The stout tall captain, whose superior size The minor heroes view with envious eyes, Becomes their pattern upon whom they fix Their whole attention, and ape all his tricks ; His pride, that scorns to obey or to submit, With them is courage, his effrontery wit. Cowper. O'BEIRNE (Thomas Lewis), D. D., a learned prelate of the established church, and a native of the county of Longford, in Ireland, was born in 1748 of a Catholic family, by whom he was sent to St. Omers at an early age, with his brother John, to study for the priesthood. John in due course took orders and became a Catholic priest in the diocese of which his brother was afterwards the Protestant bishop. Thomas, on the contrary, renounced the Catholic creed, and at the commencement of the American war, having taken orders, accompanied lord Howe as chaplain of the fleet. On his return to England he published a vindication of his patron, whose conduct was at that time a subject of parliamentary enquiry; and his connexion with that noble family introduced him to the duke of Portland. In 1782 he accompanied the duke to Ireland, as private secretary, and obtained, the following year, from his grace, two valuable livings in Northumberland and Cumberland. He afterwards was first chaplain to earl Fitzwilliam, and was promoted to the see of Ossory, from which, on the death of Dr. Maxwell, he was translated to that of Meath. The writings of this popular prelate were, The Crucifixion, a poem, in 4to. 1776; The Generous Impostor, a comedy, 1780; A Short History of the last Session of Parliament, 8vo., anonymous; Considerations on the late Disturbances, by a Consistent Whig, 8vo.; Considerations on the Principles of Naval Discipline and Courts-Martial, 8vo., 1781; and several sermons and charges. He died February 15th, 1823. OBEʼISANCE, n. s. Fr. obeisance. A bow; a courtsey; an act of reverence. Bathsheba bowed, and did obeisance unto the king. 1 Kings i. 16.

Bartholomew my page,
See drest in all suits like a lady:
Then call him Madam, do him all obeisance.
Shakspeare.

The lords and ladies paid
Their homage, with a low obeisance made;
And seemed to venerate the sacred shade.

Dryden.

OB'ELISK, n. s.

Lat. obeliscus; Gr. oßeλog. A pyramidal piece or pillar of marble, or other fine stone, having usually four faces.

He published the translation of the Septuagint, having compared it with the Hebrew, and noted by asterisks what was defective, and by obelisks what redundant. Grew.

Between the statues obelisks were placed,
And the learned walls with hieroglyphicks graced.
Pope.

An OBELISK, in architecture, is a truncated quadrangular, and slender pyramid, raised as an ornament, and frequently charged either with inscriptions or hieroglyphics. Obelisks appear to be of very great antiquity, and to have been first raised to transmit to posterity precepts of philosophy, which were cut in hieroglyphical characters; afterwards they were used to immortalise the great actions of heroes, and the memory of persons beloved. The first obelisk mentioned in history was that of Ramases king of Egypt, in the time of the Trojan war, which was forty cubits high. Phius, another king of Egypt, raised one of fifty-five cubits; and Ptolemy Philadelphus another of eighty-eight cubits, in memory of Arsinoe. Augustus erected one at Rome in the Campus Martius, which served to mark the hours on an horizontal dial drawn on the pavement. They were called by the Egyptian priests the fingers of the sun, because they were made in Egypt also to serve as styles or gnomons to mark the hours on the ground. The Arabs still call them Pharaoh's needles; whence the Italians call them aguglia, and the French aiguilles. One of the most common and frequent situations in which obelisks were erected was the space before a temple. Diodorus makes mention of two obelisks of Sesostris placed before a Theban temple, which were 120 cubits high. Herodotus mentions two others, 100 cubits high, one of which was erected before a temple at Sais, and the other before the temple of the sun at Heliopolis.

