13 OVIEDO Y VALDES, GONZALO FERNANDEZ DEL 



OWEST, RICHARD. 



614 



Ovid wrote also one tragedy at least, the ' Medea ' (' Trist.,' ii.), which 

 is highly spoken of by Quintilian ('lust. Or.,' x. 1), and by Tacitus 

 (' De Orat Dialog.,' 1 2). There are various other small poems attributed 

 to him, perhaps without good reason. 



The editions of the collected and separate poems of Ovid are 

 numerous. The best edition of his complete works ia by Barmaun, 

 4 vols. 4to, Amsterdam, 1727. The French translations of the various 

 poems, which are very numerous, are mentioned at the end of a long 

 article on Ovid in the ' Biographie Universelle.' There ar numerous 

 English translations. 



The best translation of Ovid into English verse \a ' Ovid's Meta- 

 morphosis, in Fifteen Books, translated by the most Eminent Hands,' 

 fol, London, 1717. There have been numerous reprints of this version. 

 The translators were Dryden, Addison, Congreve, Rowe, Gay, Ambrose 

 Phillips, Garth, Croxall, and Sewell. Sandys translated the first five 

 books, fol., London, 1627 ; and separate books have been translated 

 by others. There ia a literal prose translation by Clarke, 8vo, London, 

 1735 ; and there is another prose translation, London, 1748. There 

 are many translations of the ' Art of Love,' one by Dryden, Congreve, 

 Ac., as well as of the ' Heroical Epistles,' one by Quarles, 8vo, London, 

 1673; and there are translations in verse or prose, or both, of the 

 ' Fasti ' and the other works. 



It is hardly necessary to remark that a translation of Ovid into 

 English can have little value. A great part of his merit consists in hia 

 language ; and it U impossible to render the meaning of the original, 

 except by periphrasis and paraphrase, which hardly convey the 

 meaning, and most certainly destroy the beauty of that which is a 

 work of consummate art. 



OVIE'DO Y VALDE'S, GONZALO FERNANDEZ DE, one of 

 the earliest historians of the New World, was born at Madrid in 1478. 

 Being of noble Asturian descent, he was at the age of twelve introduced 

 into the royal palace aa one of the pages of Prince John of Ca-ttile, the 

 ion of Ferdinand and Isabella. lie continued with the court several 

 years, and was present, though a boy, at the closing campaigns of the 

 Moorish war which preceded the surrender of Granada (1490-92). In 

 1514, according to his own statement, he embarked for the West 

 Indies, where, although he revisited his native country several times, 

 he continued during the remainder of his life. Oviedo occupied several 

 Important posts under the government : he was made governor of the 

 fort and harbour of Santo Domingo in the island of Uispaniola, or 

 Hayti, and captain of a company of infantry. Charles V. appointed 

 him also to an office of a literary nature, for which he was highly 

 qualified by his vast learning and his long residence in the New World, 

 that of historiographer of the Indies. It was in this capacity that he 

 produced his principal work, ' Historia General de las Indias,' in fifty 

 books, twenty of which, making the first part, were printed for th i 

 first time at Seville in 1535, fol. : a copy of this scarce edition, with 

 the author's signature appended to it, which belonged ones to Sir 

 Joseph Banks, is in the British Museum. It was reprinted at Salamanca 

 in 1547, fol.; and again at Yalladolid in 1557. A new edition by D. 

