which is hut too often the only principle that brings men together, will lead them to desert each other in the time of difficulty. We are enjoined in the gospel not to forsake the poor and needy.

When abandoned by our dearest relatives, deserted by our friends, and forsaken by the world, we have always a resource in our Maker.

He who abandons his offspring, or corrupts tbem by his example, perpetrates a preau-r evil than a murderer. Hawkesworth.

After the death of Stella, Swift's benevolence was contracted, and his severity exasperated: be drove his acquaintance from his table, and wondered why he was deserted. JOHNSON.

With regard to things (in which sense the word relinquish is synonymous) the character of abandoning varies with the circumstances and motives of the action, according to which it is either good, bad, or indifferent; deserting is always taken in an unfavourable or bad sense: the act of forsaking is indifferent; that of relinquishing is prudent or imprudent.

A captain may abandon his vessel when he has no means of saving it, except at the risk of his life; but an upright statesman will never desert his post when his country is in danger, nor a true soldier desert his colours. Birds will mostly forsake their nests when they discover them lo have been visited. Men often inadvertently relinquish the fairest prospects in order to follow some favourite scheme nhich terminates in their ruin.

No wise man will abandon his house when it is on fire. It is the common consequence of war that the peaceable and well-disposed are compelled to desert their houses and their homes. Animals that are pursued by the sportsman will forsake their haunts, when they find themselves much molested. It is sometimes better to relinquish our claims than to contend for them at the expense of our peace. Having abandoned their all, they forsook the place which gave them birth, and relinquished the advantages which they might have obtained from their rank and family.

He who at the approach of evil betrays hit trust, or deserts his post, is branded with cowardice. H&WKESWORTU.

When learning, abilities, and what is excellent in the world, forsake the church, we mat easily foretell Its ruin without the gift of prophecy. SOUTH

Men are wearied with the toll which they bear, but cannot find in their hearts to relinquish it. Stuuk.

TO

ABANDON, RESIGN, RE-
NOUNCE, ABDICATE.

The idea of giving up is common to these terms, which signification, though analogous to the former, admits, however, of a distinction; as in the one case we separate ourselve* from an object, in the other we send or cast it from us.

ABANDON, v. To abandon, desert. RESIGN, from re and signo, signifies to sign away or back from one's self.

RENOUNCE, in Latin renuncio, from nuncio to tell or declare, is to declare off from a thing.

ABDICATE, from dico to speak, signifies likewise to call or cry off from a thing.

We abandon and resign by giving up to another; we renounce by sending away from ourselves: we abandon a thing by transferring our power over to another; in this manner a debtor. abandons his goods to his creditors: we resign a thing by transferring our possession of it to another; in this manner we resign a place to a friend: we renounce a thing by simply ceasing to hold it; in this manner we renounct a claim or a profession. As to renounce signified originally to give up by word of mouth, and to resign to give up by signature, the former is consequently a less formal action than the latter: we may renounce by implication; we resign in direct terms: we renounce the pleasures of the world when wo do not seek to enjoy. them; we resign a pleasure, a profit, or advantage, of which we expressly give up the enjoyment.

To abdicate is a species of informal, resignation. A monarch abdicates his throne who simply declares his will to cease to reign; but a minister resigns his office when he gives up the seals by which he held it.

which he may be justly entitled; the penitent man humbles himself by confessing his errors; the man of rank degrades himself by a too familiar deportment with his inferiors; he disgraces himself by his meannesses and irregularities, and debases his character by his vices.

We can never be abased by abasing ourselves, but we may be humbled by unseasonable humiliations, or improper concessions; we may be degraded by descending from our rank, and disgraced by the exposure of our unworthy actions.

The great and good man may be abased and humbled, but never degraded or disgraced: his glory follows him in his abasement or humiliation; his greatness protects him from degradation, and his virtue shields him from disgrace.

It is necessary to abase those who will exalt themselves; to humble those who have lofty opinions of themselves; to degrade those who act inconsistently with their rank and station; to disgrace those who are debased by vice and profligacy.

"TIs immortality, 'tis that alone

Amidst life's pains, abasements, emptiness,
The soul can comfort.

