the chief prize. In 1739 he went to Dresden, where he formed a close friendship with Winckelmann, the artist and the writer on art considerably influencing each other's opinions. Here he painted many pictures, and acquired a high reputation. In 1764 he was appointed director of the Art-academy, Leipsic, and removed to that city. His most important works are the paintings he executed in the church of St. Nicholas, Leipsic, but he decorated many other public buildings there and elsewhere. He died at Dresden in 1799.—His son, Johann Ludwig Oeser—born in 1751; died in 1792—was a landscape painter and engraver, but most esteemed as an engraver. His best plates are after the leading masters of the Dutch and Flemish schools.—J. T—e.
OFFA, a noted king of Mercia during the Saxon heptarchy, who reigned from 757 to 795. The province of which he was sovereign extended over all the midland counties, from the Severn to the Humber, and pressed on the borders of Wales. This kingdom of Mercia was one of the last of the heptarchy to be absorbed or overthrown, and its greatest prince was indubitably the subject of the present notice. A man of energetic and violent character, but therefore all the better fitted for the time in which he lived and the people whom he governed, he reasserted the superiority of the Mercian Angles, which had from circumstances been temporarily weakened, and achieved various important conquests over the neighbouring Saxon states. To secure his subjects from the inroads of the Welsh, he caused a ditch and rampart to be drawn along the frontier of Wales (a line measuring one hundred miles), beginning at Basingwere in Flintshire, and ending on the Severn, near Bristol. The extensive remains of this gigantic work still go by the name of "Offa's dyke." It is said that, not satisfied with supremacy in the south of England, he also compelled the Northumbrians beyond the Humber to pay him tribute; but the date is not mentioned, and the fact is by no means clear. Although actuated by insatiable and unscrupulous ambition, and guilty of a series of cruel and treacherous crimes, Offa still possessed, as a monarch, certain high and indisputable merits. Offa died in 795, and the power and prestige of the kingdom of Mercia passed away with him for ever—J. J.
O'FLAHERTY, Roderic, an Irish antiquarian, born at Galway in 1630, and died in 1718. His great work is "Ogygia, sen Rerum Hibernicarum Chronologia," and published at London in 1685. It is a work of great value. An English translation by Hely was published at Dublin in 1793.
OGDEN, Samuel, D.D., was born at Manchester in 1716, and passed from the free school of that city to King's college, Cambridge. He took orders in 1740, and in 1744 was master of Halifax school He was appointed Woodwardian professor in 1764. He was also rector of Lawford and Stansfield. In 1770, 1776, and 1778 he published volumes of sermons, which were republished after his death, in 1780.—B. H. C.
OGGIONE or UGGIONE, Marco da, a Milanese painter, so called from his birthplace in the Milanese, was born about 1470, and was eventually one of the most distinguished of the artists reared in the school of Leonardo da Vinci at Milan; he died in 1530. Some frescoes by him, removed from the walls of the Chiesa della Pace at Milan, are still preserved in the Brera gallery there; but Marco's most valuable work is the large oil copy of Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper, which is now in the Royal academy of London. This picture, executed from a smaller copy about 1510, when the original, now nearly perished, was still in a good condition, is the most valuable monument of Leonardo's art preserved to us. It has been recently cleaned, and is fortunately in a perfect state of preservation. It is, however, hard and heavy in its execution; but these are characteristic defects of the Milanese school, owing chiefly to a too partial elaboration of shadow.—R. N. W.
