59 
O T T 
accefs to a mod valuable collection of manufcripts, he re- 
folved to examine thofe of the hidorical clafs, and to 
compile from them, a view of the various political changes 
produced by the followers of Mahomet, from the origin 
of their religion to the prefent time ; taking, as the foun¬ 
dation of his work, the writings of the celebrated Noviari, 
an hidorian of the fourteenth century, who, according to 
the tedimony of the abbe Longuerue, in his Hidory of 
the Arabs, is one of the mod authentic fources of infor¬ 
mation on that fubjeCt. In the year 1746, after complet¬ 
ing a part of this undertaking, he was appointed regius 
profeflbr of Arabic ; in 1748, he was eleCfed a member of 
the Academy of Infcriptions ; and foon after his admiluon 
he read, in that afiembly, a Diflertation on the Conqued 
of Africa by the Arabs, enriched with a great many 
learned obfervations, as a fpecimen of his propofed work; 
and this was to have been followed by another on the 
conqued of Spain; but, in confequence of his premature 
death, the work remained unfiniflied, as did feveral others 
which he had projected, and particularly a French tranf- 
lation of Dalin’s Hidory of Sweden, begun at the requed 
of his friend and patron Maurepas. He died of a putrid 
fever at Paris, in the month of September, 1749, before 
he had completed the forty-fecond year of his age. Otter 
was a man of great learning and integrity; mild in his 
manners, and of a moded deportment. Hijl. de l'Acad, 
des Infcriptions, tome xxiii. 
OT'TER BA'Y, a bay on the fouth coad of New¬ 
foundland, near Cape Ray. 
OT'TER CREE'K, a river of Kentucky, which runs 
into the Ohio in lat. 37.45. N. Ion. 86. 24. W. 
OT'TER CREE'K, a river of Virginia, which runs 
into the Staunton in lat. 36. 55. N. Ion. 79. 30. W. 
OT'TER CREE'K, a river of Vermont, which runs 
into Lake Champlain five miles north-wed Newhaven. 
Lat. 44. 13. N. Ion. 73. 20. W. 
OT'TER’s HEAD, a lofty rock on the north diore of 
Lake Superior, in lat. 48. 4. N. Ion. 85. 55. W. 
OT'TER PEAKS, a mountain of Virginia: one hun¬ 
dred miles wed of Richmond. 
OT'TERBACH, a river of France, which rifes near 
Weiffemburg, and runs into the Rhine about ten miles 
above Germerfheim. 
OT'TERBERG, late a town of France, in the depart¬ 
ment of Mont Tonnerre: five miles north of Kayfer- 
flautern. 
OT'TERBURN, a village in the county of Northum¬ 
berland, near Elfdon. This was the field of battle be¬ 
tween the Englifh and Scots in 1388, wherein Henry Percy, 
called Hotfpur, was taken prifoner, and Douglas, the 
Scots general, was killed. On this battle was founded 
the delightful old ballad of Chevy-chafe, the village being 
fituated by the river Rhead, on the fouth fide of the 
Cheviot Hills. The entrenchments are dill vilible, and a 
number of tumuli fcattered over the adjacent ground, to 
mark to future ages the daughter made there. 
Rocheder is another little village near Otterburn to the 
north-wed, on the Watling-dreet road, and on the river 
Rhead, near the fource of it. It has furnifhed fome Ro¬ 
man antiquities, as altars, infcriptions, See. 
OT'TERBURN, a fmall village in Hampfliire, about 
midway between Wincheder and Southampton, being fix 
miles from each. Near this is Cranbury, the feat of fir 
Nathaniel Dance, bart. which commands delightful prof- 
pe&s of the Ifle of Wight, Southampton-river, &c. It is 
an extenfive manfion, with fuitable offices, gardens, &c. 
well docked with exotics, and every necedary. A beau¬ 
tiful ruin of an obelilk lies in the park.—Silkdead is to 
the right of Otterburn, and Biffiop’s Stoke to the left. 
In this lad pariffi is the hamlet of Fairoak. 
OT'TERSBERG, a town of the duchy of Bremen, 
defended by a fort with four badions : thirty-four miles 
fouth of Stade, and fixteen ead of Bremen. Lat. 53. 9. N. 
Ion. 9.11. E. 
