ability, and courage were signally shown. Upon him and General Dundas devolved, along with the care of the guards and the sick, the arduous duty of conducting the retreat through Holland during a most severe winter. In 1795 he was made a knight of the Bath, and appointed commander-in-chief of the forces in the West Indies. Besides the island of St. Lucia, he obtained in 1796 possession of St. Vincent and Grenada, and of the Dutch settlements of Demerara, Essequibo, and Berbice. In 1797 he also took the Spanish island of Trinidad, but was unsuccessful in an attempt upon the island of Porto Rico. On his return to England, he was made governor of the Isle of Wight, and raised to the rank of lieutenant-general. In 1798 he was appointed commander-in-chief of the forces in Ireland, and subsequently held the same post in Scotland. In the disastrous attempt upon Holland in 1799, Sir Ralph had the chief command on the landing of the troops, and his first operations were successful; and even after the arrival of the duke of York, when Abercromby was reduced to a subordinate position, success uniformly crowned the operations intrusted to his own charge. In 1800 he was appointed commander-in-chief of the expedition sent to Egypt, with the view of expelling the French from that country. He landed at Aboukir, after a severe contest with the enemy, March 8, 1801, and or the 21st of the same month fought the decisive battle of Alexandria. After a sanguinary struggle, the British were victorious, but their brave commander was mortally wounded. On the retreat of the French, he was conveyed on board the admiral's flag-ship, where he died seven days after. His body was deposited under the castle of St. Elmo at Malta, and a monument to his memory was erected by parliament in St. Paul's cathedral, London. His widow was created Baroness Abercromby, with remainder to his heirs male. The military talents of Sir Ralph were of a very high order. His dauntless courage, activity, and promptitude, were guided by the greatest caution and circumspection, while his integrity, humanity, high sense of honour, and singular sagacity, gained him the confidence and warmest affection both of the king and the nation.—W. A.
ABERCROMBY, Sir Robert, youngest brother of the preceding, a general in the army, died in 1827. He was a knight of the Bath, and at one period governor of Bombay and commander-in-chief of the forces in India, and afterwards for thirty years governor of the castle of Edinburgh.
ABERDEEN, Lord. See Gordon.
ABERLI, John Louis, a Swiss artist, born at Winterthur in 1723, at first painted portraits at Bern, but afterwards devoted his talents to landscape painting, and is celebrated for his views of Switzerland. Died 1786.
ABERNETHY, Rev. John, an eminent Irish dissenting minister, born at Coleraine, on the 19th October, 1680. He ministered in Antrim till the year 1730, when he removed to Dublin. He was engaged in much of the controversial discussions of the times, and was the author of numerous publications. The principal of these are "Sermons on Various Subjects," 4 vols. 8vo; and "Discourses concerning the Being and Natural Perfections of God," 2 vols. 8vo. This last has been much admired for the clearness of its style, and the acuteness and force of its reasoning. He died in December, 1740.—(Life by Duchal; Biog. Brit.)—J. F. W.
ABERNETHY, John, a celebrated surgeon, and distinguished lecturer on anatomy, was born in the parish of St. Stephen's, Coleman-street, London, on the 3rd April, 1764. Descended from a presbyterian family of Scottish origin, which had long resided in the north of Ireland, his character and disposition exhibited much of the shrewdness of the former nation, with all the wit and comic humour of the latter. After completing his preliminary education at the grammar school of Wolverhampton, he was apprenticed, at the age of sixteen, to Sir Charles Blicke, one of the surgeons of St. Bartholomew's hospital, at which period he enjoyed the advantage of attending the prelections of Pott, Hunter, and Blizard, then the most eminent surgeons in the kingdom, and by this means laid the foundation of his future brilliant career. At the early age of twenty-two years, he was appointed assistant-surgeon to St. Bartholomew's hospital, and soon after was promoted to the lectureship of anatomy, physiology, pathology, and surgery, which at that period were all conjoined. Having been an enthusiastic admirer of John Hunter, and his most diligent pupil in the dissecting-room, he early adopted his physiological views, and continued during life to advocate his opinions with unflinching perseverance. His treatise on the constitutional origin and treatment of local diseases, exhibited great originality of mind, and stamped him as a man of superior mental powers. His lectures at the Royal College of Surgeons were characterized by that clearness of description, and that vividness of illustration, which marked his future life.
It was not, however, so much to his numerous and able writings on physiology, as to his oral lectures on surgery in the theatre of St. Bartholomew's hospital, that he was indebted for his celebrity. Combining as he did, for upwards of fifty years, the extensive experience obtained in the hospital wards, with a careful observation of nature in the dissecting-room, he was enabled to make both tell admirably on the minds of his numerous pupils. In fact he must be regarded, in every point of view, as the father of British clinical surgery; illustrating his lectures with a naïveté and dramatic power which have never been paralleled. His stature was small, his features rather comical than reflective, his eyes quick and searching, one of his hands while lecturing generally thrust into his breeches' pocket, or hanging carelessly by his side. His hair was powdered, elevated in front, and prolonged into a pig-tail queue behind. His character may be thus summed up: benevolence of the most unobtrusive kind; intense and persevering application to study and his professional duty, both in public and private; genius accompanied with a store of exuberant wit; and a temper and manner, though eccentric and abrupt, still exhibiting great kindness and beneficence. He died at his country seat at Enfield, in April, 1831.
The following are Mr. Abernethy's principal writings:—"Surgical Works," in 2 vols. 8vo; "An Inquiry into the Probability and Rationality of Mr. Hunter's Theory of Life;" "Physiological Lectures, exhibiting general views of Mr. Hunter's Physiology," &c., 8vo, 1817; "The Hunterian Oration for 1819;" "Reflections on Gall and Spurzheim's System of Physiognomy and Phrenology," 8vo, 1831—these four works form one volume. "Lectures on the Theory and Practice of Surgery," 8vo, 1830, &c.—M. S. B.
ABESCH, Anna Barbara, a famous painter on glass, lived about 1750. The celebrated monastery of Muri in Switzerland, possesses several specimens of her talents.
ABGARUS, the name of successive sovereigns of Edessa in Mesopotamia. Abgarus Mannus, by decoying the Roman army under Crassus into an arid desert, caused its destruction by the Parthians. Another Abgarus is the alleged writer of an apocryphal letter, addressed, as was pretended, to Jesus Christ.
ABGILLUS, better known as Prester John, was the son of a king of Friesland, and the companion of Charlemagne to the Holy Land. He did not return to Europe with his prince, but continued his travels and conquests till he founded the empire of Abyssinia. He wrote two histories, one of Charlemagne's conquests in the East, and the other of his own subsequent expeditions. They are said, however, to partake more of the character of romances than real histories. The name, Prester John, was conferred on account of the peculiar austerity of his life.—J. B.
ABIATHAR, high-priest of the Jews, deprived of his office by Solomon, for attempting to place his brother Adonijah on the throne of David, about the year 1014 b.c.
ABICHT, Johann Georg, a German orientalist, was born 21st March, 1672, at Kœnigsee, in the principality of Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt; died at Wittenberg, 5th June, 1740. He was a professor in the university of Wittenberg, and distinguished himself in a controversy with J. Franke upon the grammatical, prosodical, and musical use of the Hebrew points. The greater part of his numerous writings (of which a list has been given by Michael Ranft) have been inserted in the Thesaurus Novus, &c., of Ikenius.—S.
ABICHT, Johann Heinrich, professor of philosophy at Erlangen; born at Volkstedt in 1762; died at Wilna in 1804. Abicht was at first a Kantist, but he broke from his master, and endeavoured unsuccessfully to find a new system. His works are very numerous, but it is scarcely necessary to enumerate them.
ABICOT, a French surgeon, born at Bonny in the Gatinais; died in 1624. He acquired a great reputation in his profession, and has left a "Treatise on the Plague," and other medical works.
ABIDENUS or ABYDENUS, a Greek historian, to whom have been attributed two works entitled "Assyriaca" and "Chaldaica." The period at which he lived is uncertain. He
