Chapter Ocnus of O by Brewer's Readers Handbook

N.B.—In the early part of the nineteenth century, oaths were exceedingly common, both among men and women; they were rarely heard in good society towards the close of the century.

Obaddon, the angel of death. This is not the same angel as Abbadona, one of the fallen angels and once the friend of Abdiel (bk. vi.).

My name is Ephod Obaddon or Sevenfold Revenge. I am an angel of destruction. It was I who destroyed the first-born of Egypt. It was I who slew the army of Sennacherib.—Klopstock: The Messiah, xiii. (1771).

Obadiah, a household servant, in Sterne’s novel of Tristram Shandy (1759).

There is an Obadiah in Fielding’s Tom Jones.

Obadiah, clerk to justice Day. A nincompoop, fond of drinking, but with just a shade more brains than Abel Day, who is “a thorough ass” (act i. sc. 1).—Knight: The Honest Thieves (died 1820).

This farce is a mere réchauffé of The Committee (1670), a comedy by the Hon. sir R. Howard, the names and much of the conversation being identical. Colonel Blunt is called in the farce “captain Manly.”

Every play-goer must have seen Munden [1758–1832] in “Obadiah,” in The Committee or Honest Thieves; if not, they are to be pitied.—Mrs. C. Mathews: Tea-Table Talk.

Munden was one night playing “Obadiah,” and Jack Johnstone, as “Teague,” was plying him with liquor from a black bottle. The grimaces of Munden were so irresistibly comical, that not only did the house shriek with laughter, but Johnstone himself was too convulsed to proceed. When “Obadiah” was borne off, he shouted, “Where’s the villain that filled that bottle? Lamp oil! lamp oil! every drop of it!” The fact is, the property-man had given the bottle of lamp oil instead of the bottle filled with sherry and water. Johnstone asked Munden why he had not given him a hint of the mistake, and Munden replied, “There was such a glorious roar at the faces I made, that I had not the heart to spoil it.”—Theatrical Anecdotes.

Obadiah Prim, a canting, knavish hypocrite; one of the four guardians of Anne Lovely the heiress. Colonel Feignwell personates Simon Pure, and obtains the quaker’s consent to his marriage with Anne Lovely.—Mrs. Centlivre: A Bold Stroke for a Wife (1717).

Obermann, the impersonation of high moral worth without talent, and the tortures endured by the consciousness of this defect.—Etienne Pivert de Senancour: Obermann (1804).

Oberon, king of the fairies. He quarrelled with his wife Titania about a “changeling” which Obêron wanted for a page, but Titania refused to give up. Oberon, in revenge, anointed her eyes in sleep with the extract of “Love in Idleness,” the effect of which was to make the sleeper in love with the first object beheld on waking. Titania happened to see a country bumpkin whom Puck had dressed up with an ass’s head. Oberon came upon her while she was fondling the clown, sprinkled on her an antidote, and she was so ashamed of her folly that she readily consented to give up the boy to her spouse for his page.—Shakespeare: Midsummer Night’s Dream (1592).

Oberon the Fay, king of Mommur, a humpty dwarf, three feet high, of angelic face. He told sir Huon that the Lady of the Hidden Isle (Cephalonia) married Neptanebus of Egypt, by whom she had a son named Alexander “the Great.” Seven hundred years later she had another son, Oberon, by Julius Cæsar, who stopped in Cephalonia on his way to Thessaly. At the birth of Oberon, the fairies bestowed their gifts on him. One was insight into men’s thoughts, and another was the power of transporting himself instantaneously to any place. At death, he made Huon his successor, and was borne to paradise.—Huon de Bordeaux (a romance).

Oberthal (Count), lor d of Dordrecht, near the Meuse. When Bertha, one of his vassals, asked permission to marry John of L eyden, the count withheld his consent, as he designed to make Bertha his mistress.