of circumstance, the genitive in judicial phrases, the use of the neut.
adj. as an abstract substantive, e.g. Oscan ualaemom touticom, “optimum
publicum,” i.e. “optima rei publicae ratio.” In verbal forms
the same use of the gerundive combined with the noun to represent
the total verbal action, e.g. Umb. ocrer pehaner paca, “arcis piandae
causa”; the usual sequence of tenses, e.g. the imperfect subj. in
Oratio Obliqua representing the fut. indic. in Oratio Recta (see
Cippus Abellamus b 23, 25); and finally the use of the perf. subj.
in Oscan in prohibitions (nep fefacid, “neue fecerit”), but also in
positive commands (Osc. sakrafıͤr, see above).
Fuller accounts of the dialects in all these aspects will be found most exhaustively in Von Planta, Grammatik der Oskisch-umbrischen Dialekte (Strassburg, 1892–1897). Less fully, but very clearly and acutely in C. D. Buck’s Oscan and Umbrian Grammar (Boston, U.S.A., 1904). R. S. Conway, The Italic Dialects, vol. ii. (Cambridge, 1897), gives a fuller account of the alphabets and their history, a Conspectus of the Accidence and an account of the Syntax at some length. (R. S. C.)
OSCAR I. (1799–1859), king of Sweden and Norway, was the
son of General Bernadotte, afterwards King Charles XIV. of
Sweden, and his wife, Eugénie Désirée Clary, afterwards Queen
Desideria. When, in August 1810, Bernadotte was elected
crown prince of Sweden, Oscar and his mother removed from
Paris to Stockholm (June 1811). From Charles XIII. the lad
received the title of duke of Södermanland (Sudermania). He
quickly acquired the Swedish language, and, by the time he
reached manhood, had become a general favourite. His very
considerable native talents were developed by an excellent
education, and he soon came to be regarded as an authority on
all social-political questions. In 1839 he wrote a series of articles
on popular education, and (in 1841) an anonymous work, Om
Straff och straffanstalter, advocating prison reforms. Twice
during his father’s lifetime he was viceroy of Norway. On the
19th of June 1823 he married the princess Josephine, daughter
of Eugène de Beauharnais, duke of Leuchtenberg, and granddaughter
of the empress Josephine. In 1838 the king began to
suspect his heir of plotting with the Liberal party to bring about
a change of ministry, or even his own abdication. If Oscar
did not actively assist the Opposition on this occasion, his disapprobation
of his father’s despotic behaviour was notorious,
though he avoided an actual rupture. Yet his liberalism was
of the most cautious and moderate character, as the Opposition,
shortly after his accession (March 8th, 1844), discovered to their
great chagrin. He would not hear of any radical reform of the
cumbrous and obsolete constitution. But one of his earliest
measures was to establish freedom of the press. Most of the
legislation during Oscar I.’s reign aimed at improving the economic
position of Sweden, and the riksdag, in its address to him in 1857,
rightly declared that he had promoted the material prosperity
of the kingdom more than any of his predecessors. In foreign
affairs Oscar I. was a friend of the principle of nationality. In
1848 he supported Denmark against Germany; placed Swedish
and Norwegian troops in cantonments in Fünen and North
Schleswig (1849–1850); and mediated the truce of Malmö
(August 26th, 1848). He was also one of the guarantors of the
integrity of Denmark (London protocol, May 8th, 1852). As
early as 1850 Oscar I. had conceived the plan of a dynastic
union of the three northern kingdoms, but such difficulties
presented themselves that the scheme had to be abandoned.
He succeeded, however, in reversing his father’s obsequious
policy towards Russia. His fear lest Russia should demand a
stretch of coast along the Varanger Fjord induced him to remain
neutral during the Crimean War, and, subsequently, to conclude
an alliance with Great Britain and France (November 25th,
1855) for preserving the territorial integrity of Scandinavia.
Oscar I. left four sons, of whom two, Carl (Charles XV.) and
Oskar Fredrik (Oscar II.), succeeded to his throne.
See T. Almén, Ätten Bernadotte (Stockholm, 1896); and C. E. Akrell, Minnen från Carls XIV., Oscars I. och Carls XV. Lagar (Stockholm, 1884, 1885). Also Norway (history) and Sweden (history).
OSCAR II. (1829–1907), king of Sweden and Norway, son of Oscar I., was born at Stockholm on the 21st of January 1829. He entered the navy at the age of eleven, and was appointed junior lieutenant in July 1845. Later he studied at the university of Upsala, where he distinguished himself in mathematics. In 1857 he married Princess Sophia Wilhelmina, youngest daughter of Duke William of Nassau. He succeeded his brother Charles XV. on the 18th of September 1872, and was crowned in the Norwegian cathedral of Drontheim on the 18th of July 1873. At his accession he adopted as his motto Brödrafolkens Välthe first he realized the essential difficulties in the maintenance of the union between Sweden and Norway. The political events which led up to the final crisis in 1905, by which the thrones were separated, are dealt with in the historical articles under Norway and Sweden. But it may be said that the peaceful solution eventually adopted could hardly have been attained but for the tact and patience of the king himself. He declined, indeed, to permit any prince of his house to become king of Norway, but better relations between the two countries were restored before his death, which took place at Stockholm on the 8th of December 1907. His acute intelligence and his aloofness from the dynastic considerations affecting most European sovereigns gave the king considerable weight as an arbitrator in international questions. At the request of Great Britain, Germany and the United States in 1889 he appointed the chief justice of Samoa, and he was again called in to arbitrate in Samoan affairs in 1899. In 1897 he was empowered to appoint a fifth arbitrator if necessary in the Venezuelan dispute, and he was called in to act as umpire in the Anglo-American arbitration treaty that was quashed by the senate. He won many friends in England by his outspoken and generous support of Great Britain at the time of the Boer War (1899–1902), expressed in a declaration printed in The Times of the 2nd of May 1900, when continental opinion was almost universally hostile.
Himself a distinguished writer and musical amateur, King Oscar proved a generous friend of learning, and did much to encourage the development of education throughout his dominions. In 1858 a collection of his lyrical and narrative poems. Memorials of the Swedish Fleet, published anonymously, obtained the second prize of the Swedish Academy. His “Contributions to the Military History of Sweden in the Years 1711, 1712, 1713,” originally appeared in the Annals of the Academy, and were printed separately in 1865. His works, which included his speeches, translations of Herder’s Cid and Goethe’s Torquato Tasso, and a play, Castle Cronberg, were collected in two volumes in 1875–1876, and a larger edition, in three volumes, appeared in 1885–1888. His Easter hymn and some other of his poems are familiar throughout the Scandinavian countