OEAGE
OETMANN
French-Jewish orientalist. B. July 9, 1825.
Ed. Heidelberg, Bonn, Berlin, and Kiel
Universities. After brilliant studies in
Hebrew, Arabic, Sanscrit, and Zend,
Oppert, who was of German - Jewish
parents, settled in France in 1847, as
Germany offered no career to a Jew, and
taught German at Laval. His papers on
oriental inscriptions attracted the atten
tion of the Institut, and in 1854 he was
associated with the Government s scientific
expedition to Mesopotamia. He shares
with Eawlinson the prestige of finding the
key to the cuneiform inscriptions, and he
was one of the most successful scholars in
deciphering them. In 1855-56 the French
Government sent him to study the Assyrian
remains in the museums of England and
Germany, and nominated him professor of
Sanscrit. In 1873 he was appointed pro
fessor of Assyrian philology and archaeology
at the College de France. His works and
papers on Sanscrit, Persian, Assyrian, and
Hebrew literature are very numerous and
important. Oppert shed his Hebrew creed
and adopted no other. D. Aug. 21, 1905.
ORAGE, Alfred Richard, editor of the New Age. B. Jan. 22, 1873. Ed. privately. Orage was trained as a teacher (certificated in 1893), and he taught under the Leeds County Council until 1905. In the follow ing year he migrated to London, and engaged in journalism. He is now pro prietor and editor of the New Age. He has written several sympathetic works on Nietzsche (chiefly Friedrich Nietzsche and the Dionysian Spirit of the Age, 1905, and Nietzsche in Outline and Aphorism, 1907) and a few economic works.
ORELLI, Professor Johann Kaspar von, Swiss philologist. B. Feb. 13, 1787. Ed. Zurich and Pestalozzi s School at Yverdun. Orelli came of Italian Protes tants who had taken refuge in Switzerland. He entered the Calvinist ministry, and from 1807 to 1814 was a pastor at Bergamo. He developed Eationalist views, and left the Church for teaching. In 1819 567
he was appointed professor of eloquence
and hermeneutics at the Zurich Carolinum;
in 1833 professor of philology at the
Zurich University, which he had helped
to found. Orelli became one of the most
learned and distinguished classical scholars
of his time. He edited Cicero (7 vols.,
1826-38), Horace (2 vols., 1837-38), and
Tacitus (2 vols., 1846-47), and wrote a
large number of works on his subject.
The collection of Latin Inscriptions which
he edited (1828) was of great importance.
He remained a Eationalist, and strongly
supported the appointment of Strauss,
when he was compelled to leave Germany,
to the chair of dogmatic theology at
Zurich. D. Jan. 6, 1849.
ORENSE, Jose Maria, Marquis d Albaida, Spanish statesman. B. 1800. Of a roble and wealthy Spanish family, Orense entered the army and joined in the efforts of the Liberals to dislodge the clerical-royalist reaction which followed Waterloo. The triumph of the reactionaries drove him to England, but he returned to Spain after the death of Ferdinand VII, and was a Eepublican deputy in the Cortes. In 1848 he was expelled for taking part in a Eepublican conspiracy, and he fled to France. Expelled from there in 1851, he joined Victor Hugo in Brussels. He returned to Spain in 1854, but his splendid spirit brought upon him a fresh sentence of expulsion. After the Eevolution of 1868 the Marquis was at length free to settle in his country. He became President of the Cortes, and after the accession of Alfonso XII he was the leader of the democratic and anti-clerical opposition. D. Nov. 7, 1880.
ORTMANN, Professor Arnold Edward,
Ph.D., Sc.D., American zoologist. B. Apr. 8, 1863. Ed. Jena, Kiel, and Strass- burg Universities. Born in Magdeburg, Ortmann served his term in the German Army (1882-83) and then continued his studies. In 1890 he was appointed zoolo gist and palaeontologist to the German 568