 J. Amador de los Rios, was begun to be published by the Real Academia 

 de U Historia, Madrid, 4to, 1851, but is not yet completed. It was 

 translated into French by Jean J'oleiir, and published at Paris in 1556, 

 fol. A summary of this work is also inserted in Barcia'a collection of 

 the ' Historiadores Primitives de las Indias Occidentals,' fol, Madrid, 

 1749. Oviedo wrote likewise 'Tratado de la Natural Historia de las 

 Indias,' Toledo, 1526, a summary of which, by B. C. A.ribao, in vol. xxii. 

 of the'BibL Autores Espauoles,'8vo, 1849; besides two tracts respecting 

 the ' Palo de Guayacau ' (the Guayocum officinal* of Linnaeus) and the 

 ' Palo Santo ' (Lignum vita), which are translated into Latin in the first 

 volume of the collection, ' Scriptorum de Morbo Gallico.' But the work 

 for which Oviedo is celebrated, though known only to a few scholars, 

 U his ' Quinquagenas,' so entitled from its consisting of fifty dialogues, 

 in which the author is the chief interlocutor. This interesting pro- 

 duction contains a very full notice of the principal persons in .Spain, 

 their lineage, revenue", and arm*, with an inexhaus ible fund of private 

 anecdote, all which renders it a most valuable addition to the history 

 of that time. This work however still remains in manuscript, in 

 three folio volumes, in tbe National Library of Madrid, and it ia only 

 through the extracts of Navarrete that we are enabled to estimate its 

 contents. Oviedo has been accused of treating the Indians employed 

 in the gold-mines with unjustifiable cruelty. His ' History of India' 

 too has been denounced by no less an authority than Las Casas as a 

 wholesale fabrication, " as full of lies almost as pages ; " but there can 

 be no doubt that, though somewhat loose and rambling, he possessed 

 extensive stores of information, by which those who have followed him 

 have greatly profited. 



The time of Oviedo' s death is uncertain, but he must have lived to 

 a considerable age : he was still alive in December 1556, since the 

 original manuscript above alluded to, preserved in the library at 

 Madrid, is signed by him at the age of seventy-nine. 



OWEN, DR. JOHN, was born in 1616, at Stadham in Oxfordshire, 

 of which parish his father, Henry Owen, was for some time minister. 

 At the age of twelve he was admitted a student at Quean's College, 

 Oxford, where he took hU first degree in 1032. During the period of 

 bis university life be is represented an having so diligently applied 

 himself to study that he never allowed himself more than four hours 

 repose. In 1037 Archbishop Laud, the chancellor of the university, 



made some new regulations, of which Owen disapproved, and, as he 

 refused to comply with them, he was obliged to leave Oxford. 

