Abbadie

ABBADIE, JACQUES (or JAMES), D.D.(1654?-1727),dean of Killaloe, preacher, and christian apologist, was born at Nay, near Pau, probably in 1654, although 1657 and 1658 have been given. There is some colour for the assertion of Mr. Smiles that he was 'the scion of a distinguished Bearnese family; although it is probable that the poverty of his parents would have excluded him from a learned career if some of the leading protestants of the district had not charged themselves with the expenses of his education. This was commenced under M. Jean de la Placette, the minister of Nay, and prosecuted successively at Puylaurens, Saumur, and Sedan, where, as is generally said, he took the degree of D.D. at seventeen years of age. An obituary notice, however, which appeared in the 'Daily Courant' for 5 Oct. 1727, says: 'He was not above twentytwo when he undertook of himself his admirable treatise on the "Truth of the Christian Religion." A few years later he took, with vast applause, his degree of doctor in divinity in the university of Sedan, and about the same year he was sent for by his electoral highness, Frederick William, elector of Brandenburg, to be minister of the French church at Berlin.' The electoral summons found Abbadie at Paris, whither he had repaired to study the masters of protestant eloquence, and it was conveyed through the Count d'Espense, who had been commissioned by his master to make the selection.

The congregation of refugees, small enough at first to be accommodated in an apartment of the Count d'Espense's residence, was augmented gradually by the zeal of the preacher, and by the increased emigration to Brandenburg, caused by the revocation of the edict of Nantes in 1685. The elector ordered the ancient chapel of his palace to be prepared

VOL. I.

for the congregation, and the services were frequently attended by the younger members of his family. Abbadie's arrival in Berlin has been variously assigned to the years 1680 and 1681. During seven or eight years he used his increasing favour with the elector to relieve the distress of the refugees from France, and especially from his native province of Bearn.

Among the earliest literary ventures of Abbadie were four 'Sermons sur divers Textes de l'Ecriture,' 4to, Leyde, 1680; ‘Réflexions sur la Présence réelle du Corps de Jésus-Christ dans l'Eucharistie,' 12mo, La Haye, 1685; and two highly adulatory addresses on persons in high stations, entitled respectively Panégyrique de Monseigneur l'Electeur de Brandebourg,' 1684, 4to and 8vo, Berlin and Rotterdam; and Panégyrique de Marie Stuart, Reine d'Angleterre, d'Ecosse, de France, et d'Irlande, de glorieuse et immortelle mémoire, décédée à Kensington le 28 décembre 1694,' 8vo, Amsterdam, 1695, also published in England as 'A Panegyric on our late Sovereign Lady,' 4to, London, 1695. These four productions, with other occasional sermons, were in 1760 republished collectively, in three 8vo volumes, at Amsterdam, and preceded by an 'Essai historique sur la Vie et les Ouvrages de M. Abbadie.' The pamphlet on the Eucharist was also reprinted at Toulouse, in 1835, under the title of Quatre Lettres sur la Transsubstantiation,' and appeared in an English. translation, by Mr. John W. Hamersley, as the 'Chemical Change in the Eucharist, 4to, London, 1867.

Abbadie's residence at Berlin was varied by several visits which he paid to Holland in 1684, 1686, and 1688, chiefly for the purpose of superintending the printing of several of his works. One of the most

B

important of them he had already contemplated at Paris; it bore the title of Traité de la Vérité de la Religion chrétienne,' 2 vols. 8vo, Rotterdam, 1684. The book went through a vast number of editions and was translated into several languages, an English version, by Henry Lussan, appearing in 1694. Completed by a third volume, the 'Traité de la Divinité de Nôtre Seigneur Jésus-Christ,' it appeared at Rotterdam, 1689, seventh edition, Amsterdam, 1729. An English translation, entitled 'A Sovereign Antidote against Arian Poyson,'12mo, appeared in London, 1719, and again 'revised, corrected, and, in a few places, abridged, by Abraham Booth,' under the title. of 'The Deity of Jesus Christ essential to the Christian Religion,' 8vo, London, 1777. The entire apology for Christianity formed by the three volumes of the Traité,' which combated severally the heresies of atheism, deism, and Socinianism, was received with unanimous praise by protestants and catholics. Abbadie continued to occupy his pastorate at Berlin until the death of the great elector, which took place 29 April 1688. He then accepted the invitation of Marshal Schomberg to accompany him to Holland and England, and in the autumn of 1689 he went to Ireland with the marshal. It was in the Irish camp that Abbadie commenced one of his most successful works, which was published at Rotterdam in 1692, as 'L'Art de se connoître soi-même; ou, La Recherche des Sources de la Morale,' 8vo, and went through many editions and amplifications. Translations of this work into other languages include a popular English version by the Rev. Thomas Woodcock, 'The Art of Knowing One-self,' 12mo, Oxford, 1694.

