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ABDUCTION (Lat. abductio, abducere, to lead away), a law term denoting the forcible or fraudulent removal of a person, limited by custom to the case where a woman is the victim. In the case of men or children, it has been usual to substitute the term kidnapping (q.v.). The old English laws against abduction, generally contemplating its object as the possession of an heiress and her fortune, have been repealed by the Offences against the Person Act 1861, which makes it felony for any one from motives of lucre to take away or detain against her will with intent to marry or carnally know her, &c., any woman of any age who has any interest in any real or personal estate, or is an heiress presumptive, or co-heiress, or presumptive next of kin to any one having such an interest; or for any one to cause such a woman to be married or carnally known by any other person; or for any one with such intent to allure, take away, or detain any such woman under the age of twenty-one, out of the possession and against the will of her parents or guardians. By s. 54, forcible taking away or detention against her will of any woman of any age with like intent is felony. The same act makes abduction without eyen any such intent a misdemeanour, where an unmarried girl under the age of sixteen is unlawfully taken out of the possession and against the will of her parents or guardians. In such a case the girl's consent is immaterial, nor is it a defence that the person charged reasonably believed that the girl was sixteen or over. The Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885 made still more stringent provisions with reference to abduction by making the procuration or attempted procuration of any virtuous female under the age of twenty-one years a misdemeanour, as well as the abduction of any girl under eighteen years of age with the intent that she shall be carnally known, or the detaining of any female against her will on any premises, with intent to have, or that another person may have, carnal knowledge of her. In Scotland, where there is no statutory adjustment, abduction is similarly dealt with by practice.

ABD-UL-AZIZ (1830-1876), sultan of Turkey, son of Sultan Mahmud II., was born on the 9th of February 1830, and succeeded his brother Abd-ul-Mejid in 1861. His personal interference in government affairs was not very marked, and extended to little more than taking astute advantage of the constant issue of State loans during his reign to acquire wealth, which was squandered in building useless palaces and in other futile ways: he is even said to have profited, by means of ``bear'' sales, from the default on the Turkish debt in 1875 and the consequent fall in prices. Another source of revenue was afforded by Ismail Pasha, the khedive of Egypt, who paid heavily in bakshish for the firman of 1866, by which the succession to the khedivate was made hereditary from father to son in direct line and in order of primogeniture, as well as for the subsequent firmans of 1867, 1869 and 1872 extending the khedive's prerogatives. It is, however, only fair to add that the sultan was doubtless influenced by the desire to bring about a similar change in the succession to the Ottoman throne and to ensure the succession after him of his eldest son, Yussuf Izz-ed-din. Abd-ul-Aziz visited Europe in 1867, being the first Ottoman sultan to do so, and was made a Knight of the Garter by Queen Victoria. In 1869 he received the visits of the emperor of Austria, the Empress Eugenie and other foreign princes, on their way to the opening of the Suez Canal, and King Edward VII., while prince of Wales, twice visited Gonstantinople during his reign. The mis-government and financial straits of the country brought on the outbreak of Mussulman discontent and fanaticism which eventually culminated in the murder of two consuls at Salonica and in the ``Bulgarian atrocities,'' and cost Abd-ul-Aziz his throne. His deposition on the 30th of May 1876 was hailed with joy throughout Turkey; a fortnight later he was found dead in the palace where he was confined, and trustworthy medical evidence attributed his death to suicide. Six children survived him: Prince Yussuf Izz-ed-din, born 1857; Princess Salina, wife of Kurd Ismall Pasha; Princess Nazime, wife of Khalid Pasha; Prince Abd-ul-Mejid, born 1869; Prince Self-ed-din, born 1876; Princess Emine, wife of Mahommed Bey; Prince Shefket, born 1872, died 1899.

ABD-UL-HAMID I.,(1725-1789), sultan of Turkey, son of Ahmed III., succeeded his brother Mustafa III. in 1773. Long confinement in the palace aloof from state affairs had left him pious, God-fearing and pacific in disposition. At his accession the financial straits of the treasury were such that the usual donative could not be given to the janissaries. War was, however, forced on him, and less than a year after his accession the complete defeat of the Turks at Kozluja led to the treaty of Kuchuk Kainarji ( 21st July 1774), the most disastrous, especially in its after effects, that Turkey has ever been obliged to conclude. (See TURKEY.) Slight successes in Syria and the Morea against rebellious outbreaks there could not compensate for the loss of the Crimea, which Russia soon showed that she meant to absorb entirely. In 1787 war was again declared against Russia, joined in the following year by Austria, Joseph II. being entirely won over to Catherine, whom he accompanied in her triumohal progress in the Crimea. Turkey held her own against the Austrians, but in 1788 Ochakov fell to the Russians. Four months later, on the 7th of April 1789, the sultan died, aged sixty-four.

ABD-UL-HAMID II. (1842- ), sultan of Turkey, son of Sultan Abd-ul-Mejid, was born on the 21st of September 1842, and succeeded to the throne on the deposition of his brother Murad V., on the 31st of August 1876. He accompanied his uncle Sultan Abd-ul-Aziz on his visit to England and France in 1867. At his accession spectators were struck by the fearless manner in which he rode, practically unattended, on his way to be girt with the sword of Eyub. He was supposed to be of liberal principles, and the more conservative of his subjects were for some years after his accession inclined to regard him with suspicion as a too ardent reformer. But the circumstances of the country at his accession were ill adapted for liberal developments. Default in the public funds and an empty treasury, the insurrection in Bosnia and the Herzegovina, the war with Servia and Montenegro, the feeling aroused throughout Europe by the methods adopted in stamping out the Bulgarian rebellion, all combined to prove to the new sultan that he could expect little aid from the Powers. But, still clinging to the groundless belief, for which British statesmen had, of late at least, afforded Turkey no justification, that Great Britain at all events would support him, he obstinately refused to give ear to the pressing requests of the Powers that the necessary reforms should be instituted. The international Conference which met at Constantinople towards the end of 1876 was, indeed, startled by the salvo of guns heralding the promulgation of a constitution, but the demands of the Conference were rejected, in spite of the solemn warnings addressed to the sultan by the Powers; Midhat Pasha, the author of the constitution, was exiled; and soon afterwards his work was suspended, though figuring to this day on the Statute-Book. Early in 1877 the disastrous war with Russia followed. The hard terms, embodied in the treaty of San Stefano, to which Abd-ul-Hamid was forced to consent, were to some extent amended at Berlin, thanks in the main to British diplomacy (see EUROPE, History); but by this time the sultan had lost all confidence in England, and thought that he discerned in Germany, whose supremacy was evidenced in his eyes by her capital being selected as the meeting-place of the Congress, the future friend of Turkey. He hastened to employ Germans for the reorganization of his finances and his army, and set to work in the determination to maintain his empire in spite of the difficulties surrounding him, to resist the encroachments of foreigners, and to take gradually the reins of absolute power into his own hands, being animated by a profound distrust, not unmerited, of his ministers. Financial embarrassments forced him to consent to a foreign control over the Debt, and the decree of December 1881, whereby many of the revenues of the empire were handed over to the Public Debt Administration for the benefit of the bondholders, was a sacrifice of principle to which he could only have consented with the greatest reluctance. Trouble in Egypt, where a discredited khedive had to be deposed, trouble on the Greek frontier and in Montenegro, where the Powers were determined that the decisions of the Berlin Congress should be carried into effect, were more or less satisfactorily got over. In his attitude towards Arabi, the would-be saviour of Egypt, Abd-ul-Hamid showed less than his usual astuteness, and the resulting consolidation of England's hold over the country contributed still further to his estrangement from Turkey's old ally. The union in 1885 of Bulgaria with Eastern Rumelia, the severance of which had been the great triumph of the Berlin Congress, was another blow. Few people south of the Balkans dreamed that Bulgaria could be anything but a Russian province, and apprehension was entertained of the results of the union until it was seen that Russia really and entirely disapproved of it. Then the best was made of it, and for some years the sultan preserved towards Bulgaria an attitude skilfully calculated so as to avoid running counter either to Russian or to German wishes. Germany's friendship was not entirely disinterested, and had to be fostered with a railway or loan concession from time to time, until in 1899 the great object aimed at, the Bagdad railway, was conceded. Meanwhile, aided by docile instruments, the sultan had succeeded in reducing his ministers to the position of secretaries, and in concentrating the mhole administration of the country into his own hands at Yildiz. But internal dissension was not thereby lessened. Crete was constantly in turmoil, the Greeks were dissatisfied, and from about 1890 the Armenians began a violent agitation with a view to obtaining the reforms promised them at Berlin. Minor troubles had occurred in 1892 and 1893 at Marsovan and Tokat. In 1894 a more serious rebellion in the mountainous region of Sassun was ruthlessly stamped out; the Powers insistently demanded reforms, the eventual grant of which in the autumn of 1895 was the signal for a series of massacres, brought on in part by the injudicious and threatening acts of the victims, and extending over many months and throughout Asia Minor, as well as in the capital itself. The reforms became more or less a dead letter. Crete indeed profited by the grant of extended privileges, but these did not satisfy its turbulent population, and early in 1897 a Greek expedition salled to unite the island to Greece. War followed, in which Turkey was easily successful and gained a small rectification of frontier; then .a few months later Crete was taken over ``en depot'' by the Four Powers---Germany and Austria not participating,---and Prince George of Greece was appointed their mandatory. In the next year the sultan received the visit of the German emperor and empress.

Abd-ul-Hamid had always resisted the pressure of the European Powers to the last moment, in order to seem to yield only to overwhelming force, while posing as the champion of Islam against aggressive Christendom. The Panislamic propaganda was encouraged; the privileges of foreigners in the Ottoman Empire-often an obstacle to government--were curtailed; the new railway to the Holy Places was pressed on, and emissaries were sent to distant countries preaching Islam and the caliph's supremacy. This appeal to Moslem sentiment was, however, powerless against the disaffection due to perennial misgovernment. In Mesopotamia and Yemen disturbance was endemic; nearer home, a semblance of loyalty was maintained in the army and among the Mussulman population by a system of delation and espionage, and by wholesale arrests; while, obsessed by terror of assassination, the sultan withdrew himself into fortified seclusion in the palace of Yildiz.

The national humiliation of the situation in Macedonia (q.v.), together with the resentment in the army against the palace spies and informers, at last brought matters to a crisis. The remarkable revolution associated with the names of Niazi Bey and Enver Bey, the young Turk leaders, and the Committee of Union and Progress is described elsewhere (see TURKEY: History); here it must suffice to say that Abd-ul-Hamid, on learning of the threat of the Salonica troops to march on Constantinople (July 23), at once capitulated. On the 24th an irade announced the restoration of the suspended constitution of 1875; next day, further irades abolished espionage and the censorship, and ordered the release of political prisoners. On the 10th of December the sultan opened the Turkish parliament with a speech from the throne in which he said that the first parliament had been ``temporarily dissolved until the education of the people had been brought to a sufficiently high level by the extension of instruction throughout the empire.''

The correct attitude of the sultan did not save him from the suspicion of intriguing with the powerful reactionary elements in the state, a suspicion confirmed by his attitude towards the counter-revolution of the 13th of April, when an insurrection of the soldiers and the Moslem populace of the capital overthrew the committee and the ministry. The comittee, restored by the Salonica troops, now decided on Abdul-Hamid's deposition, and on the 27th of April his brother Reshid Effendi was proclaimed sultan as Mahommed V. The ex-sultan was conveyed into dignified captivity at Salonica.

ABD-UL-MEJID (1823-.1861), sultan of Turkey, was born on the 23rd of April 1823, and succeeded his father Mahmud II. on the 2nd of July 1839. Mahmud appears to have been unable to effect the reforms he desired in the mode of educating his children, so that his son received no better education than that given, according to use and wont, to Turkish princes in the harem. When Abd-ul-Mejid succeeded to the throne, the affairs of Turkey were in an extremely critical state. At the very time his father died, the news was on its way to Constantinople that the Turkish army had been signally defeated at Nezib by that of the rebel Egyptian viceroy, Mehemet Ali; and the Turkish fleet was at the same time on its way to Alexandria, where it was handed over by its commander, Ahmed Pasha, to the same enemy, on the pretext that the young sultan's advisers were sold to Russia. But through the intervention of the European Powers Mehemet Ali was obliged to come to terms, and the Ottoman empire was saved. (See MEHEMET ALI.) In compliance with his father's express instructions, Abd-ul-Mejid set at once about carrying out the reforms to which Mahmud had devoted himself. In November 1839 was proclaimed an edict, known as the Hatt-i-sherif of Dulhane, consolidating and enforcing these reforms, which was supplemented at the close of the Crimean war by a similar statute issued in February 1856. By these enactments it was provided that all classes of the sultan's subjects should have security for their lives and property; that taxes should be fairly imposed and justice impartially administered; and that all should have full religious liberty and equal civil rights. The scheme met with keen opposition from the Mussulman governing classes and the ulema, or privileged religious teachers, and was but partially put in force, especially in the remoter parts of the empire; and more than one conspiracy was formed against the sultan's life on account of it. Of the other measures of reform promoted by Abd-ul-Mejid the more important were---the reorganization of the army (1843-1844), the institution of a council of public instruction (1846), the abolition of an odious and unfairly imposed capitation tax, the repression of slave trading, and various provisions for the better administration of the public service and for the advancement of commerce. For the public history of his times--the disturbances and insurrections in different parts of his dominions throughout his reign, and the great war successfully carried on against Russia by Turkey, and by England, France and Sardinia, in the interest of Turkey(1853-1856)-- see TURKEY, and CRIMEAN WAR. When Kossuth and others sought refuge in Turkey, after the failure of the Hungarian rising in 1849, the sultan was called on by Austria and Russia to surrender them, but boldly and determinedly refused. It is to his credit, too, that he would not allow the conspirators against his own life to be put to death. He bore the character of being a kind and honourable man, if somewhat weak and easily led. Against this, however, must be set down his excessive extravagance, especially towards the end of his life. He died on the 25th of June 1861, and was succeeded by his brother, Abd-ul-Aziz, as the oldest survivor of the family of Osman. He left several sons, of whom two, Murad V. and Abd-ul-Hamid II., eventually succeeded to the throne. In his reign was begun the reckless system of foreign loans, carried to excess in the ensuing reign, and culminating in default, which led to the alienation of European sympathy from Turkey and, indirectly, to the dethronement and death of Abd-ul-Aziz.

ABDUR RAHMAN KHAN, amir of Afghanistan (c. 1844-1901), was the son of Afzul Khan, who was the eldest son of Dost Mahomed Khan, the famous amir, by whose success in war the Barakzai family established their dynasty in the rulership of Afghanistan. Before his death at Herat, 9th June 1863, Dost Mahomed had nominated as his successor Shere Ali, his third son, passing over the two elder brothers, Afzul Khan and Azim Khan; and at first the new amir was quietly recognized. But after a few months Afzul Khan raised an insurrection in the northern province, between the Hindu Kush mountains and the Oxus, where he had been governing when his father died; and then began a fierce contest for power among the sons of Dost Mahomed, which lasted for nearly five years. In this war, which resembles in character, and in its striking vicissitudes, the English War of the Roses at the end of the 15th century, Abdur Rahman soon became distinguished for ability and daring energy. Although his father, Afzul Khan, who had none of these qualities, came to terms with the Amir Shere Ali, the son's behaviour in the northern province soon excited the amir's suspicion, and Abdur Rahman: when he was summoned to Kabul, fled across the Oxus into Bokhara. Shere Ali threw Afzul Khan into prison, and a serious revolt followed in south &fghanistan; but the amir had scarcely suppressed it by winning a desperate battle, when Abdur Rahman's reapearance in the north was a signal for a mutiny of the troops stationed in those parts and a gathering of armed bands to his standard. After some delay and desultory fighting, he and his uncle, Azim Khan, occupied Kabul (March 1866). The amir Shere All marched up against them from Kandahar; but in the battle that ensued at Sheikhabad on 10th May he was deserted by a large body of his troops, and after his signal defeat Abdur Rahman released his father, Afzul Elian, from prison in Ghazni, and installed him upon the throne as amir of Afghanistan. Notwithstanding the new amir's incapacity, and some jealousy between the real leaders, Abdur Rahman and his uncle, they again routed Shere All's forces, and occupied Kandahar in 1867; and when at the end of that year Afzul Khan died, Azim Khan succeeded to the rulership, with Abdur Rahman as his governor in the northern province. But towards the end of 1868 Shere Ali's return, and a general rising in his favour, resulting in their defeat at Tinah Khan on the 3rd of January 1869, forced them both to seek refuge in Persia, whence Abdur Rahman proceeded afterwards to place himself under Russian protection at Samarkand. Azim died in Persia in October 1869.

