the sick, foretold the future, worked miracles, and delivered Sparta from a plague (Herod. iv. 36; Iamblichus, De Fit. Pythag. xix. 28). Suidas credits him with several works: Scythian oracles, the visit of Apollo to the Hyperboreans, expiatory formulas and a prose theogony.

ABATED, an ancient technical term applied in masonry and metal work to those portions which are sunk beneath the surface, as in inscriptions where the ground is sunk round the letters so as to leave the letters or ornament in relief.

ABATEMENT (derived through the French abattre, from the Late Latin battere, to beat), a beating down or diminishing or doing away with; a term used especially in various legal phrases.

ABATEMENT OF A NUISANCE is the remedy allowed by law to a person or public authority injured by a public nuisance of destroying or removing it, provided no breach of the peace is committed in doing so. In the case of private nuisances abatement is also allowed provided there be no breach of the peace, and no damage be occasioned beyond what the removal of the nuisance requires. (See NUISANCE.)

ABATEMENT OF FREEHOLD takes place where, after the death of the person last seised, a stranger enters upon lands before the entry of the heir or devisee, and keeps the latter out of possession. It differs from intrusion, which is a similar entry by a stranger on the death of a tenant for life, to the prejudice of the reversioner, or remainder man; and from disseisin, which is the forcible or fraudulent expulsion of a person seised of the freehold. (See FREEHOLD.)

ABATEMENT OE DEBTS AND LEGACIES. When the equitable assets (see ASSETS) of a deceased person are not sufficient to satisfy fully all the creditors, their debts must abate proportionately, and they must accept a dividend. Also, in the case of legacies when the funds or assets out of which they are payable are not sufficient to pay them in full, the legacies abate in proportion, unless there is a priority given specially to any particular legacy (see LEGACY). Annuities are also subject to the same rule as general legacies.

ABATEMENT IN PLEADING, or plea in abatement, was the defeating or quashing of a particular action by some matter of fact, such as a defect in form or the personal incompetency of the parties suing, pleaded by the defendant. It did not involve the merits of the cause, but left the right of action subsisting. In criminal proceedings a plea in abatement was at one time a common practice in answer to an indictment, and was set up for the purpose of defeating the indictment as framed, by alleging misnomer or other misdescription of the defendant. Its effect for this purpose was nullified by the Criminal Law Act 1826, which required the court to amend according to the truth, and the Criminal Procedure Act 1851, which rendered description of the defendant unnecessary. All pleas in abatement are now abolished (R.S.G. Order 21, r. 20). See PLEADING.

ABATEMENT IN LITIGATION. In civil proceedings, no action abates by reason of the marriage, death or bankruptcy of any of the parties, if the cause of action survives or continues, and does not become defective by the assignment, creation or devolution of any estate or title pendente lite (R.S.C. Order 17, r. 1). Criminal proceedings do not abate on the death of the prosecutor, being in theory instituted by the crown, but the crown itself may bring about their termination without any decision on the merits and without the assent of the prosecutor.

ABATEMENT OF FALSE LIGHTS. By the Merchant Shipping Act 1854, the general lighthouse authority (see LIGHTHOUSE) has power to order the extinguishment or screening of any light which may be mistaken for a light proceeding from a lighthouse.

ABATEMENT IN COMMERCE is a deduction sometimes made at a custom-house from the fixed duties on certain kinds of goods, on account of damage or loss sustained in warehouses. The rate and conditions of such deductions are regulated, in England, by the Customs Consolidation Act 1853. (See also DRAWBACK; REBATE.)

ABATEMENT IN HERALDRY is a badge in coat-armour, indicating some kind of degradation or dishonour. It is called also rebatement.

ABATI, or DELL' ABBATO, NICCOLO (1512—1571), a celebrated fresco-painter of Modena, whose best works are there and at Bologna. He accompanied Primaticcio to France, and assisted in decorating the palace at Fontainebleau (1552—1571). His pictures exhibit a combination of skill in drawing, grace and natural colouring. Some of his easel pieces in oil are in different collections; one of the finest, in the Dresden Gallery, represents the martyrdom of St Peter and St Paul.

ABATIS,ABATTIS or ABBATTIS (a French word meaning a heap of material thrown), a term in field fortification for an obstacle formed of the branches of trees laid in a row, with the tops directed towards the enemy and interlaced or tied with wire. The abatis is used alone or in combination with wire-entanglements and other obstacles.

ABATTOIR (from abattre, to strike down), a French word often employed in English as an equivalent of ``slaughter-house'' (q.v.), the place where animals intended for food are killed.

ABAUZIT, FIRMIN (1679-1767), a learned Frenchman, was born of Protestant parents at Uzes, in Languedoc. His father died when he was but two years of age; and when, on the revocation of the edict of Nantes in 1685, the authorities took steps to have him educated in the Roman Catholic faith, his mother contrived his escape. For two years his brother and he lived as fugitives in the mountains of the Cevennes, but they at last reached Geneva, where their mother afterwards joined them on escaping from the imprisonment in which she was held from the time of their flight. Abauzit at an early age acquired great proficiency in languages, physics and theology. In 1698 he went to Holland, and there became acquainted with Pierre Bayle, P. Jurieu and J. Basnage. Proceeding to England, he was introduced to Sir Isaac Newton, who found in him one of the earliest defenders of his discoveries. Sir Isaac corrected in the second edition of his Principia an error pointed out by Abauzit, and, when sending him the Commercium Epistolicum, said, ``You are well worthy to judge between Leibnitz and me.'' The reputation of Abauzit induced William III. to request him to settle in England, but he did not accept the king's offer, preferring to return to Geneva. There from 1715 he rendered valuable assistance to a society that had been formed for translating the New Testament into French. He declined the offer of the chair of philosophy in the university in 1723, but accepted, in 1727, the sinecure office of librarian to the city of his adoption. Here he died at a good old age, in 1767. Abauzit was a man of great learning and of wonderful versatility. Whatever chanced to be discussed,it used to be said of Abauzit, as of Professor W. Whewell of more modern times, that he seemed to have made it a subject of particular study. Rousseau, who was jealously sparing of his praises, addressed to him, in his Nouvelle Heloise, a fine panegyric; and when a stranger flatteringly told Voltaire he had come to see a great man, the philosopher asked him if he had seen Abauzit. Little remains of the labours of this intellectual giant, his heirs having, it is said, destroyed the papers that came into their possession, because their own religious opinions were different. A few theological, archaeological abd astronomical articles from his pen appeared in the Journal Helvetique and elsewhere, and he contributed several papers to Rousseau's Dictionnaire de musique (1767). He wrote a work throwing doubt on the canonical authority of the Apocalypse, which called forth a reply from Dr Leonard Twells. He also edited and made valuable additions to J. Spon's Histoire de la republique de