Abel, a well-known glossographer and historiographer, born at Caëres in France, in 1664. Upon the revocation of the edict of Nantes, he went first to Geneva, then to Franeker, where he finished his studies; and came finally to England, where he applied himself to assiduously to the study of the English language, and made so great a proficiency therein, that he became an author of considerable note in it, being employed in the writing of several periodical and political works. He was for many years concerned in a newspaper called the Post-boy, of which he had the principal management. He likewise published a monthly work entitled the Political State of Great Britain. He wrote a life of Queen Anne in folio, which is esteemed a very good chronicle of that period of the English history. But what has rendered him the most known, and has most firmly established his reputation, are the excellent Dictionary and Grammar of the French language, which he compiled, and which are still reckoned the best in their kind. He also wrote, or rather translated from the French of M. de Racine, the tragedy of Iphigenia, which he published under the title of The Victim. It was performed with success at the theatre of Drury-lane, and is far from being a bad play. Nor can there perhaps be a stronger instance of the abilities of its author, than success in such an attempt; since writing with any degree of correctness or elegance, even in prose, in a foreign language, is an excellence not very frequently attained; but to proceed so far in the perfection of it as to be even tolerable in poetry, and more especially in that of the drama, in which the diction and manner of expression require a peculiar dignity and force, and in a language so difficult to attain the perfect command of as the English, is what has been very seldom accomplished. He died in 1729.

Navigation, a kind of Flemish sloop, or small vessel of burden, having a boltspirit, a cante at each end, and a tall mast; chiefly fit for the navigation of rivers, and in many of its parts resembling a smack.