 Brought up by his father in the strictest school of Puritanism he 

 considered the new statutes an attempt to enforce the observance of 

 superstitious rites. On leaving the university he accepted the situation 

 of chaplain to Sir Richard Dormer, of Ascot in Oxfordshire, having 

 been some time previous to his expulsion admitted iuto holy orders 

 by Bisbop Bancroft. He afterwards became chaplain to Johu, Lord 

 Lovelace, of Hurley in Berkshire, with whom he remained till the 

 outbreak of the civil war, when, as he warmly espoused the cause of 

 the Parliament, he forfeited the protection of his patron. Left to his 

 own resources Owen retired to London, where he appears to have 

 joined the Nonconformists. In 1642 he published his first work, 

 ' A Display of Armiuianism,' which soon recommended the author to 

 the notice of the Parliament, and became the foundation of hia future 

 advancement. He was shortly afterwards presented by the committee 

 appointed "to purge the Church of scandalous ministers" to the pre- 

 ferment of Fordham in Essex. He enjoyed this living little more 

 than a year, having been deprived of it by the patron, to whom it 

 had reverted on the death of the sequestered incumbent. Tho Earl 

 of Warwick then bestowed upon him the living of Cog'leshall in the 

 same county. Owen had not been long at Coggleshall before he aban- 

 doned the Presbyterian party to join that of the Independents. On 

 the 29th of April 1646, one of the frequent fast-days instituted by 

 the Puritans, he was called to preach before the Parliament, and his 

 sermon on that occasion evinced a larger spirit of religious toleration 

 than was prevalent among his party at that period. He still more 

 stron.'ly manifested his tolerant disposition when he was appointed to 

 the critical task of preaching before th/3 same assembly on the day 

 after the execution of Charles I. On the 28th of February following, 

 a day set apart for humiliation and prayer on account of the intended 

 expedition to Ireland, he Was again appointed to preach before the 

 Parliament and the chief officers of the army. On that occasion 

 Cromwell, who heard him for the first time, received so favourable aa 

 impression of his merit that he named him his chaplain, in which 

 capacity he accompanied the expedition. In 1651 Owen was by an 

 order of the Parliament promoted to the dignity of dean of Christ- 

 church, and the following year he became vice-chancellor of the Uni- 

 versity of Oxford Cromwell being at that time chancellor. He 

 appears to have discharged the peculiarly difficult duties of this office 

 with much moderation, and his conduct met with the approval of 

 many of the Episcopalian party. After holding it five years, on the 

 death of Cromwell he was deprived of it, as well as of his deanery, to 

 which Dr. Reynolds, a Presbyterian, was appointed. 



At the Restoration, Owen retired to a small estate which ha had 

 purchased in his native place, where he employed himself in preaching 

 as often as an opportunity was afforded him. He was however soon 

 obliged to abandon an occupation so congenial to his fe -lings by the 

 interruption of the Oxford militia, and he determined upon settling in 

 London. It was there that he published a work entitled ' Fiat Lux,' 

 in answer to the writings of a Franciscan friar, which attracted the 

 attention of Lord Clarendon. This statesman, who was anxious to 

 reconcile the most moderate of the nonconformist party, .offered Owen 

 immediate preferment if he would conform, which proposal however 

 was firmly though respectfully declined. He then formed a congre- 

 gation, among which he assiduously laboured, and in conjunction with 

 Baxter, Bates, aud other leading men of his persuasion, instituted the 

 Pinner's Hall Weekly Lecture. In 1677 he contracted a second 

 marriage, by which he was enabled to live in comparative affluence 

 on an estate at Ealing in Middlesex, where he died August 24, 1683. 



The private character of Dr. Owen has been praised equally by 

 those who were united with him by similarity of religious feeling and 

 by those who differed moat widely from him in opinion ; they all bear 

 testimony to the temperance of his language aud the mildness of his 

 disposition. This character is in a great measure reflected in his 

 works, which, while strongly tinctured by the peculiarities of the 

 Calvinutic system, are remarkable for their devotional spirit, and ar<* 

 calculated to encourage practical piety. He certainly belonged to that 

 section of his party whom Lord Clarendon designates as '' the more 

 learned and rational." (Clarendon, ' History of the Rebellion,' vol. v. 

 p. 153 ; sea Warburtou's note.) His works are very numerous : among 

 the best known of those not already alluded to may be mentioned - 

 1, his 'Exposition of the Epistle to the Hebrews;' 2, 'A Discourse 

 on the Holy Spirit,' 1674; 3, ' Vindiciae Evangelicae, &c., in answer to 

 T. Biddle," 1655; 4, ' &io\oy6vnem, sive de NaturA, Ortu, Progressu et 

 Studio verso Tneologiao,' 1661 ; 5, ' An Exposition of cxxx Psalm,' 

 1660 ; 6, ' On the Doctrine of Justification,' 1677 ; 7, ' The Nature of 

 Indwelling Sin,' 1668; 8, A large collection of Sermons and Tracts. 

 His last production was entitled ' Meditations aud Discourses on the 

 Glory of Christ,' which it is stated was sent to the press the day 

 he died. 



OWEN, RICHARD, a celebrated British naturalist, was born at 

 Lancaster in 1804. When very young he evinced a great love for the 

 sea, a predilection not unfrequeutly found amongst those whose 

 tastes lead them to the study of natural history. He accordingly 

 entered the navy as a midshipman on board the Tribune. He had 

 not however been long on board when his nautical career was cut 

 short by the termination of the Amoricau war, and the restoration 

 I 



