heloise (or Eloise), and, although vowed to the church, won and returned her passion.  They were violently separated by her uncle.  Abelard entered a monastery and Eloise became a nun.  Their love survived the passage of years, and they were buried together at Pere la Chaise.—­Eloise and Abelard.  By Alexander Pope (1688-1744).

ABENSBERG (Count), the father of thirty-two children.  When Heinrich II. made his progress through Germany, and other courtiers presented their offerings, the count brought forward his thirty-two children, “as the most valuable offering he could make to his king and country.”

ABES’SA, the impersonation of abbeys and convents in Spenser’s Faery Queen, i. 3.  She is the paramour of Kirkrapine, who used to rob churches and poor-boxes, and bring his plunder to Abessa, daughter of Corceca (Blindness of Heart).

ABIGAIL, typical name of a maid.—­See Beaumont and Fletcher, Swift, Fielding, and many modern writers.

ABNEY, called Young Abney, the friend of colonel Albert Lee, a royalist.—­Sir W. Scott, Woodstock (time, the Commonwealth).

ABON HASSAN, a young merchant of Bag dad, and hero of the tale called “The Sleeper Awakened,” in the Arabian Nights’ Entertainments.  While Abon Hassan is asleep he is conveyed to the palace of Haroun-al-Raschid, and the attendants are ordered to do everything they can to make him fancy himself the caliph.  He subsequently becomes the caliph’s chief favorite.

Shakespeare, in the induction of Taming of the Shrew, befouls “Christopher Sly” in a similar way, but Sly thinks it was “nothing but a dream.”

Philippe le Bon, duke of Burgundy, on his marriage with Eleonora, tried the same trick.—­Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy, ii. 2,4.

ABOU BEN ADHEM, “awakening one night from a deep dream of peace,” sees an angel writing the names of those who love the Lord.  Ben Adhem’s name is registered as “one who loves his fellow-men.”  A second vision shows his name at the head of the list.