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It would be difficult to name all the authors from whose works the Compiler of this volume has copiously extracted; but he may mention among the classics, Herodotus, Livy, Pliny, and Plutarch. He has chosen in general chronology, Petavius, Usher, Blair, Prideaux, and the Abbé L'Englet du Fresnoy. For the events embraced in Foreign history, he has relied upon Henault, Voltaire, La Combe, Rollin, Melchior Adam, the Nouveau Dictionnaire, and chief authors of their respective countries. On subjects of general literature, his authorities are Cave's Historia Literaria, Moreri, Bayle, Priestley, and others of equal repute. And English occurrences are drawn from Camden, Stowe, Hall, Baker, Holingshed, Chamberlayne, Rapin, Hume, Gibbon, Goldsmith, &c. Besides these, the Compiler has freely used the various abridgments that have brought facts and dates more prominently forward; and he is largely indebted to Chambers, Aspin, Beatson, Anderson, Beckmann, the Cyclopædias, Annual Register, Statutes at Large, and numerous other compilations. In almost every instance the authority is quoted for the extract made, and date assigned, though inadvertence may have prevented, in some few cases, a due acknowledgment.

The leading events of every country, whether ancient or modern kingdoms, are to be found in the annals of each respectively, as in the cases, for instance, of GREECE, ROME, the EASTERN EMpire, ENGLAND, FRANCE, and GERMANY. But independently of this plan of reference, when any historical occurrence claims, from its importance, more specific mention, it is made in a separate article, according to alphabetical arrangement. Thus, in the annals of England, the dates are given of the foundation of our universities, the institution of honorary orders, and signature of Magna Charta; we find, in those annals, the periods of our civil wars,

and remarkable eras in our history, set down as they have occurred; but if more ample information be necessary to the Reader, and if he desire to know more than the mere date of any fact or incident, the particulars are supplied under a distinct head. In the same way, the pages of Battles supply the date of each, in the order of time; yet in all instances where the battle has any relation to our own country, or is memorable or momentous, the chief features of it are stated in another part of the volume.

The Compiler persuades himself that the DICTIONARY OF DATES will be received as a useful companion to all Biographical works, relating, as it does, to things as these do to persons, and affording information not included in the range or design of such publications.

LONDON, May, 1841.

To this Edition is appended a copious INDEX of the leading NAMES Occurring in the Work, and that directly relate to the articles respectively. The leading names only are given, because those that are incidentally mentioned would alone fill a volume. This Index will materially assist the Inquirer in finding any required incident or date. A name may be remembered, but the circumstances relating to it may be forgotten. We may know that NAPOLEON fought in Italy, and WELLINGTON in India, but may not recollect the particular scene of action in either case; and the search for it may have been, hitherto, sometimes tedious and difficult. If the Reader now turn to the Index he will see, under the one name, Castiglione, Lodi, and Marengo, and under

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ABACUS. The capital of the Corinthian order in architecture, had its origin in a simple incident:-On the death of a young maid of Corinth, her lover gathered the ornaments she had most valued when living, and placed them in a wicker-basket, covered by a tile, upon her tomb. Close to her grave an acanthus had taken root, and the flower shooting forth in the spring, its leaves twined around the basket, and convolved beneath the tile in the form of volutes. Attracted by this display, Callimachus, the founder of the Corinthian order, made it the model for his capital; the tile being the ABACUS, the foliage of the acanthus the volutes, and the whole forming the capital which adorns his column, about 540 B.C.-Perault. ABBEYS AND MONASTERIES, were first founded in the third century, near the close of which the sister of St. Anthony is said to have retired to one. An abbey was founded by St. Anthony at Phaim, in Upper Egypt, A.D. 305. The first founded in France was at Poitiers, in 360. The first in Ireland was in the fifth century: see Clogher, Elphin, Down. The first in Scotland was in the sixth century: see Isles. And the first in Britain was in 560: see Bangor. The abbey of Mount Cassino, near Naples, founded by St. Benet in 529, was esteemed the richest in the world, and furnished many thousands of saints to the church. 110 monasteries and priories were suppressed in England by order in council, 2 Henry V. 1414.—Salmon. The revenues of 193 abbeys which were dissolved at the Reformation amounted to 2,653,000%. These foundations were totally suppressed throughout the realm, 31 Henry VIII. 1539. See Monasteries.

