Abou Ben Adhem.  By Leigh Hunt (1784-1859).

  ABRA, the most beloved of Solomon’s concubines. 
  Fruits their odor lost and meats their taste,
  If gentle Abra had not decked the feast;
  Dishonored did the sparkling goblet stand,
  Unless received from gentle Abra’s hand; ... 
  Nor could my soul approve the music’s tone
  Till all was hushed, and Abra sang alone.

M. Prior, Solomon (1664-1721).

AB’RADAS, the great Macedonian pirate.

Abradas, the great Macedonian pirate, thought every one had a letter of mart that bare sayles in the ocean.—­Greene, Penelope’s Web (1601).

ABROC’OMAS, the lover of An’thia in the Greek romance of Ephesi’aca, by Xenophon of Ephesus (not the historian).

AB’SALOM, in Dryden’s Absalom and Achitophel, is meant for the duke of Monmouth, natural son of Charles II. (David).  Like Absalom, the duke was handsome; like Absalom, he was beloved and rebellious; and like Absalom, his rebellion ended in his death (1649-1685).

AB’SOLON, a priggish parish clerk in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales.  His hair was curled, his shoes slashed, his hose red.  He could let blood, cut hair, and shave, could dance, and play either on the ribible or the gittern.  This gay spark paid his addresses to Mistress Alison, the young wife of John, a rich but aged carpenter:  but Alison herself loved a poor scholar named Nicholas, a lodger in the house.—­The Miller’s Tale (1388).

ABSOLUTE (Sir Anthony), a testy but warm-hearted old gentleman, who imagines that he possesses a most angelic temper, and when he quarrels with his son, the captain, fancies it is the son who is out of temper, and not himself.  Smollett’s “Matthew Bramble” evidently suggested this character.  William Dowton (1764-1851) was the best actor of this part.

Captain Absolute, son of sir Anthony, in love with Lydia Languish, the heiress, to whom he is known only as ensign Beverley.  Bob Acres, his neighbor, is his rival, and sends a challenge to the unknown ensign; but when he finds that ensign Beverley is captain Absolute, he declines to fight, and resigns all further claim to the lady’s hand.—­Sheridan, The Rivals (1775).

ABSYRTUS, brother of Medea and companion of her flight from Colchis.  To elude or delay her pursuers, she cut him into pieces and strewed the fragments in the road, that her father might be detained by gathering up the remains of his son.

Abu’dah, in the drama called The Siege of Damascus, by John Hughes (1720), is the next in command to Caled in the Arabian army set down before Damascus.  Though undoubtedly brave, he prefers peace to war; and when, at the death of Caled, he succeeds to the chief command, he makes peace with the Syrians on honorable terms.

ABU’DAH, in the Tales of the Genii, by H. Ridley, is a wealthy merchant of Bag dad, who goes in quest of the talisman of Oroma’nes, which he is driven to seek by a little old hag, who haunts him every night and makes his life wretched.  He finds at last that the talisman which is to free him of this hag [conscience] is to “fear God and keep his commandments.”