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 if it be 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.

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.

ABASSIS, a coin of Persia, whose value is about a British shilling, first coined by, and named after Schah Abbas II., the ninth Sophi of Persia, A.D. 1652.

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:

:

. 1114

ABELARD AND HELOISE. Their amour, so celebrated for its passion and misfortunes, commenced at Paris, A.D. 1118, when Heloïse (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. Heloïse 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.

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 the original inhabitants of any country.

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 and Syria.

To reduce

ABRAHAM, ERA OF. Used by Eusebius; it began October 1, 2016 B.C. 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

number of British settled in the Netherlands, France, Germany, Switzerland, and Italy, is now supposed to far exceed 100,000, drawing from the country not less than five millions annually: "a sum so large," observes Dr. Southey," that if, instead of being scattered among strangers, it were spent in the deserted halls and mansions of these realms, it would materially alleviate the distress with which England now struggles."-Quar. Review.

ABSENTEE TAX. In Ireland, a tax of four shillings in the pound was levied on profits, fees, emoluments, and pensions of absentees, in 1715. This tax ceased in 1753. In 1773, Mr. Flood, the great Irish orator, proposed a tax of two shillings in the pound, which was lost by a majority in the commons of 122 to 102. The question was renewed in the Irish parliament in 1783 by Mr. Molyneux, and again lost, on a division of 184 to 122.-Statutes at large; Parl. Reports.

ABSTINENCE. St. Anthony lived to the age of 105, on twelve ounces of bread, and water. James the Hermit lived in the same manner to the age of 104. St. Epiphanius lived thus to 115. Simeon, the Stylite, to 112; and Kentigern, commonly called St. Mungo, lived by similar means to 185 years of age.-Spottiswood. A man may live seven, or even eleven, days without meat or drink.-Pliny Hist. Nat. lib. ii. Democritus subsisted for forty days by smelling honey and hot bread, 323 B.C.— Diog. Laert. A woman of Normandy lived for 18 years without food.-Petrus de Albano. Gilbert Jackson, of Carse-grange, Scotland, lived three years without sustenance of any kind, 1719. A religious fanatic, who determined upon fasting forty days, died on the sixteenth, 1789.-Phillips. A country girl, of Osnabruck, abstained four years from all food and drink, 1799.-Hufeland's Practical Journal. Ann Moore, the fasting woman of Tutbury, Staffordshire, supposed to have been an impostor, was said to have lived twenty months without food, Nov. 1808. At Swineford, near Newry, in Ireland, a man named Cavanagh was reported to have lived two years without meat or drink; he underwent severe scrutiny by competent authorities, who credited the fact, Aug. 1840. See other instances in Haller's Elementæ Physiologiæ; Cornaro; Pricher's Surgical Library, &c. ; and in this volume, see Fasting. ABSTINENTS. The abstinents were a sect that wholly abstained from wine, flesh, and marriage; and were a community of harmless and mild ascetics. They appeared in France and Spain in the third century; and some authorities mention such a sect as having been numerous elsewhere in A.D. 170.- Bossuet.

ABYSSINIAN ERA. This era is reckoned from the period of the Creation, which they place in the 5493rd year before our era, on the 29th August, old style; and their dates consequently exceed ours by 5492 years and 125 days. To reduce Abyssinian time to the Julian year, subtract 5492 years and 125 days.

ACADEMIES, or societies of learned men to promote literature, sciences, and the arts, are of early date. Academia was a shady grove without the walls of Athens (bequeathed to Hecademus for gymnastic exercises), where Plato first taught philosophy, and his followers took the title of Academics 378 B. C.-Stanley. Ptolemy Soter is said to have founded an academy at Alexandria, about 314 B. C. Theodosius the Younger and Charlemagne are also named as founders. Italy has been celebrated for its academies ; and Jarckius mentions 550, of which 25 were in the city of Milan. The first philosophical academy in France was established by Père Mersenne, in 1635. Academies were introduced into England by Boyle and Hobbes; and the Royal Society of London was formed in 1660. The following are among the principal academies :

Ancona, of the Caglinosi, 1624.

Berlin, Royal Society, 1700; of Princes, 1703;
Architecture, 1799.

Bologna, Ecclesiastical, 1687; Mathematics,
1690; Sciences and Arts, 1712.
Brescia, of the Erranti, 1626
Brest and Toulon, Military, 1682.

Brussels, Belles Lettres, 1773.

Caen, Belles Lettres, 1750.
Copenhagen, Polite Arts, 1742.

Cortona, Antiquities, 1726.

Dublin, Arts, 1749; Science and Literature,

1786; Painting, Sculpture, &c. 1823.

Erfurt, Saxony, Sciences, 1754.

Faenza, the Philoponi, 1612.

Florence, Belles Lettres, 1272; Della Crusca 1582; Antiquities, 1807.

Geneva, Medical, 1715.

Genoa, Painting, &c. 1751; Sciences, 1783. Germany, Medical, 1617; Natural History, 1652; Military, 1752.

Haerlem, the Sciences, 1760.

Lisbon, History, 1720; Sciences, 1779.

London; its various Academies are described

through the volume.

Lyons, Sciences, 1700; had Physic and Mathematics added, 1758.

Madrid, the Royal Spanish, 1713; History, 1730; Painting and the Arts, 1753. Manheim, Sculpture, 1775.