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Upon the return of new dangers, or at least of fears, Abelard left the Paraclete to make trial of another refuge, accepting an invitation to preside over the abbey of St Gildas-de-Rhuys, on the far-off shore of Lower Brittany. It proved a wretched exchange. The region was inhospitable, the domain a prey to lawless exaction, the house itself savage and disorderly. Yet for nearly ten years he continued to struggle with fate before he fled from his charge, yielding in the end only under peru of violent death. The misery of those years was not, however, unrelieved; for he had been able, on the breaking up of Heloise's convent at Argenteuil, to establish her as head of a new religious house at the deserted Paraclete, and in the capacity of spiritual director he often was called to revisit the spot thus made doubly dear to him. All this time Heloise had lived amid universal esteem for her knowledge and character, uttering no word under the doom that had fallen upon her youth; hut now, at last, the occasion came for expressing all the pent-up emotions of her soul. Living on for some time apart (we do not know exactly where), after his flight from St Gildas, Abelard wrote, among other things, his famous Historia Calamitatum, and thus moved her to peu her first Letter, which remains an unsurpassed utterance of human passion and womanly devotion; the first being followed by the two other Letters, in which she finally accepted the part of resignation which, now as a brother to a sister, Abelard commended to her. He not long after was seen once more upon the field of his early triumphs lecturing on Mount St Genevieve in 1136 (when he was heard by John of Salisbury), but it was only for a brief space: no new triumph, but a last great trial, awaited him in the few years to come of his chequered life. As far back as the Paraclete days, he had counted as chief among his foes Bernard of Clairvaux, in whom was incarnated the principle of fervent and unhesitating faith, from which rational inquiry like his was sheer revolt, and now this uncompromising spirit was moving, at the instance of others, to crush the growing evil in the person of the boldest offender. After preliminary negotiations, in which Bernard was roused by Abelard's steadfastness to put forth all his strength, a council met at Sens (1141), before which Abelard, formally arraigned upon a number of heretical charges, was prepared to plead his cause. When, however, Bernard, not without foregone terror in the prospect of meeting the redoubtable dialectician, had opened the case, suddenlly Abelard appealed to Rome. The stroke availed him nothing; for Bernard, who had power, notwithstanding, to get a condemnation passed at the council, did not rest a moment till a second condemnation was procured at Rome in the following year. Meanwhile, on his way thither to urge his plea in person, Abelard had broken down at the abbey of Cluny, and there, an utterly fallen man, with spirit of the humblest, and only not bereft of his intellectual force, he lingered but a few months before the approach of death. Removed by friendly hands, for the relief of his sufferings, to the priory of St Marcel, near Chalon-sur-Saone, he died on the 21st of April 1142. First buried at St Marcel, his remains soon after were carried off in secrecy to the Paraclete, and given over to the loving care of Heloise, who in time came herself to rest beside them (1164). The bones of the pair were shifted more than once afterwards, but they were marvellously preserved even through the vicissitudes of the French Revolution, and now they lie united in the well-known tomb in the cemetery of Pere-la-Chaise at Paris.

Great as was the influence exerted by Abelard on the minds of his contemporaries and the course of medieval thought, he has been little known in modern times but for his connexion with Heloise. Indeed, it was not till the 19th century, when Cousin in 1836 issued the collection entitled Ouvrages inedits d'Abelard, that his philosophical performance could be judged at first hand; of his strictly philosophical works only one, the ethical treatise Scito te ipsum, having been published earlier, namely, in 1721. Cousin's collection, besides giving extracts from the theological work Sic et Non (an assemblage of opposite opinions on doctrinal points, culled from the Fathers as a basis for discussion, the main interest in which lles in the fact that there is no attempt to reconcile the different opinions), includes the Dialectica, commentaries on logical works of Aristotle, Porphyry and Boothius, and a fragment, De Generibus et Speciebus. The last-named work, and also the psychological treatise De Inteilectibus, published apart by Cousin (in Fragmens Philosophiques, vol. ii.), are now considered upon internal evidence not to be hy Abelard himself, but only to have sprung out of his school. A genuine work, the Glossulae super Porphyrium, from which Charles de Remusat, in his classical monograph Abelard (1845), has given extracts, remains in manuscript.

The general importance of Abelard lles in his having fixed more decisively than any one before him the scholastic manner of philosophizing, with its object of giving a formally rational expression to the received ecclesiastical doctrine . However his own particular interpretations may have been condemned, they were conceived in essentially the same spirit as the general scheme of thought afterwards elaborated in the 13th century with approval from the heads of the church. Through him was prepared in the Middle Age the ascendancy of the philosophical authority of Aristotle, which became firmly established in the half-century after his death, when first the completed Organon, and gradually ail the other works of the Greek thinker, came to be known in the schools: before his time it was rather upon the authority of Plato that the prevailing Realism sought to lean. As regards his so-called Conceptualism and his attitude to the question of Universals, see SCHOLASTICISM. Outside of his dialectic, it was in ethics that Abelard showed greatest activity of philosophical thought; laying very particular stress upon the subjective intention as determining, if not the moral character, at least the moral value, of human action. His thought in this direction, wherein he anticipated something of modern speculation, is the more remarkable because his scholastic successors accomplished least in the field of morals, hardly venturing to bring the principles and rules of conduct under pure philosophical discussion, even after the great ethical inquiries of AAstotle became fully known to them.

