Chapter One Thing at a Time to Oreades of O by Brewer's Readers Handbook

Hogarth has introduced him into several of his pictures; and Pope says of him—

Imbround with native bronze, lo! Henley stands,
Tuning his voice, and balancing his hands.
How fluent nonsense trickles from his tongue!
How sweet the periods, neither said nor sung!…
Oh, great restorer of the good old stage,
Preacher at once and zany of thy age!
Oh, worthy thou of Egypt’s wise abodes;
A decent priest where monkeys were the gods!
   —Pope: The Dunciad, iii. 199, etc. (1742).

Orator Hunt, the great demagogue in the time of the Wellington and Peel administrations. Henry Hunt, M.P., used to wear a grey hat, and these hats were for the time a badge of democratic principles, and called “radical hats” (1773–1835).

Orbaneja, the painter of Ubeda, who painted so preposterously that he inscribed under his objects what he meant them for.

Orbaneja would paint a cock so wretchedly designed, that he was obliged to inscribe under it, “This is a cock.”—Cervantes: Don Quixote, II. i. 3 (1615).

Orbilius, the schoolmaster who taught Horace. The poet calls him “the flogger” (plagosus).—Ep., ii. 71.

The Orbilian Stick is a birch rod or cane.

Ordeal (A Fiery), a sharp trial or test. In England there were anciently two ordeals—one of water and the other of fire. The water ordeal was for the laity, and the fire ordeal for the nobility. If a noble was accused of a crime, he or his deputy was tried by ordeal thus: He had either to hold in his hand a piece of red-hot iron, or had to walk blindfold and barefoot over nine red-hot ploughshares laid lengthwise at unequal distances. If he passed the ordeal unhurt, he was declared innocent; if not, he was accounted guilty. This method of punishment arose from the notion that “God would defend the right,” even by miracle, if needs be.

Ordella, the wife of Thierry king of France, in the tragedy of Thierry and Theodoret, by J. Fletcher.

Fletcher’s “Ordella” and Ford’s “Calantha” (q.v.) are the most perfect women in the whole range of fiction.

Ordigale, the otter, in the beast-epic of Reynard the Fox, i. (1498).

Ordovices , people of Ordovicia, that is, Flintshire, Denbighshire, Merionethshire, Montgomeryshire, Carnarvonshire, and Anglesey. (In Latin the i is short: Ordovicês.)

The ordovices now which North Wales people be.
   —Drayton: Polyolbion, xvi. (1613).

Ordovies , the inhabitants of North Wales. (In Latin North Wales is called Ordovicia.)

Beneath his [Agricola’s] fatal sword the Ordovies to fall (Inhabiting the west), those people last of all …withstood. Drayton: Polyolbion, viii. (1612).

Oread , a mountain-nymph. Tennyson calls “Maud” an oread, because her hall and garden were on a hill.

I see my Oreäd coming down.
   —Maud, I. xvi. 1 (1855)

Oreäd. Echo is so called.

Oreades or Oreads , mountain-nymphs.

Ye Cambrian [Welsh] shepherds then, whom these our mountains please,
And ye our fellow-nymphs, ye light Oreädês.
   —Drayton: Polyolbion, ix. (1612)