ABBOT: from Ab (father), a rank adopted by the Jewish doctors, and the heads of primitive monasteries. They are cardinal abbots, bishop abbots, mitred abbots, and crosiered abbots, when holding their dignities from the pope. In England, mitred abbots were lords of parliament; twenty-seven abbots and two priors were thus distinguished in the 4th Edward III. 1329, but the number was reduced to twenty-five in the parliament 20 Richard II. 1396.-Coke. The abbots of Reading, Glastonbury, and St. John's, Colchester, hanged and quartered for denying the king's supremacy, and not surrendering their abbeys, 1539. See Glastonbury.

ABDICATION OF KINGS. They are numerous in ancient history. Those in later times of most remarkable character and greatest political importance, and to which reference may more frequently be made, are the following :

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Of Lestus V. of Poland

Of Uladislaus III. of Poland

Of Baliol, of Scotland

1306

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. 1200 Of Charles of Naples
1206 Of Stanislaus of Poland

1654

1669

Of Victor of Sardinia.
Of Francis II. of Germany, who becomes
emperor of Austria only. Aug. 11, 1804
Of Charles IV. of Spain, in favour of his
March 19, 1808
He again abdicates in favour of the Buo-
naparte family. See Spain. May 1, 1808

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ABELARD AND HELOISE. Their amour, so celebrated for its passion and misfortunes, commenced at Paris, A.D. 1118, when Heloise (a canon's daughter) was under seventeen years of age, Abelard, after suffering an ignominious injury, became a monk of the abbey of St. Denis, and died at St. Marcel, of grief which never left his heart, in 1142. Heloise begged his body, and had it buried in the Paraclete, of which she was abbess, with the view of reposing in death by his side. She was famous for her Latin letters, as well as love, and died in 1163. The ashes of both were carried to the Museum of French Monuments in 1800; and the museum having been subsequently broken up, they were finally removed to the burying-ground of Père La Chaise, in Nov. 1817.

ABERDEEN, a seat of learning of considerable antiquity, upon which Gregory the Great conferred peculiar privileges in A.D. 893. The university was founded by William Elphinstone; for which purpose he had a bull from the pope, Alexander VI., in 1494. King's College was erected in 1500; and Mareschal College was founded by George Keith, earl mareschal of Scotland, in 1593.

ABERDEEN, SEE OF. King Malcolm III. having gained a great victory over the Danes in the year 1010, resolved to found a new bishopric, in token of his gratitude for his success, and pitched upon Mortlich in Banff-shire, where St. Beanus was first bishop, 1015. The see was removed early in the twelfth century to Aberdeen, and was discontinued at the Revolution, 1689.

ABHORRERS, a political court-party in England, in the reign of Charles II.; and so called from their address to the king, expressing their abhorrence of those who endeavoured to encroach on the royal prerogative, 1681.-Hume.

ABINGDON LAW. In the civil war against Charles I., Lord Essex and Waller held Abingdon, in Berks; this town was unsuccessfully attacked by sir Stephen Hawkins in 1644, and by Prince Rupert in 1645: on these occasions the defenders put every Irish prisoner, without trial, to death; hence the term "Abingdon Law." ABJURATION of particular doctrines of the church of Rome was enjoined by statute 25 Charles II. 1672. The oath of abjuration of the pope and the pretender, denying the authority of the one and the claims of the other, was first administered by statute 13 William III. 1701.

ABORIGINES, the original inhabitants of Italy; or, as others have it, the nation conducted by Saturn into Latium, founded by Inachus, 1330 B.C.-Univ. Hist. Their posterity was called Latini, from Latinus, one of their kings; and Rome was built in their country. They were called Aborigines, being absque origine, the primitive planters here after the flood.-St. Jerome. The word signifies without origin, or whose origin is not known, and is generally applied to any original inhabitants. ABOUKIR, the ancient Canopus, the point of debarcation of the British expedition to Egypt under general Abercromby. Aboukir surrendered to the British, after an obstinate and sanguinary conflict with the French, March 18, 1801. The bay is famous for the defeat of the French fleet by Nelson, August 1, 1798. See Nile. ABRAHAM, ERA OF. Used by Eusebius; it began October 1, 2016 B.C. To reduce this era to the Christian, subtract 2015 years and three months. ABRAHAMITES. This sect adopted the errors of Paulus; but it was suppressed by Cyriacus, the patriarch of Antioch. In the ninth century there sprung up a sect of monks under this designation, and it, too, was suppressed, or rather exterminated, for worshipping images.

ABSENTEES. The complaint is in Ireland, that the wealthy of that country retire to England; and in England, that the rich squander their fortunes abroad. According to late returns made to the prefect of police at Paris, the entire number of British residents in France was estimated at 54,000; but the thousands of Continental tourists who pass annually through France are not included in this estimate. The

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