790 
O R P 
OROU'ST, an ifland in the North Sea, near the weft 
coaft of Sweden, forty miles in circumference. Lat. 58. 
10 N. Ion. 11. 30. F,. 
OR'PjHA, [Heb. the neck.] A woman’s name. 
OR'PHA, in geography. See Ourfa. 
OR'PHAN,/! [o/ 7 tpxvog, Gr.] A child who has loft father 
or mother, or both.— Oolle&ions were made for the relief 
of the poor, whether widows or orphans. Ne/foti. 
Poor orphan in the wide world fcattered, 
As budding branch rent from the native tree, 
And thrown forth until it be withered : 
Such is the ftate of man. Spenfer. 
Among the Athenians, the orphans whofe fathers had 
loft their lives in the ferviceof their country, were under 
the guardianftiip of the polcmarchus, who was to provide 
them with a competent maintenance out of the public 
treafury. Chambers. 
Orphans and widows were, at an early period of the 
Homan iiiftory, exempted from taxation, to which all other 
perfons were fubjefled. This curious fait is mentioned 
in Plutarch’s life of Publicola. Bp. Watfon's Memoirs. 
In the city of London there is a court of record efta- 
blithed for the care and government of orphans. The 
lord-mayor and aldermen of London have the cuftody of 
orphans under age, and unmarried, of freemen that die ; 
and the keeping of their lands and goods; and, if they 
commit the cuftody of an orphan to any man, he fhall 
have a writ of ramjhment of ward, if the orphan be taken 
away; or the mayor and aldermen may imprifon the of¬ 
fender, until he produces the infant. If any one, with¬ 
out the confent of the court of aldermen, marries fuch an 
orphan under the age of twenty-one years, though out of 
the city, they may fine, and imprifon him until paid. 
Executors and adminiftrators of freemen dying, may be 
called upon to exhibit inventories of their eftates before 
the lord-mayor and aldermen in the court of orphans, and 
give fecurity to the chamberlain of London, by recogni¬ 
zance, for the orphan’s part; which, if they refufe to do, 
they may be committed to prifon until they obey. 
The lord-mayor and commonalty of London being an- 
fwerable for the orphans’ money paid into the chamber 
of the city, and having at length become indebted to 
the orphans and their creditors in a greater fum than they 
could pay ; it was enabled by 5 and 6 W. and M. c. 10. 
that the lands, markets, fairs, See. belonging to the city 
of London, fhalTbe chargeable for railing 8000I. to be 
appropriated for a perpetual fund for orphans ; and by 
^ 18 of the faid ftatute, “ no perfon fhall be compelled, by 
virtue of any cuftom in the city, to pay into the chamber 
of London any fum of money or perfonal eftate belonging 
to an orphan of any freeman for the future.” By ftat. 21 
Geo. II. c. 29. a duty of 6d. per chaldron on coals-,- given 
by the ftat. 5 and 6 W. and M. c. 10, towards theorphan- 
-debt, is continued for thirty-five years; and by ftat. 7 
Geo.III. c. 37, forforty-ftx years more ; and various pro- 
vifions are made for the fecurity and application of the 
orphans’ fund. See alfo the article London, vol. xiii. p. 
98, 597. 
OR'PHAN, adj. Bereft of parents.—This king, left or¬ 
phan both of father and mother, found his eftate, when 
he came to age, fo disjointed even in the nobleft and 
ftrongeft limbs of government, that the name of a king 
was grown odious. Sidney. 
OR'PHAN’s BANK, a fifhing-bank in the Gulf of St. 
Lawrence, fouth-eaft of Chaleur Bay. 
OR'PHAN I'SLAND, an ifland of North America,at 
the mouth of thePenobfcot river, ccntainingabout 10,000 
aC res. 
OR'PHAN’s I'SLAND, an ifland in Lake Ontario. 
OR'PHAN AGE, or Orphanism, f . State of an orphan. 
OR'PPIANAGE, adj. Belonging- to orphans : a Lon¬ 
don law-term.—In London, the (hare of the children (or 
orphanage part) is not fully veiled in them till the age of 
twenty-one. Blachjlone. 
OR'PHANED, adj. Bereft of parents or friends.—For 
O R P 
this orphaned world, the Holy Spirit made the like chari¬ 
table provifion. Warburton. 
