in colour, he was a constant advocate of the more ideal or conventional taste of Italy in form and composition. He was a good portrait painter.—His son, by a second marriage, Jacob van Oost, the younger, was born at Bruges in 1639, and was a follower of the father, but excelled chiefly as a portrait painter. He established himself many years at Lille, where he married; but after the death of his wife he returned to Bruges, and died there in 1713. His best portraits will bear comparison with those of Vandyck.—(Weale.)—R. N. W.
OPIE, Amelia, was the daughter of Dr. Alderson, a physician of Norwich, in which city she was born, November 12th, 1769. Having lost her mother in early life. Miss Alderson, whilst little more than a mere girl, was by that event placed at the head of her father's household, and thus came very early to take a prominent place in Norwich society, at that time characterized by a prevalent gaiety not untempered by a taste for intellectual pursuits. Into this she entered with full zest, and soon became the ornament and pride of her circle. In 1798 she was married to Mr. Opie the artist, a union which was full of happiness to both, but which was cut short by the death of the husband in 1807, just as he was beginning to rise to that position which his talents and industry entitled him to occupy. After this painful event his widow returned to Norwich, where the rest of her life was spent, first with her father, and after his death, which took place in October, 1825, in a house of her own, where, surrounded by the portraits of absent or dead friends, and enlivened by the society of some of the best and ablest men and women of her time, she lived a happy, beautiful, and useful life. From an early age she had been accustomed to handle the pen, and after her marriage her husband encouraged and stimulated her to venture before the public as an authoress. In 1810 she published a story entitled "Father and Daughter," which met with immense success; and in the following year she issued a volume of poems, which was also very well received After her husband's death she continued to ply her pen busily for several years. Her works were chiefly tales and novelettes, with an occasional volume of poems. In 1824 Mrs. Opie joined the Society of Friends, and from this time her mind was much under religious impressions, and her time and energies devoted to pious and benevolent pursuits. She lived to enjoy a green and pleasant old age, having entered her eighty-fifth year before she was called hence. Her death took place December 2, 1853. The writer of this had the pleasure of paying her a visit the year before she died. The image of the beautiful, cheerful, clever old lady, as she reclined on her sofa and talked with all the vivacity of youth, in a bright joyous room, with a sweet joyous voice, remains on his memory as one of the loveliest it has been his good fortune to witness.—W. L. A.
OPIE, John, R.A., was born at St. Agnes, near Truro, Cornwall, in 1761. The son of a carpenter in indigent circumstances, named Oppy, the boy was very early put to mechanical employments. A rude skill shown by him in taking likenesses attracted the notice of Dr. Wolcott (the celebrated Peter Pindar), then practising as a physician at Truro, who took him into his employment as footboy, and after a time encouraged him to cultivate his talent for portraiture. The youth painted Wolcott's friends at 7s. 6d. a head, and found plenty of sitters. Eventually Wolcott, who had tired of the obscurity of a Cornish town, resolved to remove to London, and take his young protegé with him. This happened in 1781. By Wolcott's direction, the name of Oppy was changed for the more genteel one of Opie, and the young man (strongly against the advice of Sir Joshua Reynolds, who counselled a probation of hard study) was placed in a fashionable house, and advertised by Wolcott, both in verse and prose, as a self-taught prodigy. "The Cornish Wonder," as he was called, became the rage; the throng of carriages, it is said, being so great as to be literally a nuisance to the neighbourhood. There is probably exaggeration in this, but it is certain that Opie did become for a while the fashionable portrait painter, Reynolds himself being comparatively deserted for the uncouth and uneducated country clown. But the novelty alike of his painting and his manners soon wore off, and his house was as much deserted as it had before been thronged. Opie had, however, realized some money; had thrown off the oppressive patronage of Wolcott, who bitterly accused him of ingratitude; and had married prudently. He could now afford to wait, and whilst waiting to study. He had in him the making of a painter, and though he began serious study too late in life to rise to a first rank, he yet became an excellent painter within the narrow limits to which he, for the most part, confined himself. He painted several historical subjects, as "The Death of David Rizzio;" "Prince Arthur and Hubert;" "Belisarius;" "The Murder of James I. of Scotland," &c., with an unaffected simplicity of manner, energy, and distinctness of purpose that brought them home to the understanding of every one, and made them very generally popular. But they were too deficient in refinement, in poetic feeling, and in the higher qualities of art generally, to secure for Opie a permanent place as a historical painter. As a portrait painter his position is less doubtful. His male heads are by far the best. He had a shrewd perception of character, a broad vigorous style, and was a good colourist. Although quite uneducated in boyhood, he became eventually well read in the best English authors, and had himself some literary aspirations. On the resignation of Fuseli, Opie was elected professor of painting in the Royal Academy. He only lived, however, to deliver four lectures, dying somewhat suddenly on the 9th of April, 1807. His remains were honoured with a place beside those of Sir Joshua Reynolds, in St. Paul's cathedral. His widow (see Opie, Amelia) published in 1809 the academy lectures of her husband, with a memoir, in quarto: they are reprinted in Mr. Wornum's Lectures on Painting by the Royal Academicians.—J. T—e.