OGILBY, John, an adventurous literary Scotchman, was born in or near Edinburgh in 1600. Indifferently educated, he began life as a dancing-master in London; and improving himself, it is to be supposed, in the meantime, he accompanied Strafford to Ireland in 1633 as tutor to the children and amanuensis to the lord-deputy himself. While in Strafford's Irish household he translated Esop, and built a theatre in Dublin. Ruined by the Great Rebellion which brought Strafford to the block, Ogilby proceeded to Cambridge, where he received encouragement, and produced his translation of Virgil (1649-50), printing his version of Esop in 1651. When past fifty he studied Greek under an usher of his friend Shirley the dramatist, then a schoolmaster in Whitefriars, who assisted him in his translation of the Iliad, published in 1660, followed by one of the Odyssey in 1665. The child Pope is said to have received his first taste for poetry from the perusal of the Homer of Ogilby, whom as a man, however, he satirized in the Dunciad, as Dryden had already in MacFlecknoe. In 1660 he published a handsome edition of the Bible; at the Restoration he directed and chronicled a portion of the arrangements for the coronation, and was made master of the revels in Ireland. Returning to London, he resumed the composition and publication of poetry, but was burnt out and ruined in the Great Fire. He started again as a geographical and topographical publisher, with the appointment of cosmographer to the king, and published some useful works. His books, maps, &c., he helped to dispose of by way of lotteries. He died in September, 1676, "at which time," says Wood, "many persons of great knowledge usually said that, had he been carefully educated when a young man in a university, he might have proved the ornament and glory of the Scotch nation."—F. E.
OGILVIE, John, a miscellaneous writer of prose and verse, was born in 1733, and educated for the church at the university of Aberdeen, where he attained to the degree of D.D. The success of a paraphrase of the 148th psalm which he wrote at the age of sixteen, and which was applauded by his friends, encouraged him to write poems on various subjects, which in 1769 were published in London in 2 vols. 8vo. Dr. Johnson's dictum on these poems must have been galling to the reasoning Scotch mind. "He could find no thinking in them," he said. Dr. Ogilvie was minister of the parish of Midmar in Aberdeenshire for fifty-five years. He died in 1814.—R. H.
OGLETHORPE, James Edward, a distinguished English officer, and one of the chief founders of the colony of Georgia, was the son of Sir Theophilus Oglethorpe of Godalming, Surrey. Born at Westminster in 1698, and educated at Corpus Christi, Oxford, he entered the army at a very early age, and in 1714 was captain-lieutenant in the first troop of the queen's guards. He learned the art of war under an illustrious master, Prince Eugene, distinguishing himself by capacity and courage in the campaigns of Germany and Hungary. In 1722 he sat in parliament as member for Haslemere, which place he again represented in the parliaments of 1727, 1734, 1741, and 1747—acting with great public advantage as chairman of the committee of inquiry into the abuses which then disgraced our London gaols. His chief service to his country, however, was the share he took in the establishment of a colony in Georgia. Constituted by a royal charter, and supplied with funds alike by voluntary contributions and by a parliamentary grant, the colony was established under most favourable auspices. Oglethorpe himself, accompanied by the two Wesleys, proceeded to Georgia in 1733, and concluded a treaty with the Cherokee and Chickasaw Indians, and a provisional agreement with the Spanish governor of Florida, as to the boundaries of their respective territories. After founding the town of Savannah, Oglethorpe returned to England in 1734, bringing with him some of the Indian chiefs, who were graciously received at court, and who returned to America well pleased with their new allies. In May, 1736, Oglethorpe again embarked for Georgia, where the colony continued to flourish, and where he caused the town of Augusta to be built. Next year, after he had again returned to England, and was preparing to embark once more, the Spanish ambassador in London presented a memorial claiming all the land as far north as 35° 30´´ N., and requiring the withdrawal of the English colony. The demand was refused; and Oglethorpe, with a commission as general of the English forces in Georgia and Carolina, proceeded to defend his colony by force of arms. He failed in an attempt to reduce St. Augustine, but succeeded in his principal aim, which was the prevention of a Spanish invasion of the English provinces. Public dissatisfaction, however, led to a court of inquiry upon his conduct, by which he was honourably acquitted. Again in 1746 he was subjected to a trial by court-martial for imputed errors in the campaign against the Scotch, but another honourable acquittal was the result. His military career, however, seems to have ended here. He took an active part in the establishment of the British herring fishery in 1750, and he lived to be the oldest officer in the king's service. He died at Cranham, June 30, 1785. Vigorous and active both in mind and body, and characterized by a benevolence as remarkable as his bravery, he received the warmest praise from Pope, Thomson, and Dr. Johnson, the latter of whom once offered to write the story of his eventful life, if he would furnish the materials.—W. J. P.