BIBLIOGRAPHY --Abelard's own works remain the best sources for his life, especially his Historia Culamitatum, an autobiography, and the correspondence with Heloise. The literature on Abelard is extensive, but consists principally of monographs on different aspects of his philosophy. Charles de Remusat's Abelard (2 vols., 1845) remains an authority; it must be distinguished from his drama Abelard (1877), which is an attempt to give a picture of medieval life. McCabe's life of Abelard is written closely from the sources. eee also the valuable analysis by Nitsch in the article ``Abalard'' There is a comprehensive bibliograohy in U. Chevalier, Repertoire des sources hist. du moyen age, s. ``Abailard.'' (G. C. R.; J. T. S.*)

ABELIN, JOHANN PHILIPP, an early 16th-century German chronicler, was born, probably, at Strasburg, and died there between the years 1634 and 1637. He wrote numerous histories over the pseudonyms of Philipp Arlanibaus, Abeleus and Johann Eudwighottfaed or Gotofredus, his earliest works of importance being his history of the German wars of Gustavus Adolphus, entitled Arma Suecica (pub. 1631-1634, in 12 parts), and the Inventarium Sueciae (1632)---both compilations from existing records. His best known work is the Theatrum Europaeum, a series of chronicles of the chief events in the history of the world down to 1619. He was himself responsible for the first two volumes. It was continued by various writers and grew to twenty-one volumes (Frankf. 1633-1738). The chief interest of the work is, however, its illustration by the beautiful copperplate engravings of Matthaus Meriah (1593-1650). Abelin also wrote a history of the antipodes, Historia Antipodum (posthumously pub. Frankf. 1655), and a history of India.

See G. Droysen, Arlanibaeus, Godofredus, Abelinus (Berlin, 1864); and notice in Allgemeine Deutsche Biographic.

ABENCERRAGES, a family or faction that is said to have held a prominent position in the Moorish kingdom of Granada in the 15th century. The name appears to have been derived from the Yussuf ben-Serragh, the head of the tribe in the time of Mahommed VII., who did that sovereign good service in his struggles to retain the crown of which he was three times deprived. Nothing is known of the family with certainty; but the name is familiar from the interesting romance of Gines Perez de Hita, Guerras civiles de Granada, which celebrates the feuds of the Abencerrages and the rival family of the Zegris, and the cruel treatment to which the former were subjected. J. P. de Florian's Gonsalve de Cordoue and Chateaubriand's Le dernier des Abencerrages are imitations of Perez de Hita's work. The hall of the Abencerrages in the Alhambra takes its name from being the reputed scene of the massacre of the family.

ABENDANA, the name of two Jewish theologians. (1) JACOB (1630-i695), rabbi (Hakham) of the Spanish Jews in London from 1680. Like his brother Isaac, Jacob Abendana had a circle of Christian friends, and his reputation led to the appreciation of Jewish scholarship by modern Christian theologians. (2) ISAAC (c. 1650-1710), his brother, taught Hebrew at Cambridge and afterwards at Oxford. He compiled a Jewish Calendar and wrote Discourses on the Ecclesiastical and Civil Polity of the Jews (1706).

ABENEZRA (IBN EZRA), or, to give him his full name, ABRAHAM BEN MEIR IBN Ezra (1092 or 1093-1167), one of the most distinguished Jewish men of letters and writers of the Middle Ages. He was born at Toledo, left his native land of Spain before 1140 and led until his death a life of restless wandering, which took him to North Africa, Egypt, Italy (Rome, Lucca, Mantua,Verona), Southern France(Narbonne, Beziers), Northern France (Dreux), England (London), and back again to the South of France. At several of the above-named places he remained for some time and developed a rich literary activity. In his native land he had already gained the reputation of a distinguished poet and thinker; but, apart from his poems, his works, which were all in the Hebrew language, were written in the second period of his life. With these works, which cover in the first instance the field of Hebrew philology and Biblical exegesis, he fulfilled the great mission of making accessible to the Jews of Christian Europe the treasures of knowledge enshrined in the works written in Arabic which he had brought with him from Spain. His grammatical writings, among which Moznayim (``the Scales,'' written in 1140) and Zahot (``Correctness,'' written in 1141) are the most valuable, were the first expositions of Hebrew grammar in the Hebrew language, in which the system of Hayyuj and his school prevailed. He also translated into Hebrew the two writings of Hayyuj in which the foundations of the system were laid down. Of greater original value than the grammatical works of Ibn Ezra are his commentaries on most of the books of the Bible, of which, however, a part has been lost. His reputation as an intelligent and acute expounder of the Bible was founded on his commentary on the Pentateuch, of which the great popularity is evidenced by the numerous commentaries which were written upon it. In the editions of this commentary (ed. princ. Naples 1488) the commentary on the book of Exodus is replaced by a second, more complete commentary of Ibn Ezra, while the first and shorter commentary on Exodus was not printed until 1840. The great editions of the Hebrew Bible with rabbinical commentaries contained also commentaries of Ibn Ezra's on the following books of the Bible: Isaiah, Minor Prophets, Psalms, Job, Pentateuch, Daniel; the commentaries on Proverbs, Ezra and Nehemiah which bear his name are really those of Moses Kimhi. Ibn Ezra wrote a second commentary on Genesis as he had done on Exodus, but this was never finished. There are second commentaries also by him on the Song of Songs, Esther and Daniel. The importance of the exegesis of Ibn Ezra consists in the fact that it aims at arriving at the simple sense of the text, the so-called ``Pesohat,'' on solid grammatical principles. It is in this that, although he takes a great part of his exegetical material from his predecessors, the originality of his mind is everywhere apparent, an originality which displays itself also in the witty and lively language of his commentaries. To judge by certain signs, of which Spinoza in his Tractatus Theologico Politicus makes use, Ibn Ezra belongs to the earliest pioneers of the criticism of the Pentateuch. His commentaries, and especially some of the longer excursuses, contain numerous contributions to the philosophy of religion. One writing in particular, which belongs to this province (Vosod Mera), on the division and the reasons for the Biblical commandments, he wrote in 1158 for a London friend, Joseph b. Jacob. In his philosophical thought neo-platonic ideas prevail; and astrology also had a place in his view of the world. He also wrote various works on mathematical and astronomical subjects. Ibn Ezra died on the 28th of January 1167, the place of his death being unknown.

