ABB 
the middle of which is the town-hall, wherein are annual¬ 
ly held the court-leet and court-baron of the Right Hon. 
the Karl of Uxbridge, lord of the manor, and patron of 
the church; here is alfo a market-place, which is fpa- 
cious and very clean. The houfes ire neat, and built in 
general of brick. 
Bromley hands in a fine open fertile country, difiant 
from Litchfield n miles; Rugely, Uttoxeter, and Wolfe - 
ley-bridge, 6 ; from Stafford 13 ; and from London 128. 
It has a free grammar-fchool, founded in 1603, by Mr. 
Richard Clarke. Alio an aims-houfe well endowed, by 
Lambert Bagot, Efq. in 1703, for fix poor old men; and 
feveral other charities, to a confiderable amount. The 
market-day is on Tuefday ; and there are three fairs held 
annually, for horfes, cows, pigs, fheep, &c. viz. on 
the Tuefday after Midlent Sunday, the 22d of May, and 
the 4th of September. 
ABBOTSBURY, a fmall town in Dorfetfhire, 10 
miles from Dorchefter, 8 from Weymouth, 7 from Brid- 
port, and 127 from London. The abbey, from which 
this town took its name, was founded by a Norman lady, 
about the year 1026; and Edward the Confeffor, and 
William the Conqueror, W'ere confiderable benefactors to 
it. The church is a large and handlome ItruCture, de¬ 
dicated to St. Nicholas, and fuppofed to have been built 
not very long before the reformation ; it is fituated on the 
fouth fide of the town, and the whole length is forty-eight 
feet. St. Catherine’s chapel ftands on an high round hill, 
half a mile S. W. of the town : it has two porches, a turret 
at the weft end, and windows all round it. It is a ftrong 
handfome building, with a« compafs roof arched with 
ft one, and is efteemed a great curioffty, and one of the moft 
venerable pieces of antiquity this kingdom has to boaft. 
By the ftile of building, it feems to have been ereCted in 
the reign of Edward IV. It ferves, by its high fituation, 
both for a fea and land mark. This town formerly had a 
market on Fridays, afterwards changed to Thurfdays, and 
two fairs ; but the market and one of the fairs are, of 
late years, quite decayed. Here is ftill one fair yearly on 
St. Peter’s day, the tutelar faint of the abbey. In 1706, 
the weft part of the town was burnt down. The principal 
p>art of the inhabitants (which are not numerous) depend 
chiefly on fifhing, or on the cultivation of fmall farms ; 
and others are employed in fpinning of cotton, which is 
here manufactured into-ftockings, the excellency of which 
has long acquired great reputation. There is a free-fchool 
for teaching twenty poor boys reading, writing, and arith¬ 
metic; at firft endowed with 12I. perann. lince augmented 
to 20I. by the late Mrs. Horner. The town lies near the 
Ihore, where vaft quantities of fine mackarel are caught 
from the middle of March till Midfummer; they have 
fometimes caught 30 or 40,000 at a draught, and 100 have 
been fold for a penny : there are many curious ftones on 
the beach, and ftone is dug in the quarries near the fhore, 
very ferviceable for fating or paving. About a quarter 
of a mile S. W. of Abbotlbury is a large decoy, well co¬ 
vered with wood, where plenty of wild fowl refort, and 
are taken. A little weft of the town is a noble fwannery, 
much vilitedby Grangers : in the open part of the fleet are 
kept 6 or 700, formerly 1500, fwans: the royalty belonged 
anciently to the abbot; lince to the family of the Strange- 
ways; now to the countefs dowager of Ilchefter, who has 
a fmall houfe upon the margin of the beach, where fhe 
ufually refidesfome time in the fumriier months. About 
a mile and an half weft of the town is an old fortification. 
The vicinity of this town to Weymouth, being a pleafant 
ride, occafions, in the bathing-feafon, frequent excurlions 
of company from that place, particularly of fuch as are 
curious in monaftk antiquities ; or have a tafte for roman¬ 
tic profpeCts; none of whom ever yifit this place without 
expreflions of the utmoft fatisfaClion and pleafure. Lat. 
50. 38. W. Ion. 2. 42. 
Abbotsbury, near Barley, Hertf. Abbot’s-Cares- 
■well, Devon. —Abbot’s-Crome, Wore.— .%ebot’.s- 
Fee-Tything, near Sherborne, Dorfet.— Abeotsham, 
A B D rr 
near Biddeford, Devon.— Abbot’s-Lang ley, near 
Barkway, Hertf.— Abbot’s-Leigh, or Isle, near II- 
minfter, Somerfet.— Abbotsley, near St. Neot’s, Hunt. 
Abbot’s-Moreton, Worceft.— Abbotstock, De¬ 
von.— Abbotstoke, near Bemifter, Dorfet.— Abbot- 
stone, near Kingfwood, Glou. called alfo Wyke, from 
a winding brook that runs by it.— Abbotstoke, near 
Syfton, Glou.— Abbotstoke, Wilts.— Abbotstoke, 
near Alresford, Hants.— Abbotsroot, Dorfet. near 
Wimborne.— Abbotsvvood, : orceft. 4 miles N. W. of 
Perlhore.— Abbot’s Worth y, near Winchefter, Hants. 
• —Abbot’s-Court, in Walton, Surrey. 
ABBOT 3 HIP, f. The ftate or privilege of an abbot. 
To ABBREVIATE, v. a. [abbreviare , Lat.] To 
Ihorten by contraction of parts without lofs of the main 
fubftance; to abridge.—The only invention of late years, 
which hath contributed towards, politenefs in difeourfe, is 
that of abbreviating or reducing words of many fyllables 
into one, by lopping off:' the reft. Swift.. —To Ihorten, to 
cut fttort. 
ABBREVIATION, f. The a6t of abbreviating. The 
means ufed to abbreviate, as characters fignifying whole 
words ; words contracted.—By itatute 4 G. 2. c. 26. all 
law proceedings fhall be in the Englifti tongue, and written 
in a common legible hand and character, and in words at 
length and not abbreviated : but by 6 G. 2. c. 14. this is 
fomewhat-mitigated, which allows, that they may be writ¬ 
ten in the like manner of exprefling numbers by figures as 
hath been commonly ufed, and with fuch abbreviations as 
are now commonly ufed in tife Englifti language. 
ABBREVI ATOP-, f. [, abbreviated , Fr.] One who 
abbreviates, or abridges. 
Abbreviators, a college of feventy-two perfons in 
the chancery of Rome, who draw up the pope’s briefs, 
and reduce petitions, when granted by him, into proper 
form for being converted into bulls. 
ABBREVIATURE, J. \_abbreviatura, Lat.] A mark 
ufed for the fake of (hortening. A compendium or 
abridgement.—He who prays for him that wrongs him, 
forgiving all his faults ; who fooner ftiews mercy than 
anger; who offers violence to his appetite, in all things 
endeavouring to fubdue the fiefti to the fpirit: this is 
an excellent abbreviature of the whole duty of a Chrif- 
tian. Taylor. ' 
ABBREUVOIR,/. [a watering-place. Ital. abbeverato, 
dal verbo bevere. Lat. biberc. This word is derived by 
Menage, not much acquainted with the Teutonic dialefts, 
from adbibare for adbibere ; but more probably it comes 
from the fame root with brew.~\ Among mafons, the joint 
or juncture of two ftones, or the interltice between two 
ftones to be filled up with mortar. 
ABBS-HEAD, St. a promontory or head-land in Ecr- 
wickfhire, Scotland, in the divifton of Lamber Muir. It 
is the midway between Coldingham and Lumfden. This 
head-land is the fouthern extremity of the frith of Forth. 
-^ at -.55-55- Ion. 1.56.W. 
ABBTENAU, a market town, in the archbifhopric of 
Saltzburgh, in the circle of Bavaria, Germany, about ten 
miles N. W. of Radftadt, on a branch of the river Salzach. 
ABCEDARY,or Abcedari an, yzt/j.anepithet given to 
compofitions, the part of which are difpofed in the order 
of the letters of the alphabet: thus we fay, Abcedarian 
pfalms, lamentations, hymns, &c. 
ABCOlJpE, a village, about nine miles from Amfter- 
dam, on the road to Utrecht. 
ABCOURT, a town near St. Germain’s, four leagues 
from Paris. Here is a bride chalybeate water impregnated 
with fixed air and'the foil'll alkali; and refembling the 
water of Spa and llmington. 
ABDALLA, the fon of Abdalmothleb, was the father- 
of the prophet Mahomet. Several other Arabians of 
eminence bore the fame name. 
ABDALMALEK, the fon of Mirvan, and the fifth 
khalif of the race of the Ommiades, furnamed Rafch al 
Hegianat, i. e. the lkinner of a.lione, becaufe. of his ex¬ 
treme; 
