of St Michael’s College, which under him became an important educational institution both in music and general subjects. His works include a second oratorio, Hagar (Hereford, 1873), a great number of services and anthems, chamber music, songs, &c., and theoretical works of great importance, such as Harmony (1868) and Counterpoint (1869) and Musical Form (1875). One of his most useful works is a series of chapters on English music added to the translation of Emil Naumann’s History of Music, the subject having been practically ignored in the German treatise. A profoundly learned musician, and a man of great general culture, Ouseley’s influence on younger men was wholly for good, and he helped forward the cause of musical progress in England perhaps more effectually than if he himself had been among the more enthusiastic supporters of “advanced” music. The work by which he is best known, St Polycarp, shows, like most compositions of its date, the strong influence of Mendelssohn, at least in its plan and scope; but if Ouseley had little individuality of expression, his models in other works were the English church writers of the noblest school. He died at Hereford on the 6th of April 1889.
OUSELEY, SIR WILLIAM (1769–1842), British Orientalist, eldest son of Captain Ralph Ouseley, of an old Irish family, was born in Monmouthshire. After a private education he went to Paris, in 1787, to learn French, and there laid the foundation of his interest in Persian literature. In 1788 he became a cornet in the 8th regiment of dragoons. At the end of 1794 he sold his commission and went to Leiden to study Persian. In 1795 he published Persian Miscellanies; in 1797–1799, Oriental Collections; in 1799, Epitome of the Ancient History of Persia; in 1800, The Oriental Geography of Ebn Haukal; and in 1801, a translation of the Bakhtiyār Nama and Observations on Some Medals and Gems. He received the degree of LL.D. from the university of Dublin in 1797, and in 1800 he was knighted. When his brother. Sir Gore Ouseley, was sent, in 1810, as ambassador to Persia, Sir William accompanied him as secretary. He returned to England in 1813, and in 1819–1823 published, in three volumes. Travels in Various Countries of the East, especially Persia, in 1810, 1811 and 1812. He also published editions of the Travels and Arabian Proverbs of Burckhardt. He contributed a number of important papers to the Transactions of the Royal Society of Literature. He died at Boulogne in September 1842.
OUSTER (from Anglo-Fr. ouster, to remove, take away, O. Fr. oster, mod. Fr. ôter, Eng. “oust,” to eject, exclude; the derivation is not known; Lat. obstare, to stand in the way of, resist, would give the form but does not suit the sense; a more probable suggestion connects with a supposed haustare, from haurire, to draw water; cf. “exhaust”), a legal term signifying dispossession, especially the wrong or injury suffered by a person dispossessed of freeholds or chattels real. The wrong-doer by getting into occupation forces the real owner to take legal steps to regain his rights. Ouster of the freehold may be effected by abatement; i.e. by entry on the death of the person seized before the entry of the heir, or devisee, by intrusion, entry after the death of the tenant for life before the entry of the reversioner or remainder-man, by disseisin, the forcible or fraudulent expulsion of the occupier or person seized of the property. Ouster of chattels real is effected by disseisin, the turning out by force or fraud of the legal proprietor before his estate is determined. In feudal law, the term ouster-le-main (Lat. amovere manum, to take away the hand) was applied to a writ or judgment granting the livery of land out of the sovereign’s hand on the plea that he has no title to it, and also to the delivery by a guardian of land to a ward on his coming of age.
OUTLAWRY, the process of putting a person out of the protection of the law; a punishment for contemptuously refusing to appear when called in court, or evading justice by disappearing. It was an offence of very early existence in England, and was the punishment of those who could not pay the were or blood-money to the relatives of the deceased. By the Saxon law, an outlaw, or laughlesman, lost his libera lex and had no protection from the frank-pledge in the decennary in which he was sworn. He was, too, a frendlesman, because he forfeited his friends; for if any of them rendered him any assistance, they became liable to the same punishment. He was, at one time, said to be caput lupinum, or to have a wolf’s head, from the fact that he might be knocked on the head like a wolf by any one that should meet him; but so early as the time of Bracton an outlaw might only be killed if he defended himself or ran away; once taken, his life was in the king’s hands, and any one killing him had to answer for it as for any other homicide. The party guilty of outlawry suffered forfeiture of chattels in all cases, and in cases of treason or murder forfeiture of real property: for other offences the profits of land during his lifetime. In cases of treason or felony, outlawry was followed also by corruption of blood. An outlaw was civiliter mortuus. He could not sue in any court, nor had he any legal rights which could be enforced, but he was personally liable upon all causes of action. An outlawry might be reversed by proceedings in error, or by application to a court. It was finally abolished in civil proceedings in 1879, while in criminal proceedings it has practically become obsolete, being unnecessary through the general adoption of extradition treaties. A woman was said to be waived rather than outlawed.
In Scotland outlawry or fugitation may be pronounced by the supreme criminal court in the absence of the panel on the day of trial. In the United States outlawry never existed in civil cases, and in the few cases where it existed in criminal proceedings it has become obsolete.
OUTRAGE (through O. Fr. ultrage, oltrage, oultrage, from Lat. ultra, beyond, exceeding, cf. Ital. oltraggio; the meaning has been influenced by connexion with “rage,” anger), originally extravagance, violence of behaviour, language, action, &c., hence especially a violent injury done to another.
OUTRAM, SIR JAMES (1803–1863), English general, and one of the heroes of the Indian Mutiny, was the son of Benjamin Outram of Butterley Hall, Derbyshire, civil engineer, and was born on the 29th of January 1803. His father died in 1805, and his mother, a daughter of Dr James Anderson, the Scottish writer on agriculture, removed in 1810 to Aberdeenshire. From Udny school the boy went in 1818 to the Marischal College, Aberdeen; and in 1819 an Indian cadetship was given him. Soon after his arrival at Bombay his remarkable energy attracted notice, and in July 1820 he became acting adjutant to the first battalion of the 12th regiment on its embodiment at Poona, an experience which he found to be of immense advantage to him in his after career. In 1825 he was sent to Khandesh, where he trained a light infantry corps, formed of the wild robber Bhils, gaining over them a marvellous personal influence, and employing them with great success in checking outrages and plunder. Their loyalty to him had its principal source in their boundless admiration of his hunting achievements, which in cool daring and hairbreadth escapes have perhaps never been equalled. Originally a “puny lad,” and for many years after his arrival in India subject to constant attacks of sickness, Outram seemed to win strength by every new illness, acquiring a constitution of iron, “nerves of steel, shoulders and muscles worthy of a six-foot Highlander.” In 1835 he was sent to Gujarat to make a report on the Mahi Kantha district, and for some time he remained there as political agent. On the outbreak of the first Afghan War in 1838 he was appointed extra aide-de-camp on the staff of Sir John Keane, and besides many other brilliant deeds performed an extraordinary exploit in capturing a banner of the enemy before Ghazni. After conducting various raids against Afghan tribes, he was in 1839 promoted major, and appointed political agent in Lower Sind, and later in Upper Sind. Here he strongly opposed the policy of his superior. Sir Charles Napier, which led to the annexation of Sind. But when war broke out he heroically defended the residency at Hyderabad against 8000 Baluchis; and it was Sir C. Napier who then described him as “the Bayard of India.” On his return from a short visit to England in 1843, he was, with the rank of brevet lieutenant-colonel, appointed to a command in the Mahratta country, and in 1847 he was transferred from Satara to Baroda, where he incurred the resentment of the Bombay government by his fearless exposure of corruption.