OPILIUS AURELIUS, a Latin grammarian of the first century b.c., was originally the slave of an epicurean philosopher. After obtaining his freedom, he taught successively philosophy, rhetoric, and grammar. Such was his attachment to Rutilius Rufus, that when that statesman was banished in 92, Opilius followed him into exile. His most important work he entitled "Musæ." It related to grammar.
OPITIUS, Henricus, born at Altenburg in 1642, studied at Jena, Kiel, and Utrecht, after which he came to London, where he studied oriental languages under Castell and Poole. He also studied at Oxford under Pococke. He became professor at Kiel, and died in 1712. He published a work in which he sought to establish the affinity of Greek and Hebrew.—B. H. C
OPITZ, Martin, the father of modern German poetry and founder of the first Silesian school, was born at Bunzlau, Silesia, 23rd December, 1597, and was carefully educated in various renowned gymnasia. He completed his studies in the universities of Frankfort, Heidelberg, and Strasburg, 1618-20, and then proceeded to Leyden, where he formed acquaintances with Scriver, Vossius, and Daniel Heinsius. On his return he obtained an appointment from the duke of Liegnitz; but in 1622 accepted a professorship at Weissenburg, offered him by Bethlen Gabor, prince of Transylvania. Notwithstanding the favour shown him by this prince, he was fain to go back to Liegnitz. He was nominated councillor by the duke, and elected a member of the Fruitful Society. In 1625 he was crowned at Vienna poet-laureate by the Emperor Ferdinand II., and in 1629 a patent of nobility was conferred upon him. He then entered the service of the burggraf of Dohna, by whom he was sent on a mission to Paris, where he became acquainted with Hugo Grotius, 1630. In 1638 he was appointed historiographer to Wladislav IV., king of Poland, at Dantzic, where on the 20th August, 1639, he fell a victim to the plague. Of Opitz's poetry Hallam has given a very just estimate; it is less imaginative than reflective. He wrote didactic poems (among which his "Trostgedicht in widerwärtigkeit des Krieges" is considered to be his best production), hymns, epistles, sonnets, and epigrams. He also translated the Psalms, the Antigone of Sophocles, and some Italian lyrical dramas. "Opitz displayed, however," to borrow the words of Hallam, "another kind of excellence. He wrote the language with a purity of idiom, in which Luther alone, whom he chose as his model, was his superior; he gave more strength to the versification, and paid a regard to the collocation of syllables according to their quantity, which the earlier poets had neglected. He is therefore reckoned the inventor of a rich and harmonious rhythm." In his "Deutsche Poeterei," he laid the foundation for modern German prosody.—(See Life by Lindner, 1740-41, 2 vols.; by Strehlke, 1856; and by Hoffmann von Fallersleben, 1858. Complete works, Breslau, 1690, 3 vols.)—K. E.
OPORINUS, a celebrated printer, was born at Basle in 1507. His father, who was a painter in indigent circumstances, taught him Latin, and he proceeded to Strasburg, where he studied four years. Shortly afterwards, when he thought himself of some consequence in the literary world, he changed his name from Herbst