This brief account of the conspicuous part taken by Abdur Rahman in an eventful war, at the beginning of which he was not more than twenty years old, has been given to show the rough school that brought out his qualities of resource and fortitude, and the political capacity needed for rulership in Afghanistan. He lived in exile for eleven years, until on the death, in 1879, of Shere Ali, who had retired from Kabul when the British armies entered Afghanistan, the Russian governorgeneral at Tashkent sent for Abdur Rahman, and pressed him to try his fortunes once more across the Oxus. In March 1880 a report reached India that he was in northern Afghanistan; and the governor-general, Lord Lytton, opened communications with him to the effect that the British government were prepared to withdraw their troops, and to recognize Abdur Rahman as amir of Afghanistan, with the exception of Kandahar and some districts adjacent. After some negotiations, an interview took place between him and Mr (afterwards Sir) Lepel Griffin, the diplomatic representative at Kabub of the Indian government, who described Abdur Rahman as a man of middle height, with an exceedingly intelligent face and frank and courteous manners, shrewd and able in conversation on the business in hand. At the durbar on the 22nd of July 1880, Abbdur Rahman was officially recognized as amir, granted assistance in arms and money, and promised, in case of unprovoked foreign aggression, such further aid as might be necessary to repel it, provided that he followed British advice in regard to his external relations. The evacuation of Afghanistan was settled on the terms proposed, and in 1881 the British troops also made over Kandahar to the new amir; but Ayub Khan, one of Shere Ali's sons, marched upon that city from Herat, defeated Abdur Rahman's troops, and occupied the place in July. This serious reverse roused the amir, who had not at first displayed much activity. He led a force from Kabul, met Ayub's army close to Kandahar, and the complete victory which he there won forced Ayub Khan to fly into Persia. From that time Abdur Rahman was fairly seated on the throne at Kabul, and in the course of the next few years he consolidated his dominion over all Afghanistan, suppressing insurrections by a sharp and relentless use of his despotic authority. Against the severity of his measures the powerful Ghilzai tribe revolted, and were crushed by the end of 1887. In that year Ayub Khan made a,fruitless inroad from Persia; and in 1888 the amir's cousin, Ishak Khan, rebelled against him in the north; but these two enterprises came to nothing.

In 1885, at the moment when (see AFGHANISTAN) the amir was in conference with the British viceroy, Lord Dufferin, in India, the news came of a collision between Russian and Afghan troops at Panjdeh, over a disputed point in the demarcation of the north-western frontier of Afghanistan. Abdur Rahman's attitude at this critical juncture is a good example of his political sagacity. To one who had been a man of war from his youth up, who had won and lost many fights, the rout of a detachment and the forcible seizure of some debateable frontier lands was an untoward incident; but it was no sufficent reason for calling upon the British, although they had guaranteed his territory's integrity, to vindicate his rights by hostilities which would certainly bring upon him a Russian invasion from the north, and would compel his British allies to throw an army into Afghanistan from the south-east. His interest lay in keeping powerful neighbours, whether friends or foes, outside his kingdom. He knew this to be the only policy that would be supported by the Afghan nation; and although for some time a rupture with Russia seemed imminent, while the Indian government made ready for that contingency, the amir's reserved and circumspect tone in the consultations with him helped to turn the balance between peace and war, and substantially conduced towards a pacific solution. Abdur Rahman left on those who met him in India the impression of a clear-headed man.of action, with great self-reliance and hardihood, not without indications of the implacable severity that too often marked his administration. His investment with the insignia of the highest grade of the Order of the Star of India appeared to give him much pleasure.

From the end of 1888 the amir passed eighteen months in his northern provinces bordering upon the Oxus, where he was engaged in pacifying the country that had been disturbed by revolts, and in punishing with a heavy hand all who were known or suspected to have taken any part in rebellion. Shortly afterwards (1892) he succeeded in finally beating down the resistance of the Hazara tribe, who vainly attempted to defend their immemorial independence, within their highlands, of the central authority at Kabul.