The Romans, in the plenitude of their power and splendor, removed many of these relics of times, then ancient, from their original situations into Italy. When that majestic empire was overrun by the barbarians most of these noble monuments were thrown down, defaced, or demolished. The exhumations made by the decree of pope Sextus V. brought to light four of them, which were repaired by his architect, Fontana. Since that period several others have been dug up. Several obelisks have likewise been preserved at Constantinople, the most celebrated of which stood in that part of the hippodrome denominated Media Spina. On the four sides of the base of this noble monument were sculptured a variety of subjects: the bassi-relievi of the northern side have been published by Spon. At Catana, in Sicily, fragments have been discovered of two Egyptian obelisks, most probably conveyed thither by the Romans. One has been set up again, presenting a curious appearance from its having eight faces. On the north side of Penrith, in the church-yard, are two square obelisks, of a single stone each, eleven or twelve feet high, about twelve inches diameter, and twelve by eight at the sides; the highest about eighteen

fuches diameter, with something like a transverse piece to each, and mortised into a round base. They are fourteen feet asunder, and between them is a grave enclosed between four semicircular stones of the unequal lengths of five, six, four and a half, and two feet high, having on the outsides rude carving, and the tops notched. This is called the Giant's grave, and ascribed to Sir Ewan Cæsarius, who is said to have been as tall as one of the columns, and capable of stretching his arms from one to the other.

OBERLAND, a district of Switzerland, forming the south-east part of the canton of Bern. In the north is a lofty mountain; but the district contains large valleys and plains, which are fertile in fruit and corn. Towards the south it becomes more and more hilly, and terminates in the highest region of the Alps.

He

OBERLIN (Jer. James), a learned German philosopher and metaphysician, was born at Strasburgh in 1735. He studied at his native place, where in 1757 he published his Dissertatio Philologica de veterum ritu condiendi Mortuos. After this he contributed assistance to Dr. Kennicot, by collating for him four MSS. in the Strasburgh library. In 1763 he was appointed librarian to the university, and in 1770 became professor of Latin eloquence. In 1782 he obtained the chair of logic and metaphysics. died in 1806. His other works are-1. Rituum Romanorum primæ Lineæ, orbis antiqui, Artis Diplomaticæ, &c.; 2. Jungendorum Marium Fluminumque Omnis ævi Molimina; 3. De Latinæ Linguæ Medii ævi mira Barbaria; 4. Essai sur le patois Lorrain; 5. Glossarium Germanicum Medii ævi, Potissimum Dialecti Suevice; 6. The Strasburgh Almanac; 7. Editions of Horace, Tacitus, Caesar, &c.; 8. Life of Guttenberg, &c. OBÉSE'NESS, n. s. Lat. obesus. Morbid OBESITY. fatness; incumbrance of flesh.

On these many diseases depend; as, on the straitness of the chest, a phthisis; on the largeness of the veins, an atrophy; on their smallness, obesity.

Grew's Cosmol.

OBI, a considerable river of Asiatic Russia, traversing the whole government of Tobolsk. It is said to rise in 52° N. lat. on the south side of the Altai Mountains, from the lake Altyn Noor. Here it is called By, but formerly received the name of the Great River, as being the largest which flows through Asiatic Russia. It takes the name of Obi after its junction with the Katoune: after receiving the Irtysch, it becomes very broad: but it divides into branches, which again re-unite and form numerous isles. This river has an entire course of upwards of 2000 miles, and every where abounds in fish.

OBIAN, a river of the United States, in Tennessee, which runs into the Mississippi, long. 90° 8' W., lat. 35° 48′ N.

OBIDOS, a town in the central part of Portugal, near the coast on the small river Lagoa de Obidos. On an adjoining hill are the ruins of a castle. An action took place here between the British advanced guard and a party of French, on 15th August, 1808, shortly before the battle of Vimeira. Inhabitants 3000. Forty-four miles north of Lisbon.

OBJECT, n. s. & v. a. OBJECT-GLASS, n.3. OBJECTION, OBJECTIVE, adj. OBJECTIVELY, adv. OBJECTIVENESS, n. s. OBJECTOR.

Fr. objet; Lal. objectum, i. e. ob and jacio, to cast against. That against or toward which the sight is cast, or any employed; hence any thing presented to the power or faculty to object is, therefore, to oppose; propose as a senses; any thing influenced by another thing: change; taking to or against after it: objection, the act of presenting any thing opposed; charge made; adverse argument or fault found: objective is belonging to, residing in, or made an object: objectively, in the manner or state of an object : objectiveness, the state of being an object: ob jector, he who offers or sustains objections.

Were it not some kind of blemish to be like unto Infidels and Heathens, it would not so usually be objected; men would not think it any advantage in the cause of religion to be able therewith justly to charge their adversaries.

Hooker.