After the battle of the Boyne, Abbadie repaired to London, where he was presently appointed minister of the French church in the Savoy, which had been founded about the year 1641. Abbadie subsequently published a revised version of the French translation of the English liturgy used at this church, with an epistle dedicatory to King George I. Abbadie's sermons have been variously judged. He was often appointed to deliver occasional discourses, both in London and Dublin, but his want of facility in English prevented his preferment in England, and also excluded him from the deanery of St. Patrick's, Dublin, to which William III wished to promote him. Abbadie's health suffered from devotion to his duties in the Savoy, and from the climate of this country. He therefore settled in Ireland, and in 1699 the deanery of Killaloe was conferred upon him by the king, whose special favour he had attracted by a spirited vindi

cation of the Revolution of 1688, Défense de la Nation Britannique,' 12mo, La Haye, 1693, written in answer to Bayle's 'Avis important aux Réfugiés,' 1690, and by the funeral oration on Queen Mary (COTTON, Fasti Ecclesia Hibernica, i. 412; DWYER, Diocese of Killaloe, 8vo, Dublin, 1878). Abbadie had also written, at the request of the king, 'Histoire de la dernière Conspiration d'Angleterre,' 8vo, London, 1696, which was reprinted in Holland and translated into English, and for which the Earl of Portland and Secretary Sir William Trumbull placed original documents at the author's disposal. It was this work, now extremely scarce, that chiefly helped Abbadie's preferment. After its production, his majesty sent him to Ireland, with an order to the lords justices to confer upon him some dignity in the church, which order was complied with by his promotion to the deanery of Killalow' (Daily Courant, 5 Oct. 1727).

The remainder of Abbadie's life was spent in writing, preaching, and in the performance-not too sedulous, for he was frequently absent from his benefice-of the ordinary duties of his office, varied by visits to England and to Holland, where most of his books were printed. Amongst his productions of this period the principal was entitled 'La Vérité de la Religion Chrétienne Réformée,' 2 vols. 8vo, Rotterdam, 1717, second edition 1718, a controversial treatise which in its four parts attacks the characteristic doctrines of the Romish church; it was translated into English, for the use of the Roman catholics of his diocese of Dromore, by Dr. Ralph Lambert, afterwards bishop of Meath. The work was completed in 1723 in Le Triomphe de la Providence et de la Religion; ou, l'Ouverture des sept Seaux par le Fils de Dieu, où l'on trouvera la première partie de l'Apocalypse clairement expliquée par ce qu'il y a de plus connu dans l'Histoire et de moins contesté dans la Parole de Dieu. Avec une nouvelle et très-sensible Démonstration de la Vérité de la Religion Chrétienne,' 4 vols. 12mo, Amsterdam. Abbadie visited Holland to see 'La Vérité' through the press; and afterwards stayed more than three years at Amsterdam, 1720-23, during the preparation of Le Triomphe' and other works. He returned to Ireland in 1723. Abbadie's income as dean of Killaloe was so small that he could not afford a literary amanuensis; and Dr. Boulter, archbishop of Armagh, having appealed in vain to Lord Carteret, the lord lieutenant, on Abbadie's behalf, gave him a letter of introduction to Dr. Edmund Gibson, bishop of London, and Abbadie left Ireland. He established himself at Marylebone,

where he devoted much time and care to the revision of his printed works for a complete edition in four volumes, in which were also to be included two unpublished treatises, Nouvelle Manière de prouver l'Immortalité de l'Ame,' and 'Notes sur le Commentaire philosophique de M. Bayle.' Relying upon a remarkable memory, he put off writing until copy was demanded by the printer. These two treatises were thus unfinished, and no trace of them could be found after his death. He died at his lodgings at Marylebone on Monday, 25 Sept. 1727, in the 74th year of his age (Daily Courant, 5 Oct. 1727; Daily Post, 6 Oct. 1727; Historical Register, 1727).

