rested, yellow, Yellow hammer, Yunx, characters and species of, 232—234

OROBIO.

Ornithomancy, a species of divination performed by means of birds; being the same with augury. See Divination and Augury.

ORNITHOPUS, a genus of plants belonging to the dindelphia clas; and in the natural method ranking under the 3rd order, Papilionaceae. See Botany Index.

ORNITHORYNCHUS PARADOXUS, one of the most extraordinary animals of the mammalia clas yet known, particularly for the singular conformation of its head, which is the perfect resemblance of the beak of a duck ingrafted on the head of a quadruped. See Mammalia Index.

ORNUS FLEXINUS, is that species of the ash tree, in the Linnaean system, which, according to Dr Cirilo of Naples, produces the manna. See Materia Medica Index.

OROBANCHE, a genus of plants belonging to the didynamia clas; and in the natural method ranking under the 40th order, Perforatae. See Botany Index.

OROBIO, Don Balthasar, a celebrated Jew of Spain. He was carefully educated in Judaism by his parents, who were Jews, though they outwardly professed themselves Roman Catholics; abstaining from the practice of their religion in every thing, except only the observation of the fast of expiation, in the month Tifis or September. Orobio studied the scholastic philosophy usual in Spain, and became so skilled in it, that he was made professor of metaphysics in the university of Salamanca. Afterwards, however, applying himself to the study of physic, he practised that art at Seville with success; till, accused of Judaism, he was thrown into the inquisition, and suffered the most dreadful cruelties, in order to force a confession. He himself tells us, that he was put into a dark dungeon, so strict that he could scarce turn himself in it; and suffered to many hardships, that his brain began to be disturbed. He talked to himself often in this way: "Am I indeed that Don Balthasar Orobio, who walked freely about in Seville, who was entirely at ease, and had the bleatings of a wife and children?" Sometimes, supposing that his past life was but a dream, and that the dungeon where he then lay was his true birth-place, and which to all appearance would also prove the place of his death. At other times, as he had a very metaphysical head, he first formed arguments of that kind, and then resolved them; performing thus the three different parts of opponent, respondent, and moderator, at the same time. In this whimsical way he amused himself from time to time, and constantly denied that he was a Jew. After having appeared twice or thrice before the inquisitors, he was used as follows: At the bottom of a subterraneous vault, lighted by two or three small torches, he appeared before two persons, one of whom was judge of the inquisition, and the other secretary; who, asking him whether he would confess the truth? protested, that in case of a criminal's denial, the holy office would not be deemed the cause of his death, if he should expire under the torments, but that it must be imputed entirely to his own obstinacy. Then the executioner stript off his clothes, tied his feet and hands with a strong cord, and set him upon a little stool, while he pulled the cord through some iron buckles which were fixed in the wall; then drawing away the stool, he remained hanging by the cord, which the executioner still drew harder and harder, to make him confess, till a surgeon assured the court of examiners, that he could not possibly bear more without expiring. These cords put him to exquisite tortures, by cutting into the flesh, and making the blood burst from under his nails. As there was certainly danger that the cords would tear off his flesh, to prevent the worst, care was taken to gird him with some bands about the breast, which however were drawn so very tight, that he would have run the risk of not being able to breathe, if he had not held his breath in while the executioner put the bands round him; by which device his lungs had room enough to perform their functions. In the feverest extremity of his sufferings, he was told that this was but the beginning of his torments, and that he would better confess before they proceeded to extremities. Orobio added further, that the executioner, being on a small ladder, in order to frighten him, frequently let it fall against the shin-bones of his legs; so that the flames being sharp, created exquisite pain. At last, after three years confinement, finding themselves baffled by his perseverance in denying his religion, they ordered his wounds to be cured, and discharged him. As soon as he had got liberty, Orobio liberty, he resolved to quit the Spanish dominions; and, going to France, was made professor of physic at Thou- loufe. The theses which he made as candidate for this place were upon putrefaction; and he maintained them with so much metaphysical subtlety, as embarrassed all his competitors. He continued in this city for some time, still outwardly professing popery; but at last, weary of dissembling, he repaired to Amsterdam, where he was circumcised, took the name of Isaac, and pro- fessed Judaism; still continuing, however, to practise physic, in which he was much esteemed. Upon the publication of Spinoza's book, he despised a system the fallacies of which he quickly discovered; and when Bredenbourg's answer to it came to his hands, Orobio, being persuaded that the writer in refuting Spinoza, had also admitted some principles which tended to Atheism, took up his pen against them both, and published a piece to that pur- pose, intitled, Certamen philosophicum adversus J. B. Principia. But the dispute which he held with the cele- brated Philip Limborch against the Christian religion made the greatest noise. Here he exerted the utmost force of his metaphysical genius, and carried himself with great temper. The three papers which he wrote on the occasion were afterwards printed by his antagonist, in an account which he published of the controversy, under the title of Amica Collatio cum Judeo. Orobio died in 1687.