My toul la justly humbled in the dust.

YOUNG.

ROWE.

manner as that they seem melted together.

Abash expresses more than confound, and confound more than confuse.

Shame contributes greatly to abashment; what is sudden and unaccountable serves to confound; bashfulness and a variety of emotions give rise to confusion.

The haughty man is abashed when he is humbled in the eyes of others; the wicked man is confounded when his villainy is suddenly detected; a modest person may be confused in the presence of his superiors.

Abash is always taken in a bad sense neither the scorn of fools, nor the taunts of the oppressor, will abash him who has a conscience void of offence towards God and man. To b« confounded is not always the consequence of guilt: superstition and ignorance are liable to be confounded by extraordinary phenomena; and Providence sometimes thinks lit to confound the wisdom of the wisest by signs and wonders, far above the reach of human comprehension. Confusion is at the best an infirmity more or less excusable according to the nature of the cause a steady mind and a clear head is not easily confused, but persons of quick sensibility cannot always preserve a perfect collection ot thought in trying situations, and those who have any consciousness of guilt, that are not very hardened, will be soon thrown into confusion by close interrogatories.

If Peter was so abashed when Christ pave him a look after his denial; if there was so much dread in his looks when he was a prisoner; how much greater will It be when he sits as a judge. SOUTH.

Alas! I am afraid they have awaked,
And 'tis not done: th' attempt, and not the deed.
Confounds us!
SHAKSPEARE.

The various evils of disease and poverty, pain and sorrow, are frequently derived from others; but shame and confusion are supposed to proceed from ourselves, and to be incurred only by the misconduct which they furnish.

Hawkesworth. TO ABATE, LESSEN, DIMINISH, DECREASE.

ABATE, from the French abattre, signified originally to beat down, in the active sense; to come down, in the

neuter sense.

ABATE.

DIMINISH, or, as it is sometimes written, minish, from the Latin diminuo, and minuo to lessen, and minus less, expresses, like the verb LESSEN, the sense of either making less or becoming less.

DECREASE is compounded of the privative de and crease, in Latin cresco to grow, signifying to grow less.

The first three are used transitively or intransitively; the latter only intransitively.

Abate respects the vigour of action: a person's fever is abated or abates; the violence of the storm abates; pain and anger abate.

Lessen and diminish are both applied to size, quantity, and number; bat the former mostly in the proper and familiar sense, the latter in the figurative and higher acceptation: the size of a room or garden is lessened; the credit and respectability of a person is diminished.

Nothing is so calculated to abate the ardour of youth as grief and disappointment; an evil may be lessened when it cannot be removed by the application of remedies; nothing diminishes the lustre of great deeds more than cruelty.

The passion of an angry man ought to be allowed to abate before any appeal is made to his understanding; we may lessen the number of our evils by not dwelling upon them.

Objects apparently diminish according to the distance from which tbey are observed.

To decrease is to diminish for a continuance: a retreating army will decrease rapidly when, exposed to all the privations and hardships attendant on forced marches, it is compelled to fight for its safety: some things decrease so gradually that it is some time before they are observed to be diminished.

In the abstract sense the word lessening is mostly supplied by diminution it will be no abatement of sorrow to a generous mind to know that the diminution of evil to itself has been produced by the abridgement of good to another.

My vond«r abated, when upon looking around n*. I saw most of them attentive to three iyrens clothed like goddesses, and distinguished

Direct our course to some relieviog shore. .falconer.

To Abate, v. To subside. ABBREVIATION, v. Contraction. To Abdicate, v. To abandon.

TO ABDICATE, Desert.

The following celebrated speech of Lord Somers, in 1688, on King James's vacating the throne, may be admitted as a happy elucidation of these two important words; but I am not inclined to think that they come sufficiently close in signification to render any comparison necessary.

"What is appointed me to speak to is your Lordship's first amendment by which the word abdicated in the Commons' vote is changed into the word deserted, and I am to acquaint your Lordships what some of the grounds are that induced the Commons to insist on the word abdicated, and not to agree to your amendment.

"The first reason your Lordships are pleased to deliver for your changing the word is, that the word abdicated your Lordships do not find is a word known to the common law of England, and therefore ought not to hi used. The next is that the common appliIcation of the word amounts to a voluntary express renunciation, which is not in this case, nor will follow from the premises.

"My Lords, as to the first of these reasons, if it be an objection that the word abdicated hath not a known sense in the common law of England, there is the same objection against the word deserted; so that your Lordships' first reason hath the same force against your own amendment, as against the term used by the Commons.

"The words are both Latin words,

and used in the best authors, and both of a known signification; their meaning is very well understood, though it be true their meaning is not the same. The word abdicate doth naturally and properly signify, entirely to renounce, throw off, disown, relinquish any thing or person, so as to have no further to do with it; and that whether it be done by express words or in writing (which is the sense your Lordships put upon it, and which is properly called resignation or cession), or by doing such acts as are inconsistent with the holding and retaining of the thing, which the Commons take to be the present case, and therefore make choice of the word abdicate, as that which they thought did above all others express that meaning. And in this latter sense it is taken by others; and that this is the true signification of the word I shall show your Lordships out of the best authors.

"The first I shall mention is Grotius, De Jure Belli et Pacis, I. 2, c. 4, §4. Venit enim hoc non ex jure civiÎi, sed ex jure natural!, quo quisque suum potest abdicare, et ex naturali præsumptione, qua voluisse quis creditur quod sufficienter significavit. And then he goes on: Recusari hareditas, non tantum verbis sed etiam re, potest, et quovis indicio voluntatis.

"Another instance which I shall mention, to show that for abdicating a thing it is sufficient to do an act which is inconsistent with retaining it, though there be nothing of express renunciation, is out of Calvin's Lexicon Juridicum, where he says, Generum abdicat qui sponsam repudiat. Here is an abdication without express words, but it is by doing such an act as doth sufficiently signify his purpose.

"The next author I shall quote is Brissonius, De Verborum Significatione, who hath this passage: Homo liber qui seipsum veudit abdicat se statu

guo.

That is, he who sells himself hath thereby done such an act as cannot consist with his former state of freedom, and is thereby said properly se abdicasse statu suo.

"Budæus, in his Commentaries Ad Legem Secundam de Origiue Juris, expounds the words in the same sense. Abdicare se magistratu est idem quod abire penitus magistratu. He that

goes out of his office of magistracy, let it be in what manner he will, has abdicated the magistracy.

"And Grotius, in his book de Jure Belli et Pacis, 1. 1, c. 4, § 9, seems to expound the word abdicare by manifeste habere pro derelicto; that is, he who hath abdicated any thing hath so far relinquished it, that he hath no right of return to it. And that is the sense the Commons put upon the word. It is an entire alienation of the thing abdicated, and so stands in opposition to dicare. Dicat qui proprium aliquot facint, abdicat qui alienat; so says Pralejus in his Lexicon Juris. It is therefore insisted on as the proper word by the Commons.

"But the word deserted (which is the word used in the amendment made by your Lordships) hath not only a very doubtful signification, but in the common acceptance both of the civil and canon law, doth signify only a bare withdrawing, a temporary quitting of a thing, and neglect only, which leaveth the party at liberty of returning to it again. Desertum pro neglecto, says Spigelius in his Lexicon. But the difference between deserere and derelinquere is expressly laid down by Bartolus on the 8th law of the 58th title of the 11th book of the Code, and his words are these: Nota diligenter ex hac lege, quod aliud est affui dcserere, aliud derelinquere; qui enim derelinquit ipsum ex pœnitentiâ non revocare, sed qui deserit, intra biennium potest.

"Whereby it appears, my Lords, that is called desertion which is temporary and relievable; that is called dereliction, where there is no power or right to return.

"So in the best Latin authors, and in the civil law, deserere exercitum is used to signify soldiers leaving their colours; and in the canon law to desert a benefice signifies no more than to be a nonresident.

"In both cases the party hath not only a right of returning, but is bound to return again; which, my Lords, as the Commons do not take to be the present case, so they cannot think that your Lordships do, because it is expressly said, in one of your reasons given iu defence of the last amendment, that your Lordships have been and are