[Niceron's Mémoires pour servir à l'Histoire des Hommes illustres dans la République des Lettres, vol. xxxiii.; Essai historique, prefixed to Sermons et Panégyriques, 1760; Burn's History of the French, Walloon, Dutch, and other Foreign Protestant Refugees settled in England, Svo, London, 1846; MM. Haag's La France Protestante; Illaire's Etude sur Jacques Abbadie considéré comme Prédicateur, 8vo, Strasburg, 1858; Weiss's History of the French Protestant Refugees, 1854; Agnew's Protestant Exiles from France in the reign of Louis XIV, 2nd edition,

1871-74.]

A. H. G.

ABBOT, CHARLES (d. 1817), botanist, sometime fellow of New College, Oxford, took his M.A. degree in 1788, and those of B.D. and D.D. in 1802. He was vicar of Oakley Raynes and Goldington, Bedfordshire, and chaplain to the Marquis of Tweeddale. In 1798 he published a ‘Flora Bedfordiensis,' and in 1807 a volume of sermons entitled 'Parochial Divinity.' He also wrote a Monody on the Death of Horatio, Lord Nelson,' in 1805. His herbarium, prepared by his wife, is preserved at Turvey Abbey; it is contained in five folio volumes, but its value for critical purposes is but small. He became a fellow of the Linnean Society in 1793, and died at Bedford, October 1817.

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ABBOT, CHARLES, first BARON COLCHESTER (1757-1829), speaker of the House of Commons, 1802-1817, was born 14 Oct. 1757, at Abingdon, Berkshire. His father, the Rev. John Abbot, D.D., was a fellow of Balliol College, Oxford, and rector of All Saints, Colchester. His mother was Sarah, daughter of Mr. Jonathan Farr, citizen of London. Dr. Abbot died in 1760, and his widow subsequently became the wife of Jeremy Bentham, Esq., father by a former marriage of the well-known writer on jurisprudence. The Abbots had been settled in

Dorsetshire from the year 1100, when Richard Abbot was high sheriff of the county; but the immediate ancestors of the Speaker had resided for some generations at Shaftesbury. Charles was sent to Westminster in March 1763, before he was six years old, and at the age of thirteen was admitted into college.' In 1775 he was elected to Christ Church, where he went into residence in January 1776. He won the college prize for Latin verse in his first year, and in his second the chancellor's prize, the subject being 'Petrus Magnus;' and so highly were such performances valued at that time, that the Empress Catharine, to whom the verses had been presented, sent him a gold medal. At this time the wellknown scholar, Markham, was dean of Christ Church; and for five successive years the chancellor's prize was carried off by ChristChurch men, among them being Abbot, Lord Wellesley, and Lord Grenville. On leaving Oxford in the summer of 1778, Abbot spent a year in Switzerland in the study of the civil law, and in the year following took chambers in Lincoln's Inn, and began to keep terms at the Middle Temple.

In 1781 Abbot was elected Vinerian scho

lar by the university of Oxford, and five years afterwards Vinerian fellow, appointments which involved residence at the university. In 1783 he was called to the bar, and joined the Oxford circuit; but in 1792, upon transferring his attentions to the equity courts, he found it necessary to resign his fellowship and reside in London. He was now earning by his profession about 1,5007. a year; but the work of the bar was too hard for him: a life of unceasing and ungrateful toil,' he calls it, 'from daybreak to midnight.' Accordingly in 1794 he accepted the office of clerk of the rules in the court of King's Bench, a place worth 2,700l. a year. He discharged his duty energetically for seven years, collecting and endorsing old records which had been left to moulder in garrets, and purchasing law books for the use of the King's Bench. At the expiration of this period the Duke of Leeds, who had been his Schoolfellow at Westminster, offered him the borough of Helston in Cornwall. Abbot accepted the offer, and took his seat in the House of Commons in the autumn of 1795. Having turned his attention to the introduction of practical improvements in legislation, in his first session he obtained a committee to inquire into the manner of dealing with expiring laws. Its report established the practice of making complete annual tables of the temporary laws of the United Kingdom, so that none, as had formerly happened, should expire unobserved. In 1797

he brought before parliament a plan for the due promulgation of the statutes in all public offices and courts of justice, including magistrates' courts, by furnishing them with a copy of all acts of parliament as soon as printed; thus enabling them to see readily the state of the law which they had to administer, instead of being obliged to refer to private collections of acts. He was also exceedingly desirous to have introduced a more improved style and diction in all public acts, but the matter was full of difficulties, and, though exhorted by all, he was helped by none.' The project therefore fell to the ground (Memoir).

In 1797 a finance committee was appointed by Pitt, of which Abbot was the chairman; and for two years he gave his undivided attention to it. The committee made thirtysix reports, of which many were drawn up by Abbot himself; and one of the most beneficial results of his investigations was a bill for charging public accountants with the payment of interest. In the year 1800 he obtained a committee to inquire into the condition of the national records. And in December of the same year he introduced the first Census Act for ascertaining the population of Great Britain.

Abbot had always lived on terms of great intimacy with Addington, and on the latter becoming prime minister in February 1801, the member for Helston was selected to fill the post of chief secretary for Ireland. The office of secretary of state for Ireland, which was then held by Lord Castlereagh, was at the time abolished, and to do the work of the office a secretary to the lord lieutenant, and a keeper of the privy seal for Ireland, a sinecure office which might be held for life, were appointed. The latter post was added to Abbot's secretaryship to compensate him for the loss of his situation in the King's Bench. He arrived in Ireland in July 1801, and in the following October received the tidings of the peace of Amiens, which liberated the Irish government from its gravest anxieties. The remainder of his term of office was devoted to those official and departmental reforms for which he was so eminently qualified; but on the death of Lord Clare, the Irish lord chancellor, in January 1802, Sir John Mitford, the successor of Addington in the speakership, received the great seal, and Abbot was recalled from Dublin to occupy the vacant chair. His diary and correspondence whilst in Ireland may still be read with great profit.

Abbot was elected to the speakership on 11 Feb. 1802. He paid, he says, to his predecessor 1,0607. for the state coach which had been built in 1701, 1,000l. for wine, and 500l.

for furniture. At the general election of 1802 the new speaker was returned for Woodstock, a seat which he held till 1806, when, on the dissolution of parliament by Lord Grenville, he was returned for the university of Oxford. His tenure of office was far from uneventful. It fell to his lot to give the casting vote on Mr. Whitbread's resolutions impugning the conduct of Lord Melville as treasurer of the navy, amid a scene long remembered as one of the most striking that have ever been witnessed within the walls of the House of Commons. Mr. Pitt had moved the previous question, and on the division the numbers were 216 on each side. Abbot turned as white as a sheet, says an eye-witness, and paused for at least ten minutes, after which he explained very briefly his reasons for voting in favour of the question being put, which was accordingly put and carried, to the intense grief of Mr. Pitt, who pulled his cocked hat over his face to hide the tears which trickled down his cheeks.

Two important controversies, touching the duty and authority of the speaker, occurred during Abbot's speakership. The earlier of the two arose on the resistance by Sir Francis Burdett to the execution of the speaker's warrant for committing him to the Tower in the year 1810. Sir Francis denied the legality of the warrant, and refused to surrender to it; whereupon the question arose whether the sergeant-at-arms was empowered by Mr. Abbot's warrant to break open the doors of his house. The attorney-general, Sir Vicary Gibbs, gave a very guarded opinion; but one, nevertheless, on which the sergeant felt justified in acting: he forced Burdett's doors, and the prisoner was conveyed to the Tower, where he remained till the prorogation set him free. He at once brought an action against both the speaker and the sergeant in the court of King's Bench, when judgment was given for the defendants. The question was carried by writ of error to the Exchequer Chamber, and afterwards to the House of Lords, but in each case with the same result.