In 1893 Sir Henry Durand was deputed to Kabul by the government of India for the purpose of settling an exchange of territory required bu the demarcation of the boundary between north-eastern Afghanistan and the Russian possessions, and in order to discuss with the amir other pending questions. The amir showed his usual ability in diplomatic argument, his tenacity where his own views or claims were in debate, with a sure underlying insight into the real situation. The territorial exchanges were amicably agreed upon; the relations between the Indian and Afghan governments, as previously arranged, were confirmed; and an understanding was reached upon the important and difficult subject of the border line of Afghanistan on the east, towards India. In 1895 the amir found himself unable, by reason of ill-health, to accept an invitation from Queen Victoria to visit England; hut his second son Nasrullah Khan went in his stead.

Abdur Rahman died on the 1st of October 1901, being succeeded by his son Habibullah. He had defeated all enterprises by rivals against his throne; he had broken down the power of local chiefs, and tamed the refractory tribes; so that his orders were irresistible throughout the whole dominion. His government was a military despotism resting upon a well-appointed army; it was administered through officials absolutely subservient to an inflexible will and controlled by a widespread system of espionage; while the exercise of his personal authority was too often stained by acts of unnecessary cruelty. He held open courts for the receipt of petitioners and the dispensation of justice; and in the disposal of business he was indefatigable. He succeeded in imposing an organized government upon the fiercest and most unruly population in Asia; he availed himself of European inventions for strengthening his armament, while he sternly set his face against all innovations which, like railways and telegraphs, might give Europeans a foothold within his country. His adventurous life, his forcible character, the position of his state as a barrier between the Indian and the Russian empires, and the skill with which he held the balance in dealing with them, combined to make him a prominent figure in contemporary Asiatic politics and will mark his reign as an epoch in the history of Afghanistan.

The amir received an annual subsidy from the British government of 18-1/2 lakhs of rupees. He was allowed to import munitions of War. In 1896 he adopted the title of Tia-ul-hlillat-ud Din (Light of the nation and religion); and his zeal for the cause of Islam induced him to publish treatises on Jehad. His eldest son Habibullah Khan, with his brother Nasrullah Khan, was born at Samarkand. His youngest son, Mahomed Omar Jan, was born in 1889 of an Afghan mother, connected by descent with the Barakzai family.

See also S. Wheeler, F.R.G.S., The Amir Abdur Rahman (London, 1895); The Life of Abdur Rahman, Amir of Afghanistan, G.C.B., G.C.S.L, edited by Mir Munshi, Sultan Mahommed Khan (2 vols., London, 1900); At the Court of the Amir, by J. A. Grey (1895). (A. C. L.) ABECEDARIANS, a nickname given to certain extreme Anabaptists (q.v.), who regarded the teaching of the Holy Spirit as all that was necessary, and so despised all human learning and even the power of reading the written word.

A BECKETT, GILBERT ARBOTT (1811-1856), English writer, was born in north London on the 9th of January 1811. He belonged to a family claiming descent from the father of St Thomas Becket. His elder brother, Sir William a Beckett (1806-1869), became chief justice of Victoria (Australia). Gilbert Abbott a Beckett was educated at Westminster school, and was called to the bar at Gray's Inn in 1841. He edited Figaro in London, and was one of the original staff of Punch and a contributor all his life. He was an active journalist on The Times and The Morning Herald, contributed a series of light articles to The Illustrated London News, conducted in 1846 The Almanack of the Month and found time to produce some fifty or sixty plays, among them dramatized versions of Dickens's shorter stories in collaboration with Mark Lemon. As poor-law commissioner he presented a valuable report to the home secretary regarding scandals in connexion with the Andover Union, and in 1849 he became a metropolitan pouce magistrate. He died at Boulogne on the 30th of August 1856 of typhus fever.

His eldest son GILBERT ARTHUR A BECKETT (1837-1891) was born at Hammersmith on the 7th of April 1837. He went up to Christ Church, Oxford, as a Westminster scholar in 1855, graduating in 1860. He was entered at Lincoln's Inn, but gave his attention chiefly to the drama, producing Diamonds and Hearts at the Haymarket in 1867, which was followed by other light comedies. His pieces include numerous burlesques and pantomimes, the libretti of Savonarola (Hamburg, 1884) and of The Canterbury Pilgrims (Drury Lane, 1884) for the music of Dr (afterwards Sir) C. V. Stanford. The Happy Land (Court Theatre, 1873), a political burlesque of W. S. Gilbert's Wicked World, was written in collaboration with F. L. Tomline. For the last ten years of his life he was on the regular staff of Punch. His health was seriously affected in 1889 by the death of his only son, and he died on the 15th of October 1891.

A younger son, ARTHUR WILLIAM A BECKETT (1844--1909), a well-known journalist and man of letters, was also on the staff of Punch from 1874 to 1902, and gave an account of his father and his own reminiscences in The A Becketts of Punch (1903). He died in London on the 14th of January 1909.

See also M. H. Spielmann, The History of Punch (1895).

ABEDNEGO, the name given in Babylon to Azariah, one of the companions of Daniel (Dan. i. 7, &c.). It is probably a corruption, perhaps deliberate, of Abednebo, ``servant of Nebo,'' though G. Hoffmann thinks that the original form was Abednergo, for Abednergal, ``servant of the god Nergal.'' C. H. Toy compares Barnebo, ``son of Nebo''; of which he regards Barnabas as a slightly disguised form (Jewish Encyclopaedia).

