Chapter Occam Or Ockham to Oliphant of O by Biographical Dictionary of English Literature

Occam Or Ockham to Oliphant

Occam Or Ockham, William (1270?-1349?).—Schoolman, born at Ockham, Surrey, studied at Oxford and Paris, and became a Franciscan. As a schoolman he was a Nominalist and received the title of the Invincible Doctor. He attacked the abuses of the Church, and was imprisoned at Avignon, but escaped and spent the latter part of his life at Munich, maintaining to the last his controversies with the Church, and with the Realists. He was a man of solid understanding and sense, and a masterly logician. His writings, which are of course all in Latin, deal with the Aristotelean philosophy, theology, and specially under the latter with the errors of Pope John XXII., who was his béte-noir.

Occleve (See Hoccleve).

Ockley, Simon (1678-1720).—Orientalist, born at Exeter, and educated at Cambridge, became the greatest Orientalist of his day, and was made in 1711 Professor of Arabic in his University His chief work is the Conquest of Syria, Persia, and Egypt by the Saracens (3 vols., 1708-57), which was largely used by Gibbon. The original documents upon which it is founded are now regarded as of doubtful authority. Ockley was a clergyman of the Church of England.

O’Keeffe, John (1747-1833).—Dramatist, wrote a number of farces and amusing dramatic pieces, many of which had great success. Among these are Tony Lumpkin in Town (1778), Wild Oats, and Love in a Camp. Some of his songs set to music by Arnold and Shield, such as I am a Friar of Orders Grey, and The Thorn, are still popular. He was blind in his later years.

Oldham, John (1653-1683).—Satirist and translator, son of a Nonconformist minister, was at Oxford, and was the friend of most of the literary men of his time, by whom his early death from small-pox was bewailed. He made clever adaptations of the classical satirists, wrote an ironical Satire against Virtue, and four severe satires against the Jesuits. He is cynical to the verge of misanthropy, but independent and manly.

Oldmixon, John (1673-1742).—Historical and miscellaneous writer, belonged to an old Somersetshire family, wrote some, now forgotten, dramas and poems which, along with an essay on criticism, in which he attacked Addison, Swift, and Pope, earned for him a place in The Dunciad. He was also the author of The British Empire in America (1708), Secret History of Europe (against the Stuarts), and in his Critical History (1724-26) attacked Clarendon’s History of the Rebellion. All these works are partisan in their tone. Oldmixon was one of the most prolific pamphleteers of his day.

Oldys, William (1696-1761).—Antiquary, wrote a Life of Sir W. Raleigh prefixed to an edition of his works (1736), a Dissertation on Pamphlets (1731), and was joint editor with Dr. Johnson of the Harleian Miscellany. He amassed many interesting facts in literary history, the fruits of diligent, though obscure, industry. The only poem of his that still lives is the beautiful little anacreontic beginning “Busy, curious, thirsty Fly.” Oldys held the office of Norroy-King-at-Arms. He produced in 1737 The British Librarian, a valuable work left unfinished.

Oliphant, Laurence (1829-1888).—Novelist and miscellaneous writer, son of Sir Anthony Oliphant, Chief Justice of Ceylon. The first 38 years of his life were spent in desultory study, travel, and adventure, varied by occasional diplomatic employment. His travels included, besides Continental countries, the shores of the Black Sea, Circassia, where he was Times correspondent, America, China, and Japan. He was in the Crimean War, Indian Mutiny, Chinese War, the military operations of Garibaldi, and the Polish insurrection, and served as private secretrayto Lord Elgin in Washington, Canada, and China, and as Sec. of Legation in Japan. In 1865 he entered Parliament, and gave promise of political eminence, when in 1867 he came under the influence of Thomas L. Harris, an American mystic of questionable character, went with him to America, and joined the Brotherhood of the New Life. In 1870-71 he was correspondent for the Times in the Franco-German War. Ultimately he broke away from the influence of Harris and went to Palestine, where he founded a community of Jewish immigrants at Haifa. After revisiting America he returned to England, but immediately fell ill and died at Twickenham. Oliphant was a voluminous and versatile author, publishing books of travel, novels, and works on mysticism. The most