850 



OSNABRUCK--OSSUNNA. 



lar to that from which it was produced. From this 

 solution, acids separate the oxide of osmium. Oxide 

 of osmium becomes of a dark colour with alcohol, 

 and after some time separates in the form of black 

 films, leaving the alcohol without colour. The same 

 effect is produced by ether, and with greater rapidity. 

 It parts with its oxygen to all the metals except gold 

 and platina. Silver, kept in a solution of it some 

 time, acquires a black colour, but does not deprive 

 it entirely of smell. Copper, zinc, tin, and phos- 

 phorus quickly produce a black or gray powder, and 

 deprive the solution of smell and of the property of 

 turning galls blue. This black powder, which con- 

 sists of the metallic osmium, and the oxide of the 

 metal employed to precipitate it, may be dissolved 

 in nitro-muriatic acid, and then becomes blue with 

 the infusion of galls. If the pure oxide, dissolved 

 in water, be shaken with mercury, it soon loses its 

 smell, and the metal forms a perfect amalgam. By 

 squeezing the superfluous mercury through leather, 

 and distilling oft' the rest, a dark-gray or blue powder 

 is left, which is the osmium. 



OSNABRUCK ; a principality of the kingdom of 

 Hanover, formerly a bishopric in the circle of West- 

 phalia, whose bishops, after the peace of Westphalia, 

 were alternately Catholic and Protestant. The 

 principal rivers are the Hase and the Hunte. It has 

 137,000 inhabitants, with a superficial area of 9100 

 square miles. The principal place of the same, called 

 also in English Osnaburg, lies on the Hase, and is 

 known in history by its having been the place for the 

 conferences of the Protestant ambassadors in conclud- 

 ing the peace of Westphalia (q. v.), in 1648. The 

 population is 10,900, engaged in the manufacture of 

 coarse woollen cloths, leather and tobacco. There 

 are also several linen bleach-fields ; and the coarse 

 linens called Osnaburgs are brought in from the sur- 

 rounding country to be measured and stamped. Lat. 

 52 16' N. ; Ion. 8 1' E. ; 70 miles W. of Hanover. 

 See Hanover. 



OSPREY; the fish-hawk. See Eagle. 



OSSIAN (Oisiari), the most celebrated of the Cel- 

 tic bards, real or fabulous, is supposed to have flour- 

 ished about 300 A. D. He was the son of Fingal, 

 a Caledonian, or, according to the Irish writers, an 

 Irish hero. Ossian is said, like some of the cele- 

 brated poets of antiquity, to have been blind, and to 

 have soothed his anguish for the loss of his favourite 

 son, Oscar, by the composition of his songs. His 

 name has derived its celebrity from the publications of 

 Macpherson. (q. v.) In 1760, Macpherson published a 

 volume, entitled Remains of Ancient Poetry, collected 

 in the High lands of Scotland, and translated from the 

 original Gaelic or Erse Language. He was then sent 

 to the Highlands to make further collections, and, in 

 1 762, published the Fingal, with sixteen smaller poems, 

 and, in 1763, Temora, with five smaller ones. The 

 best edition of these Ossianic poems is that of Camp- 

 bell, with illustrations (1822). Macpherson declared 

 the poems to be translations from Gaelic odes of the 

 bard Ossian, which had been preserved, partly by oral 

 tradition, and were partly found in manuscripts. The 

 titles are taken from the name of the hero whose deeds 

 they celebrate, or fcom that of the place where the 

 events occur. Their genuineness was called in 

 question by the reviewers on their first appearance, 

 by Johnson (1775), Shaw (1761), Waller, and more 

 particularly by Laing, in his History of Scotland, and 

 in a separate dissertation on the subject. The other 

 side of the question was taken by Blair, Sinclair, 

 Home, Arthur, Young, &c., who proved that origi- 

 nals of Macpherson's English translations were to be 

 found in the Highlands, and were attributed to 

 Os-ian ; but there was nothing to show whether it 

 was the smne Ossian who flourished in the fourth 



century. The principal arguments against their 

 genuineness were derived from the state of manners 

 described in them being inconsistent with the wild 

 and barbarous condition of the country ; the impossi- 

 bility of their having been preserved for fourteen 

 centuries by oral communication only, and of theii 

 being intelligible, if preserved, to persons acquainted 

 only with the language of their own times. Yet it 

 could not be denied that the poems ascribed to 

 Ossian contained no allusions to Christianity, and 

 described a mode of life natural to the Highlanders 

 that they were entirely different from the old English 

 and Scotch ballads ; and that it was difficult to sup- 

 pose that Macpherson could have composed so much 

 poetry in so short a time, and still more improbable 

 that he could have composed it in Gaelic, a language 

 with which he was not very familiar. (He actually 

 published in Gaelic the seventh song of Temora.) 

 It was also suggested that had he been the real author, 

 he would not have been ready to transfer the honour 

 to another, and that their long preservation might 

 be accounted for by the attachment of the Highland- 

 ers to their heroic period, and by the existence of 

 bardic schools among them. In 1797, the Highland 

 society of Edinburgh appointed a committee to ex- 

 amine the subject, the Report of which, by Mac- 

 kenzie was published in 1805. In this it appeared 

 that traditions of the Ossianic heroes had been pre- 

 served in Ireland, and that several manuscripts exist- 

 ed containing ancient ballads. These traditions and 

 ballads, which had formed the subjects of the bardic 

 songs as late as the first part of the eighteenth cen 

 tury, formed, according to the Report, the ground- 

 work of Macpherson's Ossianic poems; he had trans- 

 lated them freely, connected them arbitrarily, and 

 made such changes, additions, and improvements as 

 he had thought proper. The longer epic poems, 

 Fingal and Temora, were by no means to be con- 

 ceived to have existed in their present form ; the 

 epic dress is altogether foreign from the originals, 

 which were short poetical descriptions. The general 

 subject of this whole series of ballads is the deliver- 

 ance of Erin from the haughty Swaran, king of Loch- 

 lin, by Fingal. Whatever was the origin of the 

 poems, they were admired by all the nations of 

 Europe, and translated into all the European lan- 

 guages. In 1807, the Highland society published 

 the Gaelic originals of fourteen Ossianic poems, with 

 a literal 'Latin translation by Macfarlane (Dana 

 Oisien ; new ed. Edinburgh, 1818, 3 vols). "The 

 last incident in their story," says Mackintosh, " is 

 perhaps the most remarkable. In an Italian version 

 (by Cesarotti), which softened their defects, and ren- 

 dered their characteristic qualities faint, they formed 

 almost the whole poetical library of Napoleon, a 

 man who must be owned to be, by the transcendent 

 vigour of his powers, entitled to a place in the first 

 class of human minds. No other imposture in literary 

 history approaches them in the splendour of their 

 course." The subjects of the Ossianic poems are 

 partly narrative and partly lyric heroic deeds of 

 war, vivid pictures of Highland nature, the praise 

 of better times past, complaints of wounded feeling, 

 &c. Their form is quite peculiar ; the language con- 

 cise and abrupt; in the original it is metrical. They 

 please by their successful delineation of the passions, 

 picturesque expressions, bold, but lovely images nnd 

 comparisons, their deep pathos, their tenderness ;;nd 

 melancholy tone. On the other hand, it has been 

 objected to them, that they are defective in the tlis- 

 crimination of character, and in variety of imagery. 

 OSSUNNA, DON PEDUO Y TELLEZ GiRON.duke of, 

 celebrated for his government of Naples and Sicily, 

 was born at Valladolid, in 1579. His grandfather, 

 viceroy of Naples, took him, when two years old, in 