ABEKEN, HEINRICH (1809-1872), German theologian and Prussian official, was born at Berlin on the 8th of August 1809. He studied theology at Berlin and in 1834 became chaplain to the Prussian embassy in Rome. In 1841 he visited England, being commissioned by King Frederick William IV. to make arrangements for the establishment of the Protestant bishopric of Jerusalem. In 1848 he received an appointment in the Prussian ministry for foreign affairs, and in 1853 was promoted to be privy councillor of legation (Geheimer Legationsrath). He was much employed by Bismarck in the writing of official despatches, and stood high in the favour of King William, whom he often accompanied on his journeys as representative of the foreign office. He was present with the king during the campaigns of 1866 and 1870-71. In 1851 he published anonymously Babylon unnd Jerusalem, a slashing criticism of the views of the Countess von Hahn-Hahn (q.v.).

See Heinrich Abeken, ein schlichtes Leben in bewegter Zeit (Berlin, 1898), by his widow. This is valuable by reason of the letters written from the Prussian headquarters.

ABEL (Hebrew for breath), the second son of Adam, slain by Cain, his elder brother (Gen. iv. 1-16). The narrative in Genesis which tells us that ``the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering, but unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect,'' is supplemented by the statement of the New Testament, that ``by faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain'' (Heb. xi. 4), and that Cain slew Abel ``because his own works were evil and his brother's righteous'' (1 John iii. 12). See further under CAIN. The name has been identified with the Assyrian ablu, ``son,'' but this is far from certain. It more probably means ``herdsman'' (cf. the name Jabal), and a distinction is drawn between the pastoral Abel and the agriculturist Cain. If Cain is the eponym of the Kenites it is quite possible that Abel was originally a South Judaean demigod or hero; on this, see Winckler, Gesch. Israels, ii. p. 189; E. Meyer, Israelitein, p. 395. A sect of Abelitae, who seem to have lived in North Africa, is mentioned by Augustine (De Haeresibus, lxxxvi.).

ABEL, SIR FREDERICK AUGUSTUS, BART. (1827-1902), English chemist, was born in London on the 17th of July 1827. After studying chemistry for six years under A. W. von Hofmann at the Royal College of Chemistry (established in London in 1845), he became professor of chemistry at the Royal Military Academy in 1851, and three years later was appointed chemist to the War Department and chemical referee to the government. During his tenure of this office, which lasted until 1888, he carried out a large amount of work in connexion with the chemistry of explosives. One of the most important of his investigations had to do with the manufacture of guncotton, and he developed a process, consisting essentially of reducing the nitrated cotton to fine pulp, which enabled it to be prepared with practically no danger and at the same time yielded the product in a form that increased its usefulness. This work to an important extent prepared the way for the ``smokeless powders'' which came into general use towards the end of the 19th century; cordite, the particular form adopted by the British government in 1891, was invented jointly by him and Professor James Dewar. Our knowledge of the explosion of ordinary black powder was also greatly added to by him, and in conjunction with Sir Andrew Noble he carried out one of the most complete inquiries on record into its behaviour when fired. The invention of the apparatus, legalized in 1879, for the determination of the flash-point of petroleum, was another piece of work which fell to him by virtue of his official position. His first instrument, the open-test apparatus, was prescribed by the act of 1868, but, being found to possess certain defects, it was superseded in 1879 by the Abel close-test instrument (see PETROLEUM). In electricity Abel studied the construction of electrical fuses and other applications of electricity to warlike purposes, and his work on problems of steel manufacture won him in 1897 the Bessemer medal of the Iron and Steel Institute, of which from 1891 to 1893 he was president. He was president of the Institution of Electrical Engineers (then the Society of Telegraph Engineers) in 1877. He became a member of the Royal Society in 1860, and received a royal medal in 1887. He took an important part in the work of the Inventions Exhibition (London) in 1885, and in 1887 became organizing secretary and first director of the Imperial Institute, a position he held till his death, which occurred in London on the 6th of September 1902. He was knighted in 1891, and created a baronet in 1893.

Among his books were--Handbook of Chemistry (with C. L. Bloxam), Modern History of Gunpowder (1866), Gun-cotton (1866), On Explosive Agents (1872), Researches in Explosives (1875), and Electricity applied to Explosive Purposes (1884). He also wrote several important articles in the ninth edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica.

ABEL, KARL FRIEDRICH (1725-1787), German musician, was born in Kothen in 1725, and died on the 20th of June 1787 in London. He was a great player on the viola da gamba, and composed much music of importance in its day for that instrument. He studied under Johann Sebastian Bach at the Leipzig Thomasschule; played for ten years (1748-1758) under A. Hasse in the band formed at Dresden by the elector of Saxony; and then, going to England, became (in 1759) chamber-musician to Queen Charlotte. He gave a concert of his own compositions in London, performing on various instruments, one of which, the pentachord, was newly invented. In 1762 Johann Christian Bach, the eleventh son of Sebastian, came to London, and the friendship between him and Abel led, in 1764 or 1765, to the establishment of the famous concerts subsequently known as the Bach and Abel concerts. For ten years these were organized by Mrs Comelys, whose enterprises were then the height of fashion. In 1775 the concerts became independent of her, and were continued by Abel unsuccessfully for a year after Bach's death in 1782. At them the works of Haydn were first produced in England. After the failure of his concert undertakings Abel still remained in great request as a player on various instruments new and old, but he took to drink and thereby hastened his death. He was a man of striking presence, of whom several fine portraits, including two by Gainsborough, exist.