So wept Lorenzo fair Clariffa’s fate, 
Who gave that angel-boy on whom he doats, 
And dy’d to give him, orphan'd in his birth. Young. 
ORPHANOT'ROPHY, f An hofpital for orphans. 
ORPHE'AN, adj. Belonging to Orpheus. 
OR'PHELIN, f [French.] An orphan. Obfolete. 
OR'PHEUS, a celebrated poet, niuftcian, and legiftator, 
of antiquity. Of his great reputation as a muficiam, and 
his claims to the invention or improvement of the lyre, 
we have already fpoken at length, under the article Music, 
vol. xvi. p. 353,4. 
Notwithflanding, however, the great celebrity he had 
fo long enjoyed, there is a paftage in Cicero, which fays, 
that Ariftotle, in the third book of his Poetics, (which 
is now loft,) doubted if fuch a perfon as Orpheus ever exifted. 
But, as the work of Cicero, in which this paftage occurs, 
is in dialogue, it is not eafy to diicover what was his own 
opinion upon the fubjeft, the words cited being put into 
the mouth of Caius Cotta. And Cicero, in other parts of 
his writings, mentions Orpheus as a perfon of whofe ex- 
iftence he had no doubt. 
There are feveral ancient authors, among whom is 
Suidas, who enumerate five perfons of the name of Or¬ 
pheus, and relate fome particulars of each : and it is very 
probable that it has fared with Orpheus as with Hercules, 
and that writers have attributed to one the atlions of 
many. But, however that may have been, we fhall not at¬ 
tempt to collect all the fables that have been invented con¬ 
cerning him ; we fhall make ufe only of fuch materials as 
the belt ancient hiftorians, and the inoft refpeflable writers 
among the moderns, have furnifhed towards his hiftory. 
Dr. Cudworth, in his Inteile&ual Syftem, after exami¬ 
ning and confuting the objections that have been made 
to the being of an Orpheus, and with his ufual learning 
and ability clearly eftablifhing bis exiftence, proceeds, 
in a very ample manner, to fpeak of the opinions and 
writings of our bard, whom he regards not only as the 
firft mufician and poet of antiquity, but as a great my- 
thologill, from whom the Greeks derived the Thracian 
religious rites and myfteries. “ It is the opinion (fays 
he) of fome eminent philologers of later times, that there 
never was any fuch perfon as Orpheus, except in fairy¬ 
land ; and that his whole hiftory was nothing hut a mere 
romantic allegory,, utterly devoid of truth and reality. 
But there is nothing alleged for this opinion from anti¬ 
quity, except the one paftage of Cicero concerning Arif¬ 
totle ; who leems to have meant no more than this, that 
there was no fuch poet as Orpheus anterior to Homer, or 
that the verfes vulgarly called Orphical were not written 
by Orpheus. But, even if it fhould be granted that Arif¬ 
totle had denied the exiftence of fuch a man, there feems 
to be no reafon why his fingle teftimony fhould preponde¬ 
rate againft the univerfal confent of all antiquity; which 
agrees that Orpheus was the foil of Oeagrus, by birth a Thra¬ 
cian, the father or chief founder of the mythological and 
allegorical theology amongft the Greeks, and of all their 
moft facred religious rites and myfteries ; who is com¬ 
monly fuppofed to have lived before the Trojan war, that 
is, in the time of the Ifraelitifh judges, or at leaft to have 
been feniorboth to Hefiod and Homer, and to have died 
a violent death ; moft affirming that he was torn in pieces 
by women, becaufe their lnifbands deferred them in order 
to follow him. The hiftoric truth of Orpheus was not 
only acknowledged by Plato, hut alfo by Ifocrates, who 
lived before Ariftotle, in his oration in praife of Bufiris ; 
and confirmed by the grave hiftorian Diodorus Siculus, 
who fays, that Orpheus diligently applied himfelf to lite¬ 
rature, and, when he had learned t« p.vfto'Koyup.tia., or 
the my thological part of theology, he trav.elled into Egypt, 
where he foon became the greateft proficient among the 
Greeks in the myfteries of religion, theology, and poetry. 
Neither was his hiftory of Orpheus contradicted by Ori- 
gen, when fo juftly provoked by Celfus, who had pre¬ 
ferred 