The book requireth due examination, and giveth liberty to object any crime against such as are to be Whitgifte. Dishonour not your eye

ordered.

By throwing it on any other object. Shakspeare. Pardon The flat unraised spirit, that hath dared, On this unworthy scaffold, to bring forth So great an object. Id. Henry V

Speak on, Sir,

I dare your worst objections.

Id. Henry VIII. Men in all deliberations find ease to be of the negative side, and affect a credit to object and foretel is an end of them; but if they be allowed, it requidifficulties; for when propositions are denied, there reth a new work; which false point of wisdom is the bane of business.

Bacon.

Flowers growing scattered in divers beds, will show more so as that they be object to view at once.

Id. There is ever between all estates a secret war. [ know well this speech is the objection and not the decision; and that it is after refuted.

They are her farthest reaching instrument, Yet they no beams unto their objects send; But all the rays are from their objects sent, And in the eyes with pointed angles end.

Id.

Davies.

Milton.

Hale's Origin of Mankind.

Pope.

Certainty, according to the schools, is distinguished into objective and subjective. Objective certainty is when the proposition is certainly true in itself; and subjective, when we are certain of the truth of it. The one is in things, the other in our minds.

Watts's Logick. As you have no mistress to serve, so let your own soul be the object of your daily care and attendance. Law.

Refined sense, and exalted sense be not so useful as common sense; their rarity, their novelty, and the nobleness of their objects, make some compensation, and render them the admiration of mankind, as gold, though less serviceable than iron, acquires from its scarcity a value which is much superior. Hume.

OBIT. It signifies a funeral solemnity, or office for the dead, most commonly performed VOL. XVI.

when the corpse lies in the church uninterred. The anniversary of any person's death was also called the obit; and to observe such day with prayers and alms, or other commemoration, was the keeping of the obit. In religious houses they had a register, wherein they entered the obits or obitual days of their founders and benefactors; which was thence termed obituary. The tenure of obit or chantry lands is taken away and extinct by 1 Edward VI. c. 14, 15, and Car. II. c. 9. OBJURGATE, v. a. Lat. objurgo. To OBJURGA'TION, n. s.

OBJURGATORY, adj. Schide or reprove.

If there be no true liberty, but all things come to pass by inevitable necessity, then what are all interrogations and objurgations, and reprehensions and expostulations? Bramhall. OBLATE', adj. Lat. oblatus. Flatted, as a globe at the poles.

wards its center, though not exactly thither, by reaBy gravitation bodies on this globe will press toson of the oblate spheroidical figure of the earth, arising from its diurnal rotation about its axis. Cheyne's Philosophical Principles.

An OBLATE SPHEROID has its axis shorter than its middle diameter, being formed by the rotation of an ellipse about the shorter axis.

OBLATI, Lat., in church history, secular persons who devoted themselves and their estates to some monastery, into which they were admitted as a kind of lay brothers. The form of their admission was putting the bell-ropes of the church round their necks as a mark of servitude. They wore a religious habit, different from that of the monks.

OBLATION, n. s. Fr. oblation; Lat. oblatus. religious worship. An offering; sacrifice, or any thing connected with

sighed, and straight tears followed, as if the idol of She looked upon the picture before her, and straight duty ought to be honoured with such oblations.

Sidney. Many conceive in the oblation of Jephtha's daughseparation from the world. ter, not a natural but a civil kind of death, and a

Browne. Dryden.

The kind oblation of a falling tear. acceptance, sets the poorest giver upon the same level The will gives worth to the oblation, as to God's

with the richest.

South.

Swift.

Behold the coward, and the brave, All make oblations at this shrine. OB'LIGATE, v. a. Fr. obligation; LatOBLIGATION, n. s. obligo. Obligate and OB'LIGATORY, adj. oblige are both used OBLIGATE, V. a. for to bind or compel OBLIGEE', n. s. by contract, duty, or OBLIGE MENT, gratitude; and the latOBLIGER, ter for to please; graOBLIGING, part. adj. tify: obligation is the OBLIGINGLY, adv. binding power; conOBLIGINGNESS, n. s. J tract; act; engagement, or favor: obligatory, imposing or conveying obligation; coercive; used with to or on: obligee is the person bound by an obligation: the obliger, he who binds: obligement (from the Fr. obligement), synonymous with obligation: obliging, compliant; complaisant; urbane; engaging obligingly, civilly; complaisantly: obligingness, force; obligation civility; urbanity.

G

This doom though reversible by the tribunal of heaven is still obligatory on earth. Bp. Hall.

I will not resist, whatever it is, either of divine or human obligement, that you lay upon me. Milton's Education.

The heir of an obliged person is not bound to make restitution, if the obligation passed only by a personal act; but, if it passed from his person to his estate, then the estate passes with all its burthen.

Taylor's Rule of Holy Living. As long as the law is obligatory, so long our obedience is due. Id. Nothing can be more reasonable than that such creatures should be under the obligation of accepting such evidence as in itself is sufficient for their conviction. Wilkins. Obligation is thraldom, and thraldom is always hateful. Hobbes.

He that depends upon another, must
Oblige his honour with a boundless trust.

Waller.

Religion obliges men to the practice of those vir tues which conduce to the preservation of our health. Tillotson.

The better to satisfy this obligation, you have early cultivated the genius you have to arms.

Dryden.

Vain wretched creature, how art thou misled, To think thy wit these godlike notions bred! These truths are not the product of thy mind, But dropt from heaven, and of a nobler kind: Revealed religion first informed thy sight, And reason saw not, till faith sprung the light. Thus man by his own strength to heaven would soar, And would not be obliged to God for more. Id.

Let this fair princess but one minute stay, A look from her will your obligements pay. Id. Where is the obligation of any man's making me a present of what he does not care for himself?

L'Estrange.

They look into them not to weigh the obligingness, but to quarrel with the difficulty of the injunctions: not to direct practice, but excuse prevarications. Decay of Piety. Happy the people who preserve their honour By the same duties that oblige their prince!

Addison's Cato. Monseigneur Strozzi has many curiosities, and is very obliging to a stranger who desires the sight of them. Addison.

Eugenius informs me very obligingly, that he never thought he should have disliked any passage in my paper.

Id. If

The law must oblige in all precepts, or in none. it oblige in all, all are to be obeyed; if it oblige in none, it has no longer the authority of a law.

Rogers. No ties can bind that from constraint arise, Where either's forced, all obligation dies.

Granville. To those hills we are obliged for all our metals, and with them for all the conveniencies and comforts of life. Bentley. When interest calls off all her sneaking train, When all the' obliged desert, and all the vain, She waits or to the scaffold or the cell.

Pope. Obliging creatures! make me see All that disgraced my betters, met in me. Id. So obliging that he ne'er obliged.

Id. them

A people long used to hardships look upon selves as creatures at mercy, and that all impositions laid upon them by a stronger hand are legal and obligatory. Swift.

If this patent is obligatory on them, it is contrary to acts of parliament and therefore void.

I see her taste each nauseous draught,
And so obligingly am caught;

Id.

I bless the hand from whence they came,
Nor dare distort my face for shame.
Id. Miscellanies.

little time; whereas a man who, by long negligence A man who owes a little can clear it off in a very owes a great deal, despairs of being ever able to discharge the obligation, and therefore never looks into his accounts at all. Chesterfield.

OBLIGATION, in law, signifies a bond, wherein is contained a penalty, with a condition annexed for the payment of money, &c. The difference between it and a bill is, that the latter is generally without a penalty or condition, though it may be made obligatory; and obligations are sometimes, by matter of record, as statutes and recognizances.

OBLIQUATION, n. s. Lat. obliquatio, from obliquo. Declination from straightness or perpendicularity; obliquity.

The change made by the obliquation of the eyes, is less in colours of the densest than in thin subNewton's Optics.

stances.

OBLIQUE', adj. Fr. oblique; Lat. obOBLIQUE'LY, adv. liquus. Sideways; transOBLIQUE NESS, n. s. verse; not direct or perOBLIQUITY. pendicular; not parallel; applied to all the cases of nouns beside the nominative: obliqueness and obliquity both mean deviation from rectitude either lineal or moral. Has he given the lie

In circle or oblique or semicircle,

Or direct parallel you must challenge him.
Shakspeare,

All is oblique,

There is nothing level in our cursed nature But direct villany.

One by his view

Mought deem him born with ill-disposed skies,
When oblique Saturn sat in the house of the agonies.
Spenser.

There is in rectitude, beauty; as contrariwise in Hooker. ebliquity, deformity.

If sound be stopped and repercussed, it cometh about on the other side in an oblique line. Bacon. Which else to several spheres thou must ascribe, Moved contrary with thwart obliquities. Milton. Count Rhodophill, cut out for government and high affairs, and balancing all matters in the scale of his high understanding, hath rectified all obliquities.

Howel.

Bavaria's stars must be accused, which shone That fatal day the mighty work was done, With rays oblique upon the Gallic sun.

Id.

It has a direction oblique to that of the former motion. Cheyne.

Criticks form a general character from the observation of particular errors, taken in their own oblique or imperfect views; which is as unjust as to make a judgment of the beauty of a man's body from the shade it casts in such and such a position. Broome. Declining from the noon of day,

The sun obliquely shoots his burning ray. Pope. He composed much in the morning, and dictated in the day, sitting obliquely in an elbow chair, with bis leg thrown over the arm. Johnson.

OBLIQUE CIRCLE, in the stereographic projection, is any circle that is oblique to the plane of projection.

OBLIQUE DESCENSION is that point of the equinoctial which sets with the centre of the sun, or star, or other point of the heavens, in an oblique sphere.

OBLIQUE FORCE, or percussion, or power, or stroke, is that made in a direction oblique to a body or plane. It is demonstrable that the effect of such oblique force, &c., upon the body, is, to an equal perpendicular one, as the sine of the angle of incidence is to radius.

OBLIQUE LINE, that which, falling on another line, makes oblique angles with it, viz. one acute, and the other obtuse.

OBLIQUE PLANES, in dialling, are those which decline from the zenith, or incline towards the horizon. See DIAL.

OBLIQUE SAILING, in navigation, is when a ship sails upon some rhumb between the four cardinal points, making an oblique angle with

Considering the casualties of wars, transmigrations, especially that of the general flood, there might probably be an obliteration of all those monuments of antiquity that ages precedent at some time have yielded. Id. Origin of Mankind. These simple ideas, the understanding can no more refuse to have, or alter, or blot them out, than a mirrour can refuse, alter, or obliterate the images, Locke. which the objects set before it produce.

Let men consider themselves as ensnared in that unhappy contract, which has rendered them part of the devil's possession, and contrive how they may obliterate that reproach, and disentangle their mortDecay of Piety. gaged souls.

OBLIVION, n. s. Į Lat. oblivio. ForgetOBLIVIOUS, adj. fulness; non-remembrance; cessation of memory: oblivious, causing oblivion.

Water drops have worn the stones of Troy,,
And blind oblivion swallowed cities up,
And mighty states characterless are grated
To dusty nothing.

Shakspeare. Troilus and Cressida. Thou shouldst have heard many things of worthy memory, which now shall die in oblivion, and thou return unexperienced to thy grave. Shakspeare.

Raze out the written troubles of the brain, And with some sweet oblivious antidote Cleanse the foul bosom.

Id. Macbeth.

By the act of oblivion, all offences against the crown, and all particular trespasses between subject and subject, were pardoned, remitted, and utterly extinguished.

Davies.

Knowledge is made by oblivion, and, to purchase a clear and warrantable body of truth, we must forget Browne. and part with much we know.

Among our crimes oblivion may be set; But 'tis our king's perfection to forget. Dryden. Can they imagine that God has therefore forgot their sins, because they are not willing to remember. them? Or will they measure his pardon by their South. own oblivion.

The British souls
Exult to see the crowding ghosts descend
Unnumbered; well avenged, they quit the cares
Of mortal life, and drink the oblivious lake.

Philips.

Oh, born to see what none can see awake! Behold the wonders of the oblivious lake. Pope. How many good and generous actions have been sunk into oblivion by a distrustful look, or stampt with the imputation of proceeding from bad motives Sterne. by a mysterious and seasonable whisper ! OB'LONG, adj. French oblong; Lat. obOB'LONGLY, adv. longus. Longer than broad; in an oblong form.

}

The best figure of a garden I esteem an oblong upon a descent. Temple's Miscellanies. Every particle, supposing them globular or not very oblong, would be above nine million times their own length from any other particle. Bentley.

Thus a rectangled parallelogram, whose sides are unequal, is oblong; so also an ellipsis is oblong, o

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