Abbotsford, the residence of Sir Walter Scott, on the Tweed, near Melrose, built by him on the site of a farm called Clarty Hole.

Abbott, Edwin, a learned Broad Church theologian and man of letters; wrote, besides other works, a volume of sermons “Through Nature to Christ”; esteemed insistence on miracles injurious to faith; b. 1838.

ABDAL`Lah, the father of Mahomet, famed for his beauty (545-570); also a caliph of Mecca (622-692).

ABDALRAH`man, the Moorish governor of Spain, defeated by Charles Martel at Tours in 732.

ABDALS (lit. servants of Allah), a set of Moslem fanatics in Persia.

Abd-el-Ka`DIR, an Arab emir, who for fifteen years waged war against the French in N. Africa, but at length surrendered prisoner to them in 1847.  On his release in 1852 he became a faithful friend of France (1807-1883).

ABDE`Ra, a town in ancient Thrace, proverbial for the stupidity of its inhabitants.

ABDICATIONS, of which the most celebrated are those of the Roman Dictator Sylla, who in 70 B.C. retired to Puteoli; of Diocletian, who in A.D. 305 retired to Salone; of Charles V., who in 1556 retired to the monastery St. Yuste; of Christina of Sweden, who in 1654 retired to Rome, after passing some time in France; of Napoleon, who in 1814 and 1815 retired first to Elba and then died at St. Helena; of Charles X. in 1830, who died at Goritz, in Austria; and of Louis Philippe, who in 1848 retired to end his days in England.

ABDIEL, one of the seraphim, who withstood Satan in his revolt against the Most High.

Abdul-Aziz, sultan of Turkey from 1861, in succession to
Abdul-Medjid (1830-1876).

Abdul-Aziz, sultan of Morocco, was only fourteen at his accession; b. 1880.

Abdul-Ha`mid ii., sultan of Turkey in 1876, brother to Abdul-Aziz, and his successor; under him Turkey has suffered serious dismemberment, and the Christian subjects in Armenia and Crete been cruelly massacred; b. 1842.

Abd-ul-med`JID, sultan, father of the two preceding, in whose defence against Russia England and France undertook the Crimean war (1823-1861).

Abdur-rah`man, the ameer of Afghanistan, subsidised by the English; b. 1830.

A’BECKET, GILBERT, an English humourist, who contributed to Punch and other organs; wrote the “Comic Blackstone” and comic histories of England and Rome (1811-1856).

A’BECKET, A. W., son of the preceding, a litterateur and journalist; b. 1844.

ABEL, the second son of Adam and Eve; slain by his brother.  The death of Abel is the subject of a poem by Gessner and a tragedy by Legouve.

ABEL, SIR F. A., a chemist who has made a special study of explosives; b. 1827.