ABEL, NIELS HENRIK (1802-1829), Norwegian mathematician, was born at Findoe on the 25th of August 1802. In 1815 he entered the cathedral school at Christiania, and three years later he gave proof of his mathematical genius by his brilliant solutions of the original problems proposed by B. Holmboe. About this time, his father, a poor Protestant minister, died, and the family was left in straitened circumstances; but a small pension from the state allowed Abel to enter Christiania University in 1821. His first notable work was a proof of the impossibility of solving the quintic equation by radicals. This investigation was first published in 1824 and in abstruse and difficult form, and afterwards (1826) more elaborately in the first volume of Crelle's Journal. Further state aid enabled him to visit Germany and France in 1825, and having visited the astronomer Heinrich Schumacher (178-1850) at Hamburg, he spent six months in Berlin, where he became intimate with August Leopold Crelle, who was then about to publish his mathematical journal. This project was warmly encouraged by Abel, who contributed much to the success of the venture. From Berlin he passed to Freiberg, and here he made his brilliant researches in the theory of functions, elliptic, hyperelliotic and a new class known as Abelians being particularly studied. In 1826 he moved to Paris, and during a ten months' stay he met the leading mathematicians of France; but he was little appreciated, for his work was scarcely known, and his modesty restrained him from proclaiming his researches. Pecuniary embarrassments, from which he had never been free, finally compelled him to abandon his tour, and on his return to Norway he taught for some time at Christiania. In 1829 Crelle obtained a post for him at Berlin, but the offer did not reach Norway until after his death near Arendal on the 6th of April.

The early death of this talented mathematician, of whom Legendre said ``quelle tete celle du jeune Norvegien!'', cut short a career of extraordinary brilliance and promise. Under Abel's guidance, the prevailing obscurities of analysis began to be cleared, new fields were entered upon and the study of functions so advanced as to provide mathematicians with numerous ramifications along which progress could be made. His works, the greater part of which originally appeared in Crelle's Journal, were edited by Holmbor and published in 1839 by the Swedish government, and a more complete edition by L. Sylow and S. Lie was published in 1881.

For further details of his mathematical investigations see the articles GROUPS, THEORY OF, and FUNCTIONS OF COMPLEX VARIABLES.

See C. A. Bjerknes, Niels Henrik Abel: Tableau de sa vie et son action scientifique (Paris, 1885); Lucas de Peslouan, Niels Henrik Abel (Paris, 1906).

ABEL (better ABELL), THOMAS (d. 1540), an English priest who was martyred during the reign of Henry VIII. The place and date of his birth are unknown. He was educated at Oxford and entered the service of Queen Catherine some time before 1528, when he was sent by her to the emperor Charles V. on a mission relating to the proposed divorce. On his return he was presented by Catherine to the living of Bradwell, in Essex, and remained to the last a staunch supporter of the unfortunate queen. In 1533, he published his Invicta Veritas (with the fictitious pressmark of Luneberge, to avoid suspicion), which contained an answer to the numerous tracts supporting Henry's ecclesiastical claims. After an imprisonment of more than six years, Abel was sentenced to death for denying the royal supremacy in the church, and was executed at Smithfield on the 30th of July 1540. There is still to be seen on the wall of his prison in the Tower the symbol of a bell with an A upon it and the name Thomas above, winch he carved during his confinement. He was beatified by Pope Leo XIII.

See J. Gillow's Bibl. Dictionary of Eng. Catholics, vol. i.; Calendar of State Papers of Henry VIII., vols. iv.-vii. passim.

ABELARD, PETER (1079-1142), scholastic philosopher, was born at Pallet (Palais), not far from Nantes, in 1079. He was the eldest son of a noble Breton house. The name Abaelardus (also written Abailardus, Abaielardus, and in many other ways) is said to be a corruption of Habelardus, substituted by himself for a nickname Bajolardus given to him when a student. As a boy, he showed an extraordinary quickness of apprehension, and, choosing a learned life instead of the knightly career natural to a youth of his birth, early became an adept in the art of dialectic, under which name philosophy, meaning at that time chiefly the logic of Aristotle transmitted through Latin channels, was the great subject of liberal study in the episcopal schools. Roscellinus, the famous canon of Compiegne, is mentioned by himself as his teacher; but whether he heard this champion of extreme Nominalism in early youth, when he wandered about from school to school for instruction and exercise, or some years later, after he had already begun to teach for himself, remains uncertain. His wanderings finally brought him to Paris, still under the age of twenty. There, in the great cathedral school of Notre-Dame, he sat for a while under the teaching of William of Champeaux, the disciple of St Anselm and most advanced of Realists, but, presently stepping forward, he overcame the master in discussion, and thus began a long duel that issued in the downfall of the philosophic theory of Realism, till then dominant in the early Middle Age. First, in the teeth of opposition from the metropolitan teacher, while yet only twenty-two, he proceeded to set up a school of hs own at Melun, whence, for more direct competition, he removed to Corbeil, nearer Paris. The success of his teaching was signal, though for a time he had to quit the field, the strain proving too great for his physical strength. On his return, after 1108, he found William lecturing no longer at Notre-Dame, but in a monastic retreat outside the city, and there battle was again joined between them. Forcing upon the Realist a material change of doctrine, he was once more victorious, and thenceforth he stood supreme. His discomfited rival still had power to keep him from lecturing in Paris, hut soon failed in this last effort also. From Melun, where he had resumed teaching, Abelard passed to the capital, and set up his school on the heights of St Genevieve, looking over Notre-Dame. From his success in dialectic, he next turned to theology and attended the lectures of Anselm at Laon. His triumph over the theologian was complete; the pupil was able to give lectures, without previous training or special study, which were acknowledged superior to those of the master. Abelard was now at the height of hs fame. He stepped into the chair at Notre-Dame, being also nominated canon, about the year 1115.