The second of the two questions raised during Abbot's tenure of office was the right of the speaker to include in his address to the sovereign on the prorogation of parliament a reference to measures to which the househad not given its consent. In his address to the prince regent in July 1813, Abbot had introduced some remarks on the bill for the removal of Roman catholic disabilities which had been defeated in committee. Mr. Grant said in the debate, 'What it is not lawful for the king to notice, it is not lawful for the speaker to express.' Lord Morpeth moved, on 22 April 1814, that the address of the

speaker on the occasion referred to should not be drawn into a precedent. The motion was defeated by a large majority, but, according to Sir Erskine May, the correctness of the doctrine upheld by the opposition has since been recognised in practice, and the speaker in addressing her majesty adverts only to the most important measures which have received the sanction of parliament during the session. Seventy years ago the office of speaker was more laborious than it is now, and in 1816 Abbot's health gave way, and he was obliged to send in his resignation. He retired with a peerage, and selected the title of Colchester; he received a pension of 4,000l. a year for himself, and 3,000l. for his immediate suc

cessor.

Abbot is certainly to be classed among the most distinguished men who have ever occupied the chair. Perceval vainly urged him to become secretary of state in 1809. Whitbread said that he was superior to any other speaker he had ever known. He was formally thanked by the House of Commons in 1808 for his upright, able, and impartial conduct; and both Lord Liverpool and Lord Castlereagh spoke of him on his retirement in terms significant of the general high opinion in which his qualities were held. His short speeches recorded in the Journals of the House of Commons, thanking admirals and generals for their exploits during the great war, are models of dignified panegyric. These speeches were collected into one volume by Mr. John Rickman, Lord Colchester's secretary, and published in 1829.

Abbot's services as an ex-officio trustee of the British Museum had been so valuable that on his retirement from office the number of trustees was increased in order that he might be elected. The appointment of days for the free admission of the public, the opening of the library for the accommodation of students, and the purchase of almost all the collections that were added to it between the years 1802 and 1817, are due to his suggestions.

The five years immediately following his retirement from the speakership were devoted to the restoration of his health; and from 1819 to 1822 he travelled through the greater part of France and Italy, returning to England just before the reconstruction of the ministry consequent on the death of Lord Londonderry. During the next seven years he continued to take an active part in politics. He was a tory of the Sidmouth rather than the Pitt school. He was strongly opposed to the admission of the Roman catholics to parliament; and he has left us a very full account of the political negotiations

of 1827, adopting the strong anti-Canning view which distinguished all that section of the tories. On 6 Feb. 1829 he made his last speech in the House of Lords. He was then fur from well; in the following month he became seriously ill. He lingered on through April, and died rather suddenly on 7 May, in the 72nd year of his age.

Shortly after his acceptance of the speakership, Abbot purchased the estate of Kidbrooke, in Sussex, which was his country retreat for the remainder of his life. Here he amused himself with planting and gardening, with drilling volunteers, and discharging the duties of a magistrate. He had married, in Dec. 1796, Miss Elizabeth Gibbes, eldest daughter of Sir Philip Gibbes, and was succeeded at his death by his eldest son Charles, who was postmaster-general in 1858, and, dying in 1867, was succeeded by the present Lord Colchester, the third peer.

Lord Colchester's Diary and Correspondence were published by his son in 1861; they extend over a period of thirty-four years, from 1795 to 1829, and are among the most valuable collections of the kind. The memoir by the editor is the principal source of information. A selection from Abbot's speeches on the Roman catholic question appeared in 1828, and the collection of his addresses to military and naval commanders, which have been already referred to, was published in 1829.

[Diary and Correspondence of Lord Colchester, by the second Lord Colchester, 3 vols. 1861; Life of Mr. Perceval, by Spencer Walpole, 1874; Manning's Lives of the Speakers; Annual Register, 1829.]

T. E. K.

ABBOT, GEORGE (1562-1633), archbishop of Canterbury, was born at Guildford on 29 Oct. 1562. His father, Maurice Abbot, was a clothworker of the town; his mother's maiden name was Alice March or Marsh; their cottage, the birthplace of the archbishop, was' by the river's side, near to the bridge on the north side in St. Nicolas' parish,' and, after serving for some years in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries as an alehouse with the sign of The Three Mariners,' remained standing until 1864 (MURRAY'S Surrey, p. 74). Abbot's parents were staunch protestants; they had first 'embraced the truth of the Gospel in King Edward's days, and were persecuted for it in Queen Mary's reign (by Dr. Story of infamous memory), and notwithstanding all troubles and molestations continued constant in the profession of the truth till their death,' which took place within ten days of each other in September 1606. George was their second