OLA OLEARIUS. 



OLA, or OOLA ; a Mongol word for mottiititi/i, 

 occurring in many geographical names. 



OLAVIDES, DON PABLO, count of Pilo, born at 

 Lima, in Peru, in 174O, went at an early age to 

 Madrid, where his talents and activity soon raised 

 him to important stations. He accompanied count 

 d'Aranda on his embassy to France, in the capacity 

 of secretary. Charles III. created him count, and 

 appointed him attendant of Seville. Olavides formed 

 several great and useful plans of public improvement, 

 particularly one for bringing the Morena into cultiva- 

 tion. Charges of heresy interrupted these projects, 

 and the man who had done so much to promote the 

 splendour and prosperity of his country, was con- 

 demned to imprisonment and monastic penances by 

 the inquisition, in 1778. In the third year of his con- 

 finement he succeeded, by the aid of his friends, in 

 escaping to Venice, whence he afterwards returned 

 to Spain, and died in 1803. A defence of religion 

 against infidelity El Evangelio en Triunfo, which, 

 in two years, passed through eight editions is attri- 

 buted to Olavides. 



OLDC ASTLE, Sm JOHN, (lord Cobham,) was born 

 in the fourteenth century, in the reign of Edward III. 

 and obtained his peerage by marrying the daughter 

 of lord Cobham. He excitedLthe resentment of the 

 clergy by his zealous adherence to the doctrines of 

 Wickliffe, whose works he collected and transcribed, 

 distributing them among the people. In the reign 

 of Henry IV. he was at the head of an English army 

 in France during the Orleans and Burgundian fac- 

 tions, and lie obliged the duke of Orleans to raise the 

 siege of Paris. Under Henry V. he was accused of 

 heresy ; but the king, with whom he was a favourite, 

 delayed the prosecutions against him, and tried to 

 reason with him, and to convince him of his alleged 

 errors, but in vain ; and he soon after left him to his 

 fate. He was then cited before the archbishop of 

 Canterbury, and not being able to satisfy his accusers, 

 he was condemned as a heretic, and committed to the 

 Tower, whence he escaped into Wales. A report 

 was then zealously circulated by the clergy, and sent 

 to the king, that 20,000 Lollards were assembled at 

 St. Giles's for his destruction, with lord Cobham at 

 their head. This accusation seems to have been 

 fully credited by Henry, though there does not ap- 

 pear to have been really the slightest foundation for 

 it, on which a bill of attainder was passed against lord 

 Cobham ; and he was burned alive in St. Giles's- 

 fields in 1417. He was a man of high spirit and 

 warm temper, which his misfortunes could not sub- 

 due. His acquirements were extensive, and his 

 thirst after knowledge first made him acquainted 

 with the doctrines of Wickliffe. In conversation, he 

 was remarkable for the poignancy and readiness of 

 his wit. He wrote Twelve Conclusions, addressed 

 to the Parliament of England, published in Bale's 

 Brefe Chronycle concernyng the Examynacyon and 

 Death of the blessed Martyr of Christ, Syr Johan 

 Oldecastle, the Lorde Cobham, which was reprinted 

 in 1729. 



OLDENBURG ; a duchy of the Germanic con- 

 federacy, in the north part of Germany, consisting of 

 three distinct parts Oldenburg proper and its de- 

 pendencies, bounded by the North sea and the Ha- 

 noverian territories (2332 square miles, 196,100 in- 

 habitants) ; the principality of Lubeck, surrounded 

 by Holstein and Lauenburg (200 square miles, 21,000 

 inhabitants) ; and the principality of Birkenfeld, 

 lying between the Prussian province of the Lower 

 Rhine and the duchy of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (190 

 square miles, 23,600 inhabitants). The principal 

 rivers are the Weser, the Trave, the Nahe. The 

 face of the country is in general very low, and is in- 

 tersected with numerous canals and dikes to drain off 



the waters and preserve it from inundation. A con- 

 siderable part of the country is sandy or marshy, and. 