OROBUS, bitter vetch, a genus of plants belong- ing to the diadelphia class; and in the natural method ranking under the 32nd order, Papilionaceae. See Botany Index.

ORODES, a prince of Parthia, who murdered his brother Mithridates, and ascended his throne. He de- feated Crassus the Roman triumvir, and poured melted gold down the throat of his fallen enemy, to reproach him for his avarice and ambition. He followed the interest of Cassius and Brutus at Philippi. It is said, that when Orodus became old and infirm, his 30 children ap- plied to him, and disputed in his presence the right to the succession. Phraates, the eldest of them, obtained the crown from his father; and, to hasten him out of the world, he attempted to poison him. The poison had no effect; and Phraates, still determined on his father's death, strangled him with his own hands, about 56 years before the Christian era. Orodus had then reigned about 50 years.

ORONOKO, a large river of South America, which rises in Popayan, and enters the Atlantic ocean after a course of 755 leagues, in N. Lat. 9°. So great is its impetuosity that it flows the most powerful tides, and preserves the freshness of its waters to the distance of 36 miles out at sea.

ORONSA, a small fertile island of Scotland, one of the Hebrides, seven miles west of Jura. Here are the ruins of an abbey, with many sepulchral statues, and some curious ancient sculpture.

ORONTIUM, a genus of plants belonging to the hexandria class; and in the natural method ranking under the second order, Piperite. See Botany Index.

ORPHAN, a fatherless child or minor; or one that is deprived both of father and mother.

ORPHEUS, a celebrated poet and musician of anti- quity. His reputation was established as early as the time of the Argonautic expedition, in which he was himself an adventurer; and is said by Apollonius Rhodius not only to have excited the Argonauts to row by the sound of his lyre, but to have vanquished and put to silence the sirens by the superiority of his strains. Yet, notwithstanding the great celebrity he had so long enjoyed, there is a passage in Cicero, which says, that Aristotle, in the third book of his Poetics, which is now lost, doubted if such a person as Orpheus ever existed. But as the work of Cicero, in which this passage occurs, is in dialogue, it is not easy to discover what was his own opinion upon the subject, the words cited being put into the mouth of Caius Cotta. And Cicero, in other parts of his writings, mentions Orpheus as a person of whose existence he had no doubts. There are several ancient authors, among whom is Suidas, who enumerate five persons of the name of Orpheus, and relate some particulars of each. And it is very probable that it has fared with Orpheus as with Hercules, and that writers have attributed to one the actions of many. But, how- ever that may have been, we shall not attempt to col- lect all the fables that poets and mythologists have in- vented concerning him; they are too well known to need insertion here. We shall, therefore, in speaking of him, make use only of such materials as the best an- cient historians, and the most respectable writers among the moderns, have furnished towards his history.

Dr Cudworth, in his Intellectual System*, after exa- mining and confuting the objections that have been made to the being of an Orpheus, and with his usual learning and abilities clearly establishing his existence, proceeds, in a very ample manner, to speak of the opi- nions and writings of our bard, whom he regards not only as the first musician and poet of antiquity, but as a great mythologist, from whom the Greeks derived the Thracian religious rites and mysteries.

"It is the opinion (says he) of some eminent philo- logers of later times, that there never was any such per- son as Orpheus, except in Fairy land; and that his whole history was nothing but a mere romantic allegory, utterly devoid of truth and reality. But there is nothing alleged for this opinion from antiquity, except the one passage of Cicero concerning Aristotle; who seems to have meant no more than this, that there was no such poet as Orpheus anterior to Homer, or that the verses vulgarly called Orphical, were not written by Or- pheus. However, if it should be granted that Aristotle had denied the existence of such a man, there seems to be no reason why his single testimony should preponde- rate against the universal consent of all antiquity; which agrees that Orpheus was the son of Oegar, by birth a Thracian, the father or chief founder of the mythologi- cal and allegorical theology amongst the Greeks, and of all their most sacred religious rites and mysteries; who is commonly supposed to have lived before the Trojan war, that is, in the time of the Israelitish judges, or at least to have been senior both to Hesiod and Homer; and to have died a violent death, most affirming that he was torn in pieces by women, because their husbands de- fected them in order to follow him. For which reason, in the vision of Herus Pamphilus, in Plato, Orpheus's soul passing into another body, is said to have chosen that of a swan, a reputed musical animal, on account of the great hatred he had conceived for all women, from the death which they had inflicted on him. And the historic truth of Orpheus was not only acknowledged by Plato, but also by Ifocrates, who lived before Ari- stotle," Orpheus, noble, in his oration in praise of Busiris; and confirmed by the grave historian Diodorus Siculus, who says, that Orpheus diligently applied himself to literature, and when he had learned ἐν μυθολογίᾳ, or the mythological part of theology, he travelled into Egypt, where he soon became the greatest proficient among the Greeks in the mysteries of religion, theology, and poetry. Neither was his history of Orpheus contradicted by Origen, when so justly provoked by Celsus, who had preferred him to our Saviour; and, according to Suidas, Orpheus the Thracian was the first inventor of the religious mysteries of the Greeks, and that religion was thence called Θρησκεία, Threkeia, as if a Thracian invention. On account of the great antiquity of Orpheus, there have been numberless fables intermingled with his history; yet there appears no reason that we should disbelieve the existence of such a man.

Cudworth is also of opinion, that the poems ascribed to Orpheus were either written by him, or that they were very ancient, and contained his doctrines. He farther argues, that though Orpheus was a polytheist, and affected a multiplicity of gods, he nevertheless acknowledged one supreme unmade deity, as the original of all things; and that the Pythagoreans and Platonists not only had Orpheus in great esteem, being commonly called by them the Theologer, but were also thought in great measure to have owed their theology and philosophy to him, deriving it from his principles and traditions.

The bishop of Gloucester* speaks no more doubtfully of the existence of Orpheus than of Homer and Hesiod, with whom he ranks him, not only as a poet, but also as a theologian, and founder of religion.

The family of Orpheus is traced by Sir Isaac Newton for several generations: "Sefac passing over the Hellespont, conquers Thrace; kills Lycurgus king of that country; and gives his kingdom and one of his singing women to Oeagrus, the son of Tharops, and father of Orpheus; hence Orpheus is said to have had the muse Calliope for his mother.

He is allowed by most ancient authors to have excelled in poetry and music, particularly the latter; and that to such a degree, that he is represented as taming the most ferocious animals, changing the course of the winds by his melody, and as caulking the trees of the forest to dance in concert with his lyre. This account, though we must suppose it fabulous, yet proves his excellence to have been great before he could have given rise to such fictions. He is said to have early cultivated the lyre, in preference to every other instrument; so that all those who came after him were contented to be his imitators; whereas, according to Plutarch, he adopted no model; for before his time no other music was known, except a few airs for the flute. Music was so closely connected in ancient times with the most sublime sciences, that Orpheus united it not only with philosophy, but with theology and legislation. He abstained from eating animal food; and held eggs in abhorrence as aliment, being persuaded that the egg sufficed before the chicken, and was the principal of all existence: both his knowledge and prejudices, it is probable, were acquired in Egypt, as well as those of Pythagoras many ages after.

With respect to his abstaining from the flesh of oxen, Gesner supposes it may have proceeded from the veneration shown to that animal so useful in tillage, in the Orphic Eleusinian mysteries instituted in honour of Ceres, the goddess of agriculture. He might have added, that, as those mysteries were instituted in imitation of those established in Egypt in honour of Osiris and Isis, this abstinence from animal food was of the like origin, and a particular compliment to Apis. But Abbé Fagnier, in an ingenious dissertation upon the Orphic Life, gives still more importance to the prohibition; for as Orpheus was the legislator and humanizer of the wild and savage Thracians, who were cannibals, a total abolition of eating human flesh could only be established by obliging his countrymen to abstain from everything that had life.

With respect to theology, Diodorus Siculus tells us, that his father Oeagrus gave him his first instructions in cultus, lib. religion, imparting to him the mysteries of Bacchus, asiv. cap. 25., they were then practised in Thrace. He became afterwards a disciple of the Idaei Dactyli in Crete, and there acquired new ideas concerning religious ceremonies. But nothing contributed so much to his skill in theological matters, as his journey into Egypt; where being initiated into the mysteries of Isis and Osiris, or of Ceres and Bacchus, he acquired a knowledge concerning initiations, expiations, funeral rites, and other points of religious worship, far superior to any one of his age and country. And being much connected with the descendants of Cadmus, the founder of Thebes in Boeotia, he resolved, in order to honour their origin, to transport into Greece the whole fable of Osiris, and apply it to the family of Cadmus. The credulous people easily received this tale, and were much flattered by the institution of the ceremonies in honour of Osiris. Thus Orpheus, who was held in great veneration at the Grecian Thebes, of which he was become a citizen, admirably adapted this fable, and rendered it respectable, not only by his beautiful verses and manner of fingering them, but by the reputation he had acquired of being profoundly skilled in all religious concerns. Diodorus Siculus also says that he was a most attentive student in all kinds of literature, whether sacred or profane.

At his return into Greece, according to Pausanias, he was held in the highest veneration by the people, as they imagined he had discovered the secret of expiating crimes, purifying criminals, curing diseases, and appeasing the angry gods. He formed and promulgated an idea of a hell, from the funeral ceremonies of the Egyptians, which was received throughout all Greece. He instituted the mysteries and worship of Hecate among the Eginetans, and that of Ceres at Sparta.