Encyclopaedia Britannica > Volume 15, NIC-PAR

into
O T W ( 605 j OVA
dream j and, upon the strength of his vision, they be¬
came, for the vulgar, objects of almost equal veneration
with the relicks of the primitive martyrs.”
OTRICOLI, a small town of Italy, in the ecclesia¬
stical state, and in the duchy of Spoletto, in E. Long. 12.
23. N. Lat. 42. 26. situated on a rising ground on the
frontiers of the patrimony of St Peter. From this town
is seen a fine plain, and some of the windings ©f the fa¬
mous river Tiber. The ruins that are scattered here
and there at the entrance of the plain, descending from
Otricoli, are thought to be the remains of the ancient
Otricolum •, they consist of some shapeless fragments of
columns, cornices, and otiier pieces of marble. In the
middle of the great street of Otricoli, there is a marble
pedestal, upon which you see an inscription, showing
they had erected a statue to Julia Lucilla, who had
built public baths at Otricoli at her own expence.
OTTER. See Mustela, Mammalia Index.
Otter of Roses. See Roses.
OTTERBURN, in England, near Ellesdou, in the
county of Northumberland, was the field of battle be¬
tween the English and Scots in 1388, wherein Henry
Percy, called Hotspur, wTas taken prisoner, and Dou¬
glas the Scotch general was killed. On this battle was
founded the delightful old balled of Chevy chase j the
village being situated by the river Rhead, on the south
side of the Cheviot hills. The entrenchments are still
visible and a number of tumuli scattered over the ad¬
jacent ground mark to future ages the slaughter made
there.
OTTERY, Sr Mary’s, a market town in Devon¬
shire, situated 159 miles west of London, and 10 miles
east of Exeter. The church is very ancient, and some¬
what resembles a cathedral A very extensive woollen
manufactory was lately established here by Sir George
Yonge, and Sir John Duntze, Barts. It has no corpo¬
ration. It derived its name, as some suppose, from the
river Otter, and that from the otters formerly found in
it. This town was given by King Edward the Confes¬
sor to the church of St Mary at Rouen in Normandy $
but was afterwards bought by Grandison bishop of Exe¬
ter j who made of it a quarter college in io Edward
III. and therein placed secular priests, with other mini¬
sters, to whom he gave the whole manor, parish tythes,
fines, spiritual profits, &c. which amounted to 304I. 2s.
lod. yearly. The population in 1811 was 2880.
OTWAY, Thomas, an eminent tragic poet, was
the son of Mr Humphry Otway, rector of Wolbeding
in Sussex j and was born at Trottin in that county
on the 3d of March 1651. He was educated at Ox¬
ford y when, leaving the university without a degree,
he retired to London, when he commenced player,
but with indifferent success. However, the sprightli-
ness of his conversation gained him the favour of Charles
Fitz-Charles earl of Plymouth, who procured him a
cornet’s commission in one of the new raised regiments
sent into Flanders ; but he returned from thence in very
necessitous circumstances, and applied himself again to
writing for the stage. In comedy he has been deemed
too licentious j which, however, was no great objection
to his pieces in the profligate days of Charles II. But,
in tragedy, few English poets have ever equalled him j
and perhaps none ever excelled him in touching the
passions, particularly the tender passion. There is ge¬
nerally something familiar and domestic in the fable of
his tragedies, and there is amazing energy in his expres- otwav
sion.—The heart that doth not melt at the distresses of ||
his Orphan must be hard indeed ! But though Otway Ovation,
possessed in so eminent a degree the rare talent of writ-
ing to the heart, yet he was not very favourably re¬
garded by some of his cotemporary poets, nor was he
always successful in his dramatic compositions. After
experiencing many reverses of fortune in regard to his
cirumstances, but generally changing for the worse, he
at last died wretchedly in a public house on Tower-hill j
whither, it is supposed, he had retired, in order to avoid
the pressure of his creditors. Some have said, that down¬
right hunger compelling him to fall too eagerly on a
piece of bread, of which he had been for some time in
want, the first mouthful choked him, and instantly put
a period to his days. Dr Johnson gives this account of
the matter: “ He died in a manner which I am unwil¬
ling to mention. Having been compelled by his ne¬
cessities to contract debts, and hunted, as is supposed by
the terriers of the law, he retired to a public house or
Tower-hill, where he died of want; or, as it is related
by one of his biographers, by swallowing, after a long
fast, a piece of bread which charity had supplied. He
went out, as is reported, almost naked, in the rage of
hunger, and finding a gentleman in a neighbouring cof¬
fee-house, asked him for a shilling. The gentleman
gave him a guinea ; and Otway going away bought a
roll, and was choked with the first mouthful. Ail this,
I hope, is not true ; but that indigence, and its conco¬
mitants, sorrow' and despondency, brought him to the
grave, has never been denied.”
Johnson speaks of him in nearly these terms : Otway
had not much cultivated versification, nor much reple¬
nished his mind with general knowledge. His principal
power was in moving the passions, to which Dryden in
his latter years left an illustrious testimony. He ap¬
pears, by some of his verses, to have been a zealous
royalist; and had what was in those times the common
reward of loyalty j he lived and died neglected.—His
dramatic writings are nine in number j the most admi¬
red of which are, The Orphan, and Venire Preserved.
He had also made some translations, and wrote seve¬
ral miscellaneous poems. His whole works are print¬
ed in two pocket volumes. Fie wrote four acts of a
play which are lost.
OVAL, an oblong curvilinear figure, otherwise called
ellipsis. (See Ellipsis). However, the proper oval,
or egg shape, differs considerably from that of the ellip¬
sis, being an irregular figure, narrower at one end than
at another: whereas the ellipsis or mathematical oval,
is equally broad at each end ; though it must be own¬
ed, these two are commonly confounded together; even
geometricians calling the oval a false ellipsis.
OVARY, in Anatomy, that part of a female animal
wherein the ova or eggs are formed or lodged. See
Anatomy, N° hi.
OVARIUM, in Botany, a name by which botanists
who ai’e fond of assimilating the animal and vegetable
kingdoms have distinguished the germen or seed bud,
as containing the rudiments of the future eel
OVATION, in the Roman antiqn’ty, a lesser tri¬
umph, allowed to commanders for victories won with¬
out the effusion of blood; or for defeat ing a mean and
inconsiderable enemy. The show ge erally began at
the Alban mountain, whence the general with his
retinue