Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama Part 50

? Hogarth has introduced him into several of his pictures; and Pope says of him:

Imbround with native bronze, lo! Henley stands, Tuning his voice, and balancing his hands, How fluent nonsense trickles from his tongue!

How sweet the periods, neither said nor sung!...

Oh, great restorer of the good old stage, Preacher at once and zany of thy age!

Oh, worthy thou of Egypt's wise abodes; A decent priest where monkeys were the G.o.ds!

_The Dunciad_ (1742).

=Orator Hunt=, the great demagogue in the time of the Wellington and Peel administration. Henry Hunt, M.P., used to wear a gray hat, and these hats were for the time a badge of democratic principles, and called "radical hats" (1773-1835).

=Orbaneja=, the painter of Ube'da, who painted so preposterously that he inscribed under his objects what he meant them for.

Orbaneja would paint a c.o.c.k so wretchedly designed that he was obliged to inscribe under it, "This is a c.o.c.k."--Cervantes, _Don Quixote_, II. i. 3 (1615).

=Orbilius=, the schoolmaster who taught Horace. The poet calls him "the flogger" (_plagosus_).--_Ep._ ii. 71.

? _The Orbilian Stick_ is a birch rod or cane.

=Ordigale=, the otter in the beast-epic of _Reynard the Fox_, i. (1498).

=Ordovi'ces= (4 _syl._), people of Ordovicia, that is, Flintshire, Denbighshire, Merionetshire, Montgomeryshire, Carnarvonshire and Anglesey. (In Latin the _i_ is short: _Ordovices_.)

The Ordovices now which North Wales people be.

Drayton, _Polyolbion_, xvi. (1613).

=Or'dovies= (3 _syl._), the inhabitants of North Wales. (In Latin North Wales is called _Ordovic'ia_.)

Beneath his [_Agricola's_] fatal sword the Ordovies to fall (Inhabiting the west), those people last of all ... withstood.

Drayton, _Polyolbion_, viii. (1612).

=Or'ead= (3 _syl._), a mountain-nymph. Tennyson calls "Maud" an _oread_, because her hall and garden were on a hill.

I see my Oread coming down.

_Maud_, I. xvi. 1 (1855).

_Oread._ Echo is so called.

=Ore'ades= (4 _syl._) or =O'reads= (3 _syl._), mountain-nymphs.

Ye Cambrian [_Welsh_] shepherds then, whom these our mountains please, And ye our fellow-nymphs, ye light Oreades.

Drayton, _Polyolbion_, ix. (1612).

=Orel'io=, the favorite horse of King Roderick, the last of the Goths.

'Twas Orelio On which he rode, Roderick's own battle-horse, Who from his master's hand had wont to feed, And with a glad docility obey His voice familiar.

Southey, _Roderick, etc._, xxv. (1814).

=Ores'tes= (3 _syl._), son of Agamemnon, betrothed to Hermi'one (4 _syl._), daughter of Menela'us (4 _syl._), king of Sparta. At the downfall of Troy Menelaus promised Hermione in marriage to Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, but Pyrrhus fell in love with Androm'ache, the widow of Hector, and his captive. An emba.s.sy, led by Orestes, was sent to Epirus to demand that the son of Andromache should be put to death, lest, as he grew up, he might seek to avenge his father's death. Pyrrhus refused to comply. In this emba.s.sage Orestes met Hermione again, and found her pride and jealousy aroused to fury by the slight offered her. She goaded Orestes to avenge her insults, and the amba.s.sadors fell on Pyrrhus and murdered him. Hermione, when she saw the dead body of the king borne along, stabbed herself, and Orestes went raving mad.--Ambrose Philips, _The Distressed Mother_ (1712).

=Orfeo and Heuro'dis=, the tale of Orpheus and Eurydice, with the Gothic machinery of elves and fairies.

? Gluck has an opera called _Orfeo_; the libretto, by Calzabigi, based on a dramatic piece by Poliziano (1764).

=Orgari'ta=, "the orphan of the Frozen Sea," heroine of a drama. (See MARTHA.)--Stirling, _The Orphan of the Frozen Sea_ (1856).

=Or'gilus=, the betrothed lover of Penthe'a, by the consent of her father; but, at the death of her father, her brother, Ith'ocles, compelled her to marry Ba.s.s'anes, whom she hated. Ithocles was about to marry the princess of Sparta, but a little before the event was to take place Penthea starved herself to death, and Orgilus was condemned to death for murdering Ithocles.--John Ford, _The Broken Heart_ (1633).

=Orgoglio= [_Or.gole'.yo_], a hideous giant, as tall as three men, son of Earth and Wind. Finding the Red Cross Knight at the fountain of Idleness he beats him with a club, and makes him his slave. Una informs Arthur of it, and Arthur liberates the knight and slays the giant (_Rev._ xiii. 5, 7, with _Dan._ vii. 21, 22).--Spenser, _Faery Queen_, i. (1590).

? Arthur first cut off Orgoglio's _left arm_, _i. e._ Bohemia was cut off first from the Church of Rome; then he cut off the giant's _right leg_, _i. e._ England.

=Orgon=, brother-in-law of Tartuffe (2 _syl._). His credulity and faith in Tartuffe, like that of his mother, can scarcely be shaken even by the evidence of his senses. He hopes against hope, and fights every inch of ground in defence of the religious hypocrite.--Moliere, _Tartuffe_ (1664).

=Oria'na=, daughter of Lisuarte, king of England, and spouse of Am'adis of Gaul (bk. ii. 6). The general plot of this series of romances bears on this marriage, and tells of the thousand and one obstacles from rivals, giants, sorcerers and so on, which had to be overcome before the consummation could be effected. It is in this unity of plot that the Amadis series differs from its predecessors--the Arthurian romances, and those of the paladins of Charlemagne, which are detached adventures, each complete in itself, and not bearing to any common focus.--_Amadis de Gaul_ (fourteenth century).

? Queen Elizabeth is called "the peerless Oriana," especially in the madrigals ent.i.tled _The Triumphs of Oriana_ (1601). Ben Jonson applies the name to the queen of James I. (_Oriens Anna_).

_Oriana_, the nursling of a lioness, with whom Esplandian fell in love, and for whom he underwent all his perils and exploits. She was the gentlest, fairest, and most faithful of her s.e.x.--Lobeira, _Amadis de Gaul_ (fourteenth century).

_Orian'a_, the fair, brilliant, and witty "chaser" of the "wild goose"

Mirabel, to whom she is betrothed, and whose wife she ultimately becomes.--Beaumont and Fletcher, _The Wild-Goose Chase_ (1652).

_Oriana_, the ward of old Mirabel, and bound by contract to her guardian's son whom she loves; but young Mirabel shilly-shallies, till he gets into trouble with Lamorce (3 _syl._), and is in danger of being murdered, when Oriana, dressed as a page, rescues him. He then declared that his "inconstancy has had a lesson," and he marries the lady.--G.

Farquhar, _The Inconstant_ (1702).

_Oriana_, in Tennyson's ballad so called, "stood on the castle wall," to see her spouse, a Norland chief, fight. A foeman went between "the chief, and the wall," and discharged an arrow, which, glancing aside, pierced the lady's heart and killed her. The ballad is the lamentation of the spouse on the death of his bride (1830).