OT'TERSEE, a town of the duchy of Bremen ; two 
miles from Otterlberg. 
O T T 
OT'TERTON, a village in Devonlhire, near the influx 
of the river Otter into the fea, on the fouth-wed fide of 
Sidmouth ; with two fairs, on Wednefday in Eader-week, 
and the fird Wednefday after Off. 10. It had formerly a 
priory. 
At a village near this place, in the year 1814, a curious 
antique purfe was dug up, of which the following ac¬ 
count, comprehending alfo fome intereding particulars 
relating to Otterton and its priory, was lent to the Anti¬ 
quarian Society. 
“ In taking down a hedge fome time fince, near the 
dream at the wedern extremity of the village of Budleigh- 
Salterton, there was found, under the root of an elm, a 
curious antique, which deferves the attention of fuch as 
are fond of antiquarian refearch. The material of which 
it is made is metal, which appears to be of a mixed na¬ 
ture, containing a large proportion of brafs, and fome- 
what refembling bronze. It confids of an oblong ring, 
fufficiently large to admit the middle joints of a mode- 
rately-lized fore-finger, to which is hung, on a pivot, a 
fmall beam, like the beam of a pair of fcales, fix inches 
and a half in length, and half an inch in breadth; from 
the end of this beam is fufpended a double oblate thin 
frame, the two parts of which are joined by a hinge on 
each fide, and open nearly in the manner of the deel frame 
of a modern card-purfe, and, when open, prefent a per¬ 
fect ellipfe. The frame is nearly eight inches in its longed 
diameter, four inches and a half in its Ihorted, and about 
a quarter of an inch in thicknefs. The metal is fome- 
what corroded by lapfe of time, but not fo much as to 
render the infeription on it incapable of being deciphered. 
The letters are engraved, and the cavities have been filled 
up by fome metallic fubdance of a lighter colour, which 
appears to be neither filver nor lead, as it yields no im- 
preffion to any indrument, but cracks on being drongly 
prefied by a knife. The motto on the beam, is the fa- 
lutation of the angel Gabriel to the Virgin JVIary, in 
fmall old Englifli charafters : Ave Maria Gra plena, 
is on one fide; and, on the other, Dominus tecum. 
On each half of the oblate frame is inferibed, in Roman 
capitals, Soli Deo honor et gloria. Its form diows 
it mod clearly to have been the frame of a purfe, which 
was affixed to it by threads palling through four-and- 
twenty holes, the perforations dill remaining. The in¬ 
feription proves it to have been intended for facred ufe, 
being dedicated to the honour and glory of God. There 
is only one.purpofe for which a purfe is ufed in the per¬ 
formance of divine offices in the Romiffi church ; and 
that is for conveying the filver vafe, containing the con- 
fecrated oil, for the adminidration of extreme unCtion. 
But how could a purfe of this defeription find its way to 
fo remote a corner as Budleigh-Salterton ? It is clearly 
afeertained, by the evidence of various authentic records, 
many of them dill exiding in the Tower, or Court of Ex¬ 
chequer, infpeCted by fir William Pole in preparing his 
collections towards a Hidory of Devonfhire, and par¬ 
ticularly fpecified by biffiop Tanner in his Notitia Mo- 
nadica, that William the Conqueror, who didributed 
many allotments of his newly-acquired territory among 
his Norman fubjeCls, conferred upon the abbey of St. 
Michael, in periculo maris, in Normandy, the didridt 
bounded on the ead by the river Syd, on the wed and 
north by the Otter, and on the fouth by the Britifh 
Channel. This traCt of land has a lofty ridge of hills 
palling through it, and terminated towards the fea by 
Peak-hill, which fuggeded the obvious divifion of it into 
two diftiniS manors, now condituting the two parilhes of 
Sidmouth and Otterton. In each of thefe the abbey of 
St. Michael founded a priory of BenediCtine or black 
monks, which, on the fuppreffion of alien priories, were 
annexed to the monadery of Sion in Middlelex, (1 Ed. IV.) 
and, at the general dilfolution of monaderies, they were 
granted (31 Hen. VIII.) as parcel of the endowments of 
Sion, to John Duke, who made the priory-houfe at Ot¬ 
terton, the principal part of. which dill exids, his place 
of refidence; and in the pofleffion of whofe family it con¬ 
tinued 