 although agriculture is the principal occupation of 

 the inhabitants, does not yield corn enough to supply 

 their wants. The power of the duke is not limited 

 by the estates, which are convened merely for the 

 imposition of taxes. The revenue amounts to 

 1,500,000 guilders. The taxes are considered the 

 lowest in Germany. The duke of Oldenburg has, 

 with Anhalt and Schwartzburg, the fifteenth vote in 

 the Germanic diet, and by himself one vote in the 

 plenum. His contingent to the federal army is 2178 

 men. The capital of the duchy is Oldenburg, a 

 well-built city, with a handsome ducal palace lying 

 on the Hunte, which is navigable for small vessels. 

 Population, 5800. The house of Oldenburg is one 

 of the most ancient in Europe. The first count of 

 Oldenburg built the city of that name in 1155, and 

 his descendants have reigned in Denmark. In 1647, 

 the county of Oldenburg, together with that of Del- 

 menhorst, which had been united with it, passed, by 

 the extinction of the reigning branch, to the Danish 

 line. In 1773, the latter ceded Oldenburg, in ex- 

 change for Holstein, to the emperor of Russia, who 

 conferred it on his cousin, the bishop of Lubeck. 

 In 1777, Oldenburg, with Delmenhorst, was made a 

 duchy. Considerable additions were made to the 

 Oldenburg territories in 1803, most of which were 

 incorporated with the French empire in 1810 (com- 

 prised in the departments, Mouths of the Weser, and 

 Mouths of the Elbe), but restored by the congress 

 of Vienna, with the addition of the principality of 

 Birkenfeld in 1813. See Von Halem's History of 

 the Duchy of Oldenburg (in German) ; and Kohli's 

 Description of the Duchy of Oldenburg (in German, 

 Bremen, 1824) ; see also, the articles Europe and 

 Germany. 



OLDFIELD, ANN ; a celebrated English actress, 

 born at Westminster, in 1683. Her father held a 

 commission in the guards ; but, dying while she was 

 young, she was apprenticed to a seamstress. Her 

 talents attracted the notice of Farquhar, the author 

 of the Beaux' Stratagem, who introduced her to Sir 

 John Vanbrugh, through whose means she obtained 

 a theatrical engagement in 1699. She first distin- 

 guished herself -in the character of Alinda, in the 

 Pilgrim of Beaumont and Fletcher ; but it was not 

 till 1703, when she appeared as Leonora, in Sir 

 Courtly Nice, that her merits were properly appre- 

 ciated ; and, having the advantages of a good figure 

 and a fine voice, she soon became a general favou- 

 rite. Her great excellence lay in comedy, and the 

 parts of lady Betty Modish, in the Careless Husband, 

 and lady Townly, in the Provoked Husband, of Cib- 

 ber, were those in which she was most admired ; 

 but she sometimes also appeared in tragedy, and in 

 such characters as Calista and Cleopatra, her talents 

 were very conspicuous. She was the acknowledged 

 mistress of Mr Arthur Maynwaring for some years 

 previously to his death in 1712 ; and she afterwards 

 became connected with general Churchill. Her 

 death took place Oct. 23, 1730; and her corpse, 

 after lying in state, was interred in Westminster 

 abbey. 



OLD MAN OF THE MOUNTAINS. See 

 Aloadin. 



OLD STYLE. See Calendar. 



OLEARIUS, ADAM (properly CElschlitger), born 

 about 1600, at Aschersleben, in Halberstadt; after 

 finishing his studies at Leipsic, went to Holstein, and 

 became mathematician and librarian to the duke of 

 Holstein-Gottorp. In 1633, he was attached to a 

 legation to Moscow, and, in 1635, to a second lega- 

 tion to Russia and Persia. After his return in 1639, 

 Olearius published an accoTint of his travels (Neue 



