returned home he was appointed painter to Margaret of Austria, regent of the Netherlands; he held the same post under her successor, Mary of Hungary; and died at Brussels, January 6, 1541. He enjoyed also the title of court-painter to the Emperor Charles V., and is said to have visited England. Van Orley painted in oil, in tempera, and on glass; and the brilliancy of the colouring of some of his oil pictures is attributed to his sometimes painting on gold grounds. Some of the large painted windows of St. Gudule at Brussels are from cartoons by him. He and Michael van Coxcyen had the superintendence of the manufacture of the tapestries of the Vatican for the pope, Leo X., made from the cartoons of Raphael now at Hampton court.— (Van Mander; Michiels.)—R. N. W.
ORLOFF, Alexis, younger brother of Gregory, sometimes called Le Balafré, from a scar on his face, was a man of gigantic size and strength. He was serving in the imperial guard when Catherine engaged him with his brother in the revolution of 1762. He it was who roused her from sleep in the palace at Peterhof, at six o'clock in the morning, with the news that one of the conspirators was arrested and she must hasten to the capital. After Catherine's triumph Alexis and another were employed to conduct the unhappy Peter to a place of security. What befell on the road is related with cynical brevity in the following despatch to the empress:—"Matuschka! that fool of ours, after drinking, began to fight, and we finished him. Forgive us, Matuschka; we are to blame, but the affair is past cure." The highest employments and rewards were bestowed on Alexis after this. His ruthless spirit proved useful on more than one occasion. In a war with Turkey he had command of the Russian fleet; and with the aid of his subordinates, Elphinstone and Greig, he destroyed the Turkish fleet by fire in the bay of Tchesmé. In honour of this achievement he was styled Count Orloff Tchesminski. The ensnaring of the Princess Tarakanoff at Rome was another important service rendered to Catherine, who desired to get rid of a possible rival in the daughter of the Empress Elizabeth. During Potemkin's ascendancy the Orloffs were in the shade; nevertheless Alexis, in an interview with Catherine, forced tears of vexation from her by the sternness of his implied rebukes. He was humiliated in his turn by the Emperor Paul, who in 1797 obliged him to hold the pall at the funeral ceremony held in honour of the murdered Peter. During Paul's reign Orloff resided in Leipsic, returned to Russia after the accession of Alexander I., and died at Moscow in 1808. His vast wealth descended to an only legitimate daughter.—R. H.
ORLOFF, Alexis, Prince, a natural son of Feodor, brother to Gregory Orloff, was born in 1787, and entered the military service early in life, passing through the various grades, and seeing service in the campaigns against Napoleon. On the accession of the Emperor Nicolas in 1825, Orloff was colonel of the regiment of horse-guards, and in the critical hour of mutiny and revolt on the 26th December, he carried his regiment to the assistance of the anxious czar. From that hour he became a friend and favourite of the monarch, who bestowed upon him office, honours, and rewards without stint. As a negotiator General Orloff signed the treaty of Adrianople in 1829. In 1832 he was sent on a mission to London. In 1833 he commanded the Russian forces sent to protect Turkey against Ibrahim Pacha. In 1844 he became head of the gendarmerie and secret police of Russia. He was generally the companion of the czar in his rapid journeys from place to place. During the Crimean war he was sent on a futile mission to Vienna, and on the death of Nicolas in 1856 he was relieved of his charges and placed in the honorary post of president of the council. He died in 1860.—R. H.
ORLOFF, Gregory, Prince, was one of five brothers whose grandfather, a Strelitz, extorted the admiration of the Czar Peter by his coolness at the place of execution. About to be beheaded for mutiny, the Strelitz swept from the block the head of the previous victim, saying, "That's my place." He was pardoned, and became a subaltern officer in Peter's army. Of his five grandsons, Gregory, the handsomest, served in the artillery towards the close of the reign of the Empress Elizabeth. An intrigue with Princess Kurakin, Schuvaloff's mistress, exposed him to some danger, from which he was shielded by the Grand-duchess Catherine, who fell in love with him. Together they concocted and carried out the plot, which in 1762 overthrew Peter III., and placed Catherine on the throne. Honours and wealth were showered on the Orloff family. Gregory aspired to share the throne with his mistress. Catherine would only consent to a secret marriage, which the interested lover declined. Her love for him cooled, and after diverting enormous revenues to his use and obtaining for him the rank of Prince of the Holy Roman Empire, she permitted him to travel abroad. He signalized his journeys by an extravagant expenditure, and in 1782 returned to Petersburg an idiot. Catherine was deeply affected at seeing him in this condition, would let no restraint be put upon him, visited him, allowed him free access to herself, though it was but to hear the remorseful wanderings of his mind to earlier times and scenes covered with gloomy hues. Potemkin at length contrived to remove him to Moscow, where he died in April, 1783. He left one son by Catherine who was ennobled by the title of Count Bobrinsky.—R. H.
ORLOFF, Michael, elder brother of Prince Alexis Orloff, was a Russian general of great merit, but was far less fortunate in his career than the favourite of Nicolas. He went through the campaign against Napoleon, entered France with the allied armies, and was one of the general officers who signed the capitulation of Paris in 1814. He endeavoured to impress his liberal opinions and desire for reforms in his native country upon the Emperor Alexander, whose aid-de-camp he was. The czar, however, got rid of the advice and the adviser by appointing Orloff to a distant command. Here the ardent reformer disseminated his ideas among the officers of the army, and promoted the formation of those secret societies to whose instigation was attributed the outbreak of December, 1825. He was summoned before the emperor, and persisted in maintaining his political opinions. For the sake of Alexis he was permitted to retire to his estate in the country, where he lived in disgrace and with straitened means for the rest of his life. Died in 1841.—R. H.
ORME, Robert, a distinguished historian, was born at Anjengo, India, in 1728. After attending at Harrow, he returned to India, having received a civil appointment, and became at length a member of council at Fort St. George, and was elected accountant general in 1753. His health failed, and the vessel in which he sailed for England being captured by a French ship of war, he did not reach this country till 1760. In 1763 appeared the first volume of his famous work, "History of the Military transactions of the British nation in Indostan from the year 1745," and the second volume followed in 1778. Another work of his was "Historical fragments of the Mogul Empire of the Mahrattas." The style of these works is clear and elegant, and the spirit is impartial. Mr. Orme was fond of music and drawing, and wrote elegant verses. He died in 1801.—J. E.
ORME, William, a popular minister and author, was born at Falkirk on the 3d of February, 1787. His parents belonged to the denomination then called the Relief church; but he joined the congregation under the care of Mr. James Haldane in Edinburgh. Orme served a regular apprenticeship to a trade before he began to study for the ministry. In 1807 he was ordained over an independent church in Perth, and in 1824 became pastor of a similar church at Camberwell, London. Soon after, he was appointed foreign secretary to the London Missionary Society, but retained his pastorate. He died, May, 1830. Orme was a man of great industry and application, and also of no little learning and ability. Among his works are—"Memoirs of the Life, Writings, and Religious Connexions of John Owen, D.D., vice-chancellor of Oxford," &c., an excellent biography, 1820; a "Life of Baxter," highly praised by Mr. James Stephen; "Remarkable Passages in the Life of William Kiffin, written by himself, and edited from the original manuscript, with notes and additions," 1823; "Bibliotheca Biblica, a select list of books on sacred literature, with notices, biographical, critical," &c., 1824 (a new edition of this volume, bringing it up to the present time, would be of great value); "Memoirs of John Urquhart, late of the University of St. Andrews," 1827.—J. E.
ORMOND, James Butler, Duke of, the representative of an ancient and illustrious family, to whose annals he contributed some of the brightest pages, was born in 1607, not in 1610 as stated by Carte. His family name was derived from the hereditary tenure of the office of chief butler of Ireland. His father being drowned in 1619 while James was a minor, the king placed the boy in ward to Richard Preston, earl of Desmond, who, as a claimant to the Ormond estates, was a source of great vexation and suffering to Walter, the eleventh earl of Ormond, and grandfather of James. The family differences were happily healed in 1629 by the marriage of Lady Elizabeth Preston to her father's ward. With her the young nobleman retired to