Among the literature on Ibn Ezra may be especially mentioned: M. Friedlander, Essays on the Writings of Ibn Ezra (London, 1877); W. Bacher, Abraham Ibn Ezra als Grammatiker (Strasburg, 1882); M. Steinschneider, Abraham Ibn Ezra, in the Zeitschrift fur Mathematik und Physik, Band xxv., Supplement; D. Rosin, Die Religions philosophie Abraham Ibn Ezra's in vols. xiii. and xliii. of the Monatschrift fur Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Judenthums; his Diwan was edited by T. Egers (Berlin, 1886): a collection of his poems, Reime und Gedichte, with translation and commentary, were published by D. Rosin in several annual reports of the Jewish theological Seminary at Breslau (1885--1894). (W. BA.)

ABENSBERG, a town of Germany, in the kingdom of Bavaria, on the Abens, a tributary of the Danube, 18 m. S.W. of Regensburg, with which it is connected by rail. Pop. 2202. It has a small spa, and its sulphur baths are resorted to for the cure of rheumatism and gout. The town is the Castra Abusina of the Romans, and Roman remains exist in the neighbourhood. Here, on the 20th of April 1809, Napoleon gained a signal victory over the Austrians under the Archduke Louis and Genegal Hiller.

ABEOKUTA, a town of British West Africa in the Egba division of the Yoruba country, S. Nigeria Protectorate. It is situated in 7 deg. 8' N., 3 deg. 25' E., on the Ogun river, 64 m. N. of Lagos by railway, or 81 m. by water. Population, approximately 60,000. Abeokuta lies in a beautiful and fertile country, the surface of which is broken by masses of grey granite. It is spread over an extensive area, being surrounded by mud walls 18 miles in extent. Abeokuta, under the reforming zeal of its native rulers, was largely transformed during the early years of the 20th century. Law courts, government offices, prisons and a substantial bridge were built, good roads made, and a large staff of sanitary inspectors appointed. The streets are generally narrow and the houses built of mud. There are numerous markets in which a considerable trade is done in native products and articles of European manufacture. Palm-oil, timber, rubber, yams and shea-butter are the chief articles of trade. An official newspaper is published in the Yoruba and English languages. Abeokuta is the headquarters of the Yoruba branch of the Church Missionary Societyi and British and American, missionaries have met with some success in their civilizing work. In their schools about 2000 children are educated. The completion in 1899 of a railway from Lagos helped not only to develop trade but to strengthen generally the influence of the white man.

Abeokuta (a word meaning ``under the rocks,''), dating from 1825, owes its origin to the incessant inroads of the slavehunters from Dahomey and Ibadan, which compelled the village populations scattered over the open country to take refuge in this rocky stronghold against the common enemy. Here they constituted themselves a free confederacy of many distinct tribal groups, each preserving the traditional customs, religious rites and even the very names of their original villages. Yet this apparently incoherent aggregate held its ground successfully against the powerful armies often sent against the place both by the king of Dahomey from the west, and by the people of Ibadan from the north-east.

The district of Egba, of which Abeokuta is the capital, has an estimated area of 3000 sq. m. and a population of some 350,000. It is officially known as the Abeokuta province of the Southern Nigeria protectorate. It contains luxuriant forests of palmtrees, which constitute the chief wealth of the people. Cotton is indigenous and is grown for export. The Egbas are enthusiastic farmers and have largely adopted European methods of cultivation. They are very tenacious of their independence, but accepted without opposition the establishment of a British protectorate, which, while putting a stop to inter-tribal warfare, slave-raiding and human sacrifices, and exercising control over the working of the laws, left to the people executive and fiscal autonomy. The administration is in the hands of a council of chiefs which exercises legislative, executive and, to some extent, judicial functions. The president of this council, or ruling chief ---chosen from among the members of the two recognized reigning families--is called the alake, a word meaning ``Lord of Ake,'' Ake being the name of the principal quarter of Abeokuta, after the ancient capital of the Egbas. The alake exercises little authority apart from his councili the form of government being largely democratic. Revenue is chiefly derived from tolls or import duties. A visit of the alake to England in 1904 evoked considerable public interest. The chief was a man of great intelligence, eager to study western civilization, and an ardent agriculturist.

See the publications of the Church Missionary Society dealing mith the Voruba Mission; Col. A. B. Ellis's The Yoruba-speaking Peoples (London, 1894); and an article on Abeokuta by Sir Wm. Macgregor, sometime governor of Lagos, in the African Society's Journal, No. xii. (London, July 1904).

ABERAVON, a contributory parliamentary and municipal borough of Glamorganshire, Wales, on the right bank of the Avon, near its mouth in Swansea Bay, 11 m. E.S.E. of Swansea and 170 m. from London by rail. Pop. (1901) 7553. It has a station on the Rhondda and Swansea Bay railway and is also on the main South Wales line of the Great Western, whose station, however, is at fort Talbot, half a mile distant, on the eastern side of the Avon. The valley of the Avon, which is only some three miles long, has been from about 1840 a place of much metallurgical activity. There are tinplate and engineering works within the borough. At Cwmavon, 1 1/2 m. to the north-east, are large copper-smelting works established in 1838, acquired two years later by the governor and Company of the Copper Miners of England, but now worked by the Rio Tinto Copper Company. There are also iron, steel and tinplate works both at Cwmavon and at Port Talbot, which, when it consisted only of docks, was appropriately known as Aberavon Port.

The town derives its name from the river Avon (corrupted from Avan), which also gave its name to a medieval lordship. On the Norman conquest at Glamorgan, Caradoc, the eldest son of the defeated prince, Lestyn ab Gwrgan, continued to hold this lordship, and for the defence of thc passage of the river built here a castle whose foundations are still traceable in a field near the churchyard. His descendants (who from the 13th century onwards styled themselves De Avan or D'Avene) established, under line protection of the castle, a chartered town, which in 1372 received a further charter from Edward Le Despenser, into whose family the lordship had come on an exchange of lands. In modern times these charters were not acted upon, the town being deemed a borough by prescription, but in 1861 it was incorporated under the Municipal Corporations Act. Since 1832 it has belonged to the Swansea parliamentary district of boroughs, uniting with Kenfig, Loughor, Neath and Swansea to return one member; but in 1885 the older portion of Swansea was given a separate member.

ABERCARN, an urban district in the southern parliamentary division of Monmouthshire, England, 10 m. N.W. of Newport by the Great Western railway. Pop. (1901) 12,607. There are collieries, ironworks and tinplate works in the district; the town, which lies in the middle portion of the Ebbw valley, being situated on the south-eastern flank of the great mining region of Glamorganshire and Monmouthshire.

ABERCORN, JAMES HAMILTON, 1ST EARL OF (c. 1575-1618), was the eldest son of Claud Hamilton, Lord Paisley (4th son of James, 2nd earl of Arran, and duke of Chatelherault), and of Margaret, daughter of George, 6th Lord Seton. He was made sheriff of Linlithgow in 1600, received large grants of lands in Scotland and Ireland, was created in 1603 baron of Abercorn, and on the 10th of July 1606 was rewarded for his services in the matter of the union by being made earl of Abercorn, and Baron Hamilton, Mount Castle and Kilpatrick. He married Marion, daughter of Thomas, 5th Lord Boyd, and left five sons, of whom the eldest, baron of Strabane, succeeded him as 2nd earl of Abercorn. He died on the 23rd of March 1618. The title of Abercorn, held by the head of the Hamilton family, became a marquessate in 1790, and a dukedom in 1868, the 2nd duke of Abercorn (b. 1838) being a prominent Unionist politician and chairman of the British South Africa Company.

ABERCROMRIE, JOHN (1780-1844), Scottish physician, was the son of the Rev. George Abercrombie of Aberdeen, where he was born on the 10th of October 1780. He was educated at the university of Edinburgh, and after graduating as M.D. in 1803 he settled down to practise in that city, where he soon attained a leading position. From 1816 he published various papers in the Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal, which formed the basis of his Pathological and Practical Researches on Diseases of the Brain and Spinal Cord, and of his Researches on the Diseases of the Intestinal Canal, Liver and other Viscera of the Abdomen, both published in 1828. He also found time for philosophical speculations, and in 1830 he published his Inquiries concerning the Intellectual Powers of Man and the Investigation of Truth, which was followed in 1833 by a sequel, The Philosophy of the Moral Feelings. Both works, though showing little originality of thought, achieved wide popularity. He died at Edinburgh on the 14th of November 1844.

ABERCROMBY, DAVID, a 17th-century Scottish physician who was sufficiently noteworthy a generation after the probable date of his death to have his Nova Medicinae Praxis reprinted at Paris in 1740. During his lifetime his Tuta ac efficax luis venereae saepe absque mercurio ac semper absque salivatione mercuriali curando methodus (1684) was translated into French, Dutch and German. Two other works by him were De Pulsus Variatione (London, 1685), and Ars explorandi medicas facultates plantarum ex solo sapore (London, 1685--1688); His Opuscula were collected in 1687. These professional writings gave him a place and memorial in A. von Haller's Bibliotheca Medicinae Pract. (4 vols. 8vo, 1779, tom. iii. p. 619); but he claims notice rather by his remarkable controversial books in theology and philosophy than by his medical writings. Bred up at Douai as a Jesuit, he abjured popery, and published Protestancy proved Safer than Popery' (London, 1686). But the most noticeable of his productions is A Discourse of Wit (London, 1685), which contains some of the most characteristic and most definitely-put metaphysical opinions of the Scottish philosophy of common sense. It was followed by Academia Scientiarum (1687), and by A Moral Treatise of the Power. of Interest (1690), dedicated to Robert Boyle. A Short Account of Scots Divines, by him, was printed at Edinburgh in 1833, edited by James Maidment. The exact date of his death is unknown, but according to Haller he was alive early in the 18th century.

ABERCROMBY, PATRICK (1656-c.1716), Scottish physician and antiquarian, was the third son of Alexander Abercromby of Fetterneir in Aberdeenshire, and brother of Francis Abercromby, who was created Lord Glasford by James II. He was born at Forfar in 1656 apparently of a Roman Catholic family. Intending to become a doctor of medicine he entered the university of St Andrews, where he took his degree of M.D. in 1685, but apparently he spent most of his youthful years abroad. It has been stated that he attended the university of Paris. The Discourse of Wit (1685), sometimes assigned to him, belongs to Dr David Abercromby (q.v.). On his return to Scotland, he is found practising as a physician in Edinburgh, where, besides his professional duties, he gave himself with characteristic zeal to the study of antiquities. He was appointed physician to James II. in 1685, but the revolution deprived him of the post. Living during the agitations for the union of England and Scotland, he took part in the war of pamphlets inaugurated and sustained by prominent men on both sides of the Border, and he crossed swords with no less redoubtable a foe than Daniel Defoe in his Advantages of the Act of Security compared with those of the intended Union (Edinburgh, 1707), and A Vindication of the Same against Mr De Foe (ibid.). A minor literary work of Abercromby's was a translation of Jean de Beaugue's Histoire de la guerre d'Ecosse (1556) which appeared in 1707. But the work with which his name is permanently associated is his Martial Atchievements of the Scots Nation, issued in two large folios, vol. i. 1711, vol. ii. 1716. In the title-page and preface to vol. i. he disclaims the ambition of being an historian, but in vol. ii., in title-page and preface alike, he is no longer a simple biographer, but an historian. Even though, read in the light of later researches, much of the first volume must necessarily be relegated to the region of the mythical, none the less was the historian a laborious and accomplished reader and investigator of all available authorities, as well manuscript as printed; while the roll of names of those who aided him includes every man of note in Scotland at the time, from Sir Thomas Craig and Sir George Mackenzie to Alexander Nisbet and Thomas Ruddiman. The date of Abercromby's death is uncertain. It has been variously assigned to 1715, 1716, 1720, and 1726, and it is usually added that he left a widow in great poverty. The Memoirs of the Abercrombys, commonly attributed to him, do not appear to have been published.

See Robert Chambers, Eminent Scotsmen, s.v.; William Anderson, Scottish Nation, s.v.; Alexander Chalmers, Biog. Dict., s.v.; George Chalmers, Life of Ruddiman; William Lee, Defoe.

ABERCROMBY, SIR RALPH (1734-1801), British lieutenant-general, was the eldest son of George Abercromby of Tillibody, Clackmannanshire, and was born in October 1734. Educated at Rugby and Edinburgh University, in 1754 he was sent to Leipzig to study civil law, with a view to his proceeding to the Scotch bar. On returning from the continent he expressed a strong preference for the military profession, and a cornet's commission was accordingly obtained for him (March 1756) in the 3rd Dragoon Guards. He served with his regiment in the Seven Years' war, and the opportunity thus afforded him of studying the methods of the great Frederick moulded his military character and formed his tactical ideas. He rose through the intermediate grades to the rank of lieutenant-colonel of the regiment (1773) and brevet colonel in 1780, and in 1781 he became colonel of the King's Irish infantry. When that regiment was disbanded in 1783 he retired upon half-pay. That up to this time he had scarcely been engaged in active service was owing mainly to his disapproval of the policy of the government, and especially to his sympathies with the American colonists in their struggles for independence; and his retirement is no doubt to be ascribed to similar feelings. On leaving the army he for a time took up political life as member of Parliament for Clackmannanshire. This, however, proved uncongenial, and, retiring in favour of his brother, he settled at Edinburgh and devoted himself to the education of his children. But on France declaring war against England in 1793, he hastened to resume his professional duties; and, being esteemed one of the ablest and most intrepid officers in the whole British forces, he was appointed to the command of a brigade under the duke of York, for service in Holland. He commanded the advanced guard in the action at Le Cateau, and was wounded at Nijmwegen. The duty fell to him of protecting the British army in its disastrous retreat out of Holland, in the winter of 1794-1795. In 1795 he received the honour of a knighthood of the Bath, in acknowledgment of his services. The same year he was appointed to succeed Sir Charles Grey, as commander-in-chief of the British forces in the West Indies. In 1796 Grenada was suddenly attacked and taken by a detachment of the army under his orders. He afterwards obtained possession of the settlements of Demerara and Essequibo, in South America, and of the islands of St Lucia, St Vincent and Trinidad. He returned in 1797 to Europe, and, in reward for his important services, was appointed colonel of the regiment of Scots Greys, entrusted with the governments of the Isle of Wight, Fort-George and Fort-Augustus, and raised to the rank of lieutenant-general. He held, in 1797-1798, the chief command of the forces in Ireland. There he laboured to maintain the discipline of the army, to suppress the rising rebellion, and to protect the people from military oppression, with a care worthy alike of a great general and an enlightened and beneficent statesman. When he was appointed to the command in Ireland, an invasion of that country by the French was confidently anticipated by the English government. He used his utmost efforts to restore the discipline of an army that was utterly disorganized; and, as a first step, he anxiously endeavoured to protect the people by re-establishing the supremacy of the civil power, and not allowing the military to be called out, except when it was indispensably necessary for the enforcement of the law and the maintenance of order. Finding that he received no adequate support from the head of the Irish government, and that all his efforts were opposed and thwarted by those who presided in the councils of Ireland, he resigned the command. His departure from Ireland was deeply lamented by the reflecting portion of the people, and was speedily followed by those disastrous results which he had anticipated, and which he so ardently desired and had so wisely endeavoured to prevent. After holding for a short period the office of commander-in-chief in Scotland, Sir Ralph, when the enterprise against Holland was resolved upon in 1799, was again called to command under the duke of York. The campaign of 1799 ended in disaster, but friend and foe alike confessed that the most decisive victory could not have more conspicuously proved the talents of this distinguished officer. His country applauded the choice when, in 1801, he was sent with an army to dispossess the French of Egypt. His experience in Holland and the West Indies particularly fitted him for this new command, as was proved by his carrying his army in health, in spirits and with the requisite supplies, in spite of very great difficulties, to the destined scene of action. The debarkation of the troops at Aboukir, in the face of strenuous opposition, is justly ranked among the most daring and brilliant exploits of the English army. A battle in the neighbourhood of Alexandria (March 21, 1801) was the sequel of this successful landing, and it was Abercromby's fate to fall in the moment of victory. He was struck by a spent ball, which could not be extracted, and died seven days after the battle. His old friend and commander the duke of York paid a just tribute to the great soldier's memory in general orders: ``His steady observance of discipline, his ever-watchful attention to the health and wants of his troops, the persevering and unconquerable spirit which marked his military career, the splendour of his actions in the field and the heroism of his death, are worthy the imitation of all who desire, like him, a life of heroism and a death of glory.'' By a vote of the House of Commons, a monument was erected in his honour in St Paul's cathedral. His widow was created Baroness Abercromby of Tullibody and Aboukir Bay, and a pension of L. 2000 a year was settled on her and her two successors in the title.

A memoir of the later years of his life (1793-1801) by his third son, James (who was Speaker of the House of Commons, 1835-1839, and became Lord Dunfermline), was published in 1861. For a shorter account of Sir Ralph Abercromby see Wilkinson, Twelve British Soldiers (London, 1899).

ABERDARE, HENRY AUSTIN BRUCE, 1ST BARON (1815-1895), English statesman, was born at Duffryn, Aberdare, Glamorganshire, on the 16th of April 1815, the son of John Bruce, a Glamorganshire landowner. John Bruce's original family name was Knight, but on coming of age in 1805 he assumed the name of Bruce, his mother, through whom he inherited the Duffryn estate, having been the daughter of William Bruce, high sheriff of Glamorganshire. Henry Austin Bruce was educated at Swansea grammar school, and in 1837 was called to the bar. Shortly after he had begun to practise, the discovery of coal beneath the Duffryn and other Aberdare Valley estates brought the family great wealth. From 1847 to 1852 he was stipendiary magistrate for Merthyr Tydvil and Aberdare, resigning the position in the latter year, when he entered parliament as Liberal member for Merthyr Tydvil. In 1862 he became under-secretary for the home department, and in 1869, after losing his seat at Merthyr Tydvil, but being re-elected for Renfrewshire, he was made home secretary by W. E. Gladstone. His tenure of this office was conspicuous for a reform of the licensing laws, and he was responsible for the Licensing Act of 1872, which constituted the magistrates the licensing authority, increased the penalties for misconduct in public-houses and shortened the number of hours for the sale of drink. In 1873 he relinquished the home secretaryship, at Gladstone's request, to become lord president of the council, and was almost simultaneously raised to the peerage as Baron Aberdare. The defeat of the Liberal government in the following year terminated Lord Aberdare's official political life, and he subsequently devoted himself to social, educational and economic questions. In 1876 he was elected F.R.S.; from 1878 to 1892 he was president of the Royal Historical Society; and in 1881 he became president of the Royal Geographical Society. In 1882 he began a connexion with West Africa which lasted the rest of his life, by accepting the chairmanship of the National African Company, formed by Sir George Taubman Goldie, which in 1886 received a charter under the title of the Royal Niger Company and in 1899 was taken over by the British government, its territories being constituted the protectorate of Nigeria. West African affairs, however, by no means exhausted Lord Aberdare's energies, and it was principally through his efforts that a charter was in 1894 obtained for the university of Wales at Cardiff. Lord Aberdare, who in 1885 was made a G.C.B., presided over several Royal Commissions at different times. He died in London on the 25th of February 1895. His second wite was the daughter of Sir William Napier, the historian of the Peninsular war, whose Life he edited.

ABERDARE, a market town of Glamorganshire, Wales, situated (as the name implies) at the confluence of the Dar and Cynon, the latter being a tributary of the Tain. Pop. of urban district (1901), 43,365. It is 4 m. S.W. of Merthyr Tydvil, 24 from Cardiff and 160 from London by rail. It has a station on the Pontypool and Swansea section of the Great Western railway, and is also served by the Llwydcoed and Abernant stations which are on a branch line to Merthyr. The Tain Vale line (opened 1846) has a terminus in the town. The Glamorgan canal has also a branch (made in 1811) running from Abercynon to Aberdare. From being, at the beginning of the 19th century, a mere village in an agricultural district, the place grew rapidly in population owing to the abundance of its coal and iron ore, and the population of the whole parish (which was only 1486 in 1801) increased tenfold during the first half of the century. Ironworks were established at Llwydcoed and Abernant in 1799 and 1800 respectively, followed by others at Gadlys and Aberaman in 1827 and 1847. These have not been worked since about 1875, and the only metal industries remaining in the town are an iron foundry or two and a small tinplate works at Gadlys (established in 1868). Previous to 1836, most of the coal worked in the parish was consumed locally, chiefly in the ironworks, but in that year the working of steam coal for export was begun, pits were sunk in rapid succession, and the coal trade, which at least since 1875 has been the chief support of the town, soon reached huge dimensions. There are also several brickworks and breweries. During the latter half Of the 19th century, considerable public improvements were effected in the town, making it, despite its neighbouring collieries, an agreeable place of residence. Its institutions included a post-graduate theological college (opened in connexion with the Church of England in 1892, until 1907, when it was removed to Llandaff). There is a public park of fifty acres with two small lakes. Aberdare, with the ecclesiastical parishes of St Fagan's (Trecynon) and Aberaman carved out of the ancient parish, has some twelve Anglican churches, one Roman Catholic church (built in 1866 in Monk Street near the site of a cell attached to Penrhys Abbey) and over fifty Noncoformist chapels. The services in the majority of the chapels are in Welsh. The whole parish falls within the parliamentary borough of Merthyr Tydvil. The urban district includes what were once the separate villages of Aberaman, Abernant, Cwmbach, Cwmaman, Cwmdare, Llwydcoed and Trecynon. There are several cairns and the remains of a circular British encampment on the mountain between Aberdare and Merthyr. Hirwaun moor, 4 m. to the N.W. of Aberdare, was according to tradition the scene of a battle at which Rhys ap Jewdwr, prince of Dyfed, was defeated by the ailied forces of the Norman Robert Fitzhamon and Iestyn ab Gwrgan, the last prince of Glamorgan.

ABERDEEN, GEORGE GORDON, 1ST EARL OF (1637-1720), lord chancellor of Scotland, son of Sir John Gordon, 1st baronet of Haddo, Aberdeenshire, executed by the Presbyterians in 1644, was born on the 3rd of October 1637. He graduated M.A., and was chosen professor at King's College, Aberdeen, in 1658. Subsequently he travelled and studied civil law abroad. At the Restoration the sequestration of his father's lands was annulled, and in 1665 he succeeded by the death of his elder brother to the baronetcy and estates. He returned home in 1667, was admitted advocate in 1668 and gained a high legal reputation. He represented Aberdeenshire in the Scottish parliament of 1669 and in the following assemblies, during his first session strongly opposing the projected union of the two legislatures. In November 1678 he was made a privy councillor for Scotland, and in 1680 was raised to the bench as Lord Haddo. He was a leading member of the duke of York's administration, was created a lord of session in June and in November 1681 president of the court. The same year he is reported as moving in the council for the torture of witnesses.1 In 1682 he was made lord chancellor of Scotland, and was created, on the 13th of November, earl of Aberdeen, Viscount Formartine, and Lord Haddo, Methllck, Tarves and Kellie, in the Scottish peerage, being appointed also sheriff principal of Aberdeenshire and Midlothian. Burnet reflects unfavourably upon him, calls him ``a proud and covetous man,'' and declares ``the new chancellor exceeded all that had gone before him.''2 He executed the laws enforcing religious conformity with severity, and filled the parish churches, but resisted the excessive measures of tyranny prescribed by the English government; and in consequence of an intrigue of the duke of Queensberry and Lord Perth, who gained the duchess of Portsmouth with a present of L. 27,000, he was dismissed in 1684. After his fall he was subjected to various petty prosecutions by his victorious rivals with the view of discovering some act of maladministration on which to found a charge against him, but the investigations only served to strengthen his credit. He took an active part in parliament in 1685 and 1686, but remained a non-juror during the whole of William's reign, being frequently fined for his non-attendance, and took the oaths for the first time after Anne's accession, on the 11th of May 1703. In the great affair of the Union in 1707, while protesting against the completion of the treaty till the act declaring the Scots aliens should be repealed, he refused to support the opposition to the measure itself and refrained from attending parliament when the treaty was settled. He died on the 20th of April 1720, after having amassed a large fortune. He is described by John Mackay as ``very knowing in the laws and constitution of his country and is belleved to be the solidest statesman in Scotland, a fine orator, speaks slow but sure.'' His person was said to be deformed, and his ``want of mine or deportment'' was alleged as a disqualification for the office of lord chancellor. He married Anne, daughter and sole heiress of George Lockhart of Torbrecks, by whom he had six children, his only surviving son, William, succeeding him as 2nd earl of Aberdeen.

See Letters to George, earl of Aberdeen (with memoir: Spalding Club, 1851); Hist. Account of the Senators of-the College of Justice, by G. Brunton and D. Haig (1832), p. 408; G. Crawfurd's Lives of the Officers of State (1726), p. 226; Memoirs of Affairs in Scotland, by Sir G. Mackenzie (1821), p. 148; Sir J. Lauder's (Lord Fountainhall) Journals (Scottish Hist. Society, vol. xxxvi., 1900); J. Mackay's Memoirs (1733), p. 215; A. Lang's Hist. of Scotland, iii. 369, 376. (P. C. Y.) 1 Sir J. Lauder's Hist. Notices (Bannatyne Club, 1848), p. 297.

2 Hist. of his own Times, i. 523.

ABERDEEN, GEORGE HAMILTON GORDON, 4TH EARL OF (1784-1860), English statesman, was the eldest son of George Gordon, Lord Haddo, by his wife Charlotte, daughter of William Baird of Newbyth, Haddingtonshire, and grandson of George, 3rd earl of Aberdeen. Born in Edinburgh on the 28th of January 1784, he lost his father in 1791 and his mother in 1795; and as his grandfather regarded him with indifference, he went to reside with Henry Dundas, afterwards Viscount Melville. At the age of fourteen he was permitted by Scotch law to name his own curators, or guardians, and selecting William Pitt and Dundas for this office he spent much of his time at their houses, thus meeting many of the leading politicians of the day. He was educated at Harrow, and St John's College, Cambridge, where he graduated as a nobleman in 1804. Before this time, however, he had become earl of Aberdeen on his grandfather's death in 1801, and had travelled over a large part of the continent of Europe, meeting on his journeys Napoleon Bonaparte and other persons of distinction. He also spent some time in Greece, and on his return to England founded the Athenian Society, membership of which was confined to those who had travelled in that country. Moreover, he wrote an article in the Edinburgh Review of July 1805 criticizing Sir William Gill's Topography of Troy, and these circumstances led Lord Byron to refer to him in Eniglish Bardo and Scotch Reviewers as ``the travell'd thane, Athenian Aberdeen.'' Having attained his majority in 1805, he married on the 28th of July Catherine Elizabeth Hamilton, daughter of John James, 1st marquess of Abercorn. In December 1806 he was elected a representative peer for Scotland, and took his seat as a Tory in the House of Lords, but for some years he took only a slight part in public business. However, by his birth, his abilities and his connexions alike he was marked out for a high position, and after the death of his wife in February 1812 he was appointed ambassador extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary at Vienna, where he signed the treaty of Toplitz between Great Britain and Austria in October 1813; and accompanying the emperor Francis I. through the subsequent campaign against France, he was present at the battle of Leipzig. He was one of the British representatives at the congress of Chatillon in February 1814, and in the same capacity was present during the negotiations which led to the treaty of Paris in the following May. Returning home he was created a peer of the United Kingdom as Viscount Gordon of Aberdeen (1814), and made a member of the privy council. On the 15th of Juby 1815 he married Harriet, daughter of the Hon. John Douglas, and widow of James, Viscount Hamilton, and thus became doubly connected with the family of the marquess of Abercorn. During the ensuing thirteen years Aberdeen took a less prominent part in public affairs, although he succeeded in passing the Entail (Scotland) Act of 1825. He kept in touch, however, with foreign politics, and having refused to join the ministry of George Canning in 1827, became a member of the cabinet of the duke of Wellington as chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster in January 1828. In the following June he was transferred to the office of secretary of state for foreign affairs, and having acquitted himself with credit with regard to the war between Russia and Turkey, and to affairs in Greece, Portugal and France, he resigned with Wellington in November 1830, and shared his leader's attitude towards the Reform Bill of 1832. As a Scotsman, Aberdeen was interested in the ecclesiastical controversy which culminated in the disruption of 1843. In 1840 he introduced a bill to settle the vexed question of patronage; but disliked by a majority in the general assembly of the Scotch church, and unsupported by the government, it failed to become law, and some opprobrium was cast upon its author. In 1843 he brought forward a similar measure ``to remove doubts respecting the admission of ministers to benefices.'' This Admission to Benefices Act, as it was called, passed into law, but did not reconcile the opposing parties.

During the short administration of Sir Robert Peel in 1834 and 1835, Aberdeen had filled the office of secretary for the colonies, and in September 1841 he took office again under Peel, on this occasion as foreign secretary; the five years during which he held this position were the most fruitful and successful of his public life. He owed his success to the confidence placed in him by Queen Victoria, to his wide knowledge of European politics, to his intimate friendship with Guizot, and not least to his own conciliatory disposition. Largely owing to his efforts, causes of quarrel between Great Britain and France in Tahiti, over the marriage of Isabella II. of Spain, and in other directions, were removed. More important still were his services in settling the question of the boundary between the United States and British North America at a time when a single injudicious word would probably have provoked a war. In 1845 he supported Peel when in a divided cabinet he proposed to suspend the duty on foreign corn, and left office with that minister in July 1846. After Peel's death in 1850 he became the recognized leader of the Peelites, although since his resignation his share in public business had been confined to a few speeches on foreign affairs. His dislike of the Ecclesiastical Titles Assumption Bill, the rejection of which he failed to secure in 1851, prevented him from joining the government of Lord John Russell, or from forming an administration himself in this year. In December 1852, however, be became first lord of the treasury and head of a coalition ministry of Whigs and Peelites. Although united on free trade and in general on questions of domestic reform, a cabinet which contained Lord Palmerston and Lord John Russell, in addition to Aberdeen, was certain to differ on questions of foreign policy. The strong and masterful character of these and other colleagues made the task of the prime minister one of unusual difficulty, a fact which was recognized by contemporaries. Charles Greville in his Memoirs says, ``In the present cabinet are five or six first-rate men of equal, or nearly equal, pretensions, none of them likely to acknowledge the superiority or defer to the opinions of any other, and every one of these five or six considering himself abler and more important than their premier''; and Sir James Graham wrote, ``It is a powerful team, but it will require good driving.'' The first year of office passed off successfully, and it was owing to the steady support of the prime minister that Gladstone's great budget of 1853 was accepted by the cabinet. This was followed by the outbreak of the dispute between France and Turkey over the guardianship of the holy places at Jerusalem, which, after the original cause of quarrel had been forgotten, developed into the Crimean war. The tortuous negotiations which preceded the struggle need not be discussed here, but in defence of Aberdeen it may be said that he hoped and strove for peace to the last. Rightly or wrongly, however, he held that Russell was indispensable to the cabinet, and that a resignation would precipitate war. His outlook, usually so clear, was blurred by these considerations, and he lacked the strength to force the suggestions which he made in the autumn of 1853 upon his imperious colleagues. Palmerston, supported by Russell and well served by Lord Stratford de Redcllffe, British ambassador at Constantinople, favoured a more aggressive policy, and Aberdeen, unable to control Palmerston, and unwilling to let Russell go, cannot be exonerated from blame. When the war began he wished to prosecute it vigorously; but the stories of misery and mismanagement from the seat of war deprived the ministry of public favour. Russell resigned; and on the 29th of January 1855 a motion by J. A. Roebuck, for the appointment of a select committee to enquire into the conduct of the War, was carried in the House of Commons by a large majority. Treating this as a vote of want of confidence Aberdeen at once resigned office, and the queen bestowed upon him the order of the Garter. He smoothed the way for Palmerston to succeed him, and while the earl of Clarendon remained at the foreign office he aided him with advice and was consulted on matters of moment. He died in London on the 14th of December 1860, and was buried in the family vault at Stanmore. By his first wife he had one son and three daughters, all of whom predeceased their father. By his second wife, who died in August 1833, he left four sons and one daughter. His eldest son, George John James, succeeded as 5th earl; his second son was General Sir Alexander Hamilton-Gordon, K.C.B.; his third son was the Reverend Douglas Hamilton-Gordon; and his youngest son Arthur Hamilton, after holding various high offices under the crown, was created Baron Stanmore in 1893. Among the public offices held by the earl were those of lord-lieutenant of Aberdeenshire, president of the society of Antiquaries from 1812 to 1846 and fellow of the Royal Society.

Aberdeen was a distinguished scholar with a retentive memory and a wide knowledge of literature and art. His private life was exemplary, and he impressed his contemporaries with the loftiness of his character. His manner was reserved, and as a speaker he was weighty rather than eloquent. In public life he was remarkable for his generosity to his political opponents, and for his sense of justice and honesty. He did not, however, possess the qualities which impress the populace, and he lacked the strength which is one of the essential gifts of a statesman. His character is perhaps best described by a writer who says ``his strength was not equal to his goodness.'' His foreign policy was essentially one of peace and non-intervention, and in pursuing it he was accused of favouring the despotisms of Europe. Aberdeen was a model landlord. By draining the land, by planting millions of trees and by erecting numerous buildings, he greatly improved the condition of his Aberdeenshire estates, and studied continually the welfare of his dependants. A bust of him by Matthew Noble is in Westminster Abbey, and his portrait was painted by Sir Thomas Lawrence. He wrote An Inquiry into the Principles of Beauty in Grecian Architecture (London, 1822), and the Correspondence of the Earl of Aberdeen has been printed privately under the direction of his son, Lord Stanmore.