Few teachers ever held such sway as Abelard now did for a time. Distinguished in figure and manners, he was seen surrounded by crowds--it is said thousands of students, drawn from all countries by the fame of hs teaching, in which acuteness of thought was relieved by simplicity and grace of exposition. Enriched by the offerings of his pupils, and feasted with universal admiration, he came, as he says, to think himself the only philosopher standing in the world. But a change in his fortunes was at hand. In his devotion to science, he had hitherto lived a very regular life, varied only by the excitement of conflict: now, at the height of his fame, other passions began to stir within him. There lived at that time, within the precincts of Notre-Dame, under the care of her uncle, the canon Fulbert, a young girl named Heloise, of noble extraction, and born about 1101. Fair, but still more remarkable for her knowledge, which extended beyond Latin, it is said, to Greek and Hebrew, she awoke a feeling of love in the breast of Abelard; and with intent to win her, he sought and gained a footing in Fulbert's house as a regular inmate. Becoming also tutor to the maiden, he used the unlimited power which he thus obtained over her for the purpose of seduction, though not without cherishing a real affection which she returned in unparalleled devotion. Their relation interfering with his public work, and being, moreover, ostentatiously sung by himself, soon became known to all the world except the too-confiding Fulbert; and, when at last it could not escape even his vision, they were separated only to meet in secret. Thereupon Heloise found herself pregnant, and was carried off by her lover to Brittany, where she gave birth to a son. To appease her furious uncle, Abelard now proposed a marriage, under the condition that it should be kept secret, in order not to mar his prospects of advancement in the church; but of marriage, whether public or secret, Heloise would hear nothing. She appealed to him not to sacrifice for her the independence of his life, nor did she finally yield to the arrangement without the darkest forebodings, only too soon to be reallzed. The secret of the marriage was not kept by Fulbert; and when Heloise, true to her singular purpose, boldly denied it, life was made so unsupportable to her that she sought refuge in the convent of Argenteuil. Immediately Fulbert, believing that her husband, who aided in the flight, designed to be rid of her, coinceived a dire revenge. He and some others broke into Abelard's chamber by night, and perpetrated on him the most brutal mutilation. Thus cast down from his pinnacle of greatness into an abyss of shame and misery, there was left to the brilliant master only the life of a monk. The priesthood and ecclesiastical office were canonically closed to him. Heloise, not yet twenty, consummated her work of self-sacrifice at the call of his jealous love, and took the veil.

It was in the abbey of St Denis that Abelard, now aged forty, sought to bury himself with his woes out of sight. Finding, however, in the cloister neither calm nor solitude, and having gradually turned again to study, he yielded after a year to urgent entreaties from without and within, and went forth to reopen his school at the priory of Maisonceile (1120). His lectures, now framed in a devotional spirit, were heard again by crowds of students, and all his old influence seemed to have returned; but old enmities were revived also, against which he was no longer able as before to make head. No sooner had he put in writing his theological lectures (apparently the Introductio and Theolo giam that has come down to us), than his adversaries fell foul of his rationalistic interpretation of the Trinitarian dogma. Charging him with the heresy of Sabellius in a provincial synod held at Soissons in 1121, they procured by irregular practices a condemnation of his teaching, whereby he was made to throw his book into the flames and then was shut up in the convent of St Medard at Soissons. After the other, it was the bitterest possible experience that could befall him, nor, in the state of mental desolation into which it plunged him, could he find any comfort from being soon again set free. The life in his own monastery proved no more congenial than formerly. For this Abelard himself was partly responsible. He took a sort of malicious pleasure in irritating the monks. Quasijocando, he cited Bede to prove that Dionysius the Areopagite had been bishop of Corinth, while they relied upon the statement of the abbot Hilduin that he had been bishop of Athens. When this historical heresy led to the inevitable persecution, Abelard wrote a letter to the abbot Adam in which he preferred to the authority of Bede that of Eusebius' Historia Ecelesiastica and St Jerome, according to whom Dionysius, bishop of Corinth, was distinct from Dionysius the Areopagite, bishop of Athens and founder of the abbey, though, in deference to Bede, he suggested that the Areopagite might also have beeit bishop of Corinth. Life in the monastery was intolerable for such a troublesome spirit, and Abelard, who had once attempted to escape the persecution he had called forth by flight to a monastery at Provins, was finally allowed to withdraw. In a desert place near Nogent-sur-Seine, he built himself a cabin of stubble and reeds, and turned hermit. But there fortune came back to him with a new surprise. His retreat becoming known, students flocked from Paris, and covered the wilderness around him with their tents and huts. When he began to teach again he found consolation, and in gratitude he consecrated the new oratory they built for him by the name of the Paraclete.