573 



ONKELOS. 



OPIE, AMELIA. 



574 



was destroyed by fire. Onatas cast the new statue from a picture or 

 wooden image of the former one, assisted by a vision in a dream : it 

 had a horse's head. He made also a statue of Apollo, at Pergamos, 

 magnificent for its size and its workmanship. Onatas made also the 

 bronze chariot of Hiero, dedicated by his eon Deinomenes at Olympia 

 in honour of his father's victories in the games : the horses and riders 

 were by Calamis. He made also, together with Calynthus, an artist 

 otherwise unknown, the monument dedicated by the Tarentines at 

 Delphi : they sent a tenth of the spoils taken from the Peucetii, a 

 neighbouring barbarous people. The offerings consisted of several 

 figures of warriors on foot and on horseback : Opis, king of the 

 rapyeea, who assisted the I'eucetii, was represented dying; near him 

 stood the hero Taras, and Phalanthus, by whom was a dolphin : 

 Phalanthus was saved from shipwreck in the Crisssean sea and brought 

 oil shore by a dolphin. 



Onataa is mentioned only once as a painter. He decorated with 

 Polygnotua the walla of the vestibule of the temple of Minerva Areia 

 at Platsea. Onataa painted the first expedition of the Argives against 

 Thebes. He probably also painted at Platxa the picture of Euryganea 

 lamenting the death of her sons Eteocles and Polynices killed by each 

 other's hands ; which, according to Sylburgiua, is by a manuscript 

 error attributed to Onasias, otherwise not mentioned. Bottiger sup- 

 poses Micon the father of Onatas to be the celebrated Athenian painter 

 of that name. 



(Pausanias, v. 25, 27, vi. 12, viii. 42, ix. 4, 6, x. 13 ; Junius, Cotaloffiu 

 A rtificum ; Thiersch, Epochen der Blldenden Kuntl unter den Griechen ; 

 Bottiger, Ideen zur Archdoloyie der Ma/tlerei.) 



O'NKELOS was the author of the most celebrated of the Targums, 

 or Chaldee paraphrases of the Old Testament. The age at which he 

 lived cannot be determined with any certainty. Jahn concludes from 

 his style that he wrote not Liter than the 2nd or 3rd century. The 

 Babylonian Talmud states that ho was contemporary with Gamaliel ; 

 this would place him about the time of Christ. From the mention 

 made of him by the Babylonish Talmud, aud from the purity of his 

 language, which is much bettor Chaldee than that used in Palestine, 

 and approaches more nearly than any other extant specimen of the 

 language to the Chaldee in Daniel aud Ezra, Eichhorn supposes that 

 he was a native of Babylon. His Targum contains the Pentateuch 

 only. It is a faithful version, and corresponds so exactly with the 

 Hebrew text, that it used to be chanted to the same notes, alternately 

 with the Hebrew, in the Jewish synagogues, down to the beginning of 

 the ICth century. This Targum is not mentioned by Origen or 

 Jerome, which may perhaps be accounted for by the circumstance 

 that Origen did not know Chaldee, and that Jerou:e only learnt it late 

 in life. The Targum of Oukelos is printed in the Antwerp aud Com- 

 plutensian Polyglotts, in Buxtorf's Hebrew Bible, and in Walton's 

 Polyglott It has be.-n published separately at various times. The 

 edition which has been generally followed is that of Venice, 1518, 

 and 1525-26. It has been translated into Latin by Alfoutode Zamora, 

 Paulus Fagius, Bernardinus Baldua, aud Andrew de Leon of Zamora. 



ONSLOW, GEORGE, an eminent French composer, was born at 

 Clermont in Auvergne (now the department of Puy-de-Dume), in 1784. 

 He was of a noble English family; his father, the Honourable-Edward 

 Onslow, the youngest son of the Earl of Onslow, having married a 

 French lady and settled in France. George Onslow, having at an early 

 age shown a rnuiical genius, was carefully instructed in the art. He 

 learned the pianoforte under Dussek and Cramer, and studied harmony 

 aud composition under the celebrated Reicha, professor of the Conser- 

 vatoire. Born of wealthy parents, aud himself married to a rich lady 

 of Rouen, he livid, in bis native town, the uneventful life of an amateur, 

 devoted to his art, which he cultivated with such ardour and success 

 as to gain a place among the distinguished arti-.ta of his time. He 

 died, in 1853, in his sixty-ninth year. Onslow's works are numerous. 

 He composed two operas 'L' Alcalde de la Vega," and 'Le Colporteur,' 

 both produced at the Opera Comiquo with great success, the one in 

 1824, the other in 1827. But his principal compositions are instru- 

 mental : they consist of quartets and quintets for stringed instruments, 

 and sonatas and other pieces for the pianoforte. All of them are 

 known to and prized by the musical world; but the most highly 

 esteemed are his quintets for two violins, viola, and two violoncellos, 

 or violoncello aud double-has?. These are remarkable, not only fur 

 their peculiar combination of instruments, but for their masterly con- 

 struction and beautiful effects; and they are consequently in frequent 

 u e by our most distinguished concert- perform era. 



OORT, ADAM VAN, son of Lambert Van Oort, was born at 

 Antwerp in 1557. He derived his instruction from his father, and 

 soon rose into esteem as a painter of history, and likewise as an able 

 painter of landscapes. Van Oort' 8 greatest honour however is, that he 

 was the first instructor of Rubens, whose works have immortalised his 

 master's name as well as big own. 



'! hough in liis best time his composition was agreeable and the 

 drawing correct, he neglected the stuily of nature, and was entirely a 

 mannerist. In his latter time his performances had little to recom- 

 mend them except freedom of handling and good colouring. Yet, 

 with all bis defects, be was looked upon as a good painttr ; and Rubens 

 uaed to say that if he had studied at Rome, he would have surpassed 

 all his contemporaries. He died in 1C41, aged eighty-four. 



OPIE, JOHN, the ion of a carpenter at St. Agues near Truro in 



Cornwall, in which parish he was born in 1761, was one of those artists 

 who may be said to have been gifted with an intuitive feeling guiding 

 them towards a destination against which all circumstances appear to 

 conspire. The humble condition of his family was the least obstacle; 

 for besides that, there was nothing around him either to awaken his 

 perceptions of art or to encourage his early attempts in it. Intending 

 to bring him up to his own trade, his father was much more disposed 

 to check what he considered an idle boyish pastime than to foster 

 proofs of dawning talent. Opie however, undeterred by his father's 

 disapprobation, began to take likenesses of his relations and neighbours, 

 the fame of which productions caused him to be regarded as a prodigy, 

 and attracted the notice of Dr. John Wolcot (Peter Pindar), then 

 practising as a physician at Truro. The Doctor possessed some know- 

 ledge of painting, and took Opie into his house in the double capacity 

 of his prote'gd and his footboy. How long he remained beneath 

 Wolcot's roof is uncertain ; some time after quitting it he came to the 

 metropolis under the doctor's immediate care aud protection. In the 

 time between leaving his service and coming up to town, he pursued 

 his art as an itinerant portrait-painter, and with such success, that 

 though his charges never amounted to the value of any gold coin, he 

 was able not only to make a smart appearance, but to remit money to 

 his mother. 



On arriving at London with Wolcot in 1781 he was introduced to 

 Sir J. Reynolds, whom he found more liberal of advice than lavish of 

 expressions of astonishment at the talents of an untaught lad. Wolcot's 

 object however, was to secure immediate fame for his protege' as a 

 miraculous genius, and distinction for himself as a discriminating and 

 generous patron. Aware that the public are always ready to meet any 

 novelty or wonder more than half way, the doctor took his measures 

 accordingly, and with such success, that within a very short time his 

 Cornish lad became almost the rage among the fashionable world. 

 Visitors and sitters so thronged around him, that their carriages 

 literally crowded the street where he resided. But people canuut 

 wonder for ever : thw fever of fashionable admiration subsided almost 

 as rapidly as it had come on; and Op'ie was comparatively deserted. 

 In fact he was ill-suited to become a permanent favourite with the 

 fashionable ; there was nothing engaging in his person and address, no 

 flattery either in his language or his pencil, which latter possessed 

 much more of vigour and homely truth than of grace and artificial 

 refinement ; and he succeeded far better with male heads and strongly 

 marked countenances than with females and with pretty faces. When 

 it had subsided however, the tide of fashionable patronage left him in 

 comfortable circumstances. He further sought to establish his inde- 

 pendence by marrying the daughterof a wealthy pawnbroker, but the 

 match proved a most unhappy one, and he was glad to obtain a divorce. 

 In 1798 he married a secoud time, to Miss Amelia Alderson, who subse- 

 quently became one of the most popular novelists of the day, and in 

 whom he found an intellectual companion aud judicious adviser. [OriK, 

 AMELIA.] 



Instead of abandoning portrait-painting on the discouragement imme- 

 diately following his first success, Opie divided his attention between 

 that and historical painting, iu which latter his best known productions 

 are 'The Murder of James I. of Scotland;' the 'Death of David 

 Rizzio;' 'Arthur taken prisoner;' 'Hubert and Arthur;' ' Belisarius ;' 

 'Juliet in the garden,' &c. None of these works affect ideal beauty or 

 refined poetical conception, but they are stamped by energy of stj le, 

 and by vivid reality ; for instead of attending to conventional beauties, 

 the artist adhered closely to his models ; one fortunate consequence of 

 which was the striking truth of his colouring. 



Opie's education had been exceedingly limited, aud was in no degree 

 a literary one. Sensible of his deficiency in that respect, he sought to 

 repair it in after-life by studying the best English authors, and having 

 a clear judgment and a strong memory, distinguished him.-e.lt' in conver- 

 sation by his force of intellect. Thus qualified he aspired to the 

 professorship of painting at the Royal Academy, having previously 

 delivered a course of lectures at the British Institution ; but he with- 

 drew on finding himself opposed by Fuseli. When Fuseli was obliged 

 to resign on being appointed Keeper, Opie agaiu offered himself as 

 candidate, aud was elected. He delivered only four lectures (after- 

 wards published by his widow), in the mouths of February and March, 

 1807. On the 9th of the following April he died, and was buried on 

 the 20th in St. Paul's cathedral, near Sir J. Reynolds. 



OPIE, AMELIA, the wife of the preceding, was the daughter and 

 only child of Dr. James Alderson, a physician of Norwich, where she 

 was born on November 12, 1769. Her mother, a woman of consider- 

 able talent, attended to the care of her daughter's education, but she 

 died in 1784, and the daughter assumed the position of mistress in her 

 father's house, aud became his companion. Handsome and lively, 

 possessing musical talents, her company was much sought, and she 

 enjoyed society thoroughly, but it did not tend to solidify her mind. 

 Very early in life also she took a fancy to attend the trials in the 

 as&izo courts, which she continued to frequent even at an advanced 

 age. Her father was an admirer likewise of the principles advocated 

 iu the early stages of the French revolution; these his daughter 

 adopted, and she was present at the trial of Home Tooke and his 

 associates for high treason, of which she wrote home an account. Iu 

 this whirl of social life, law, and politics, she had the judgment to 

 form her friendships among persons distinguished for their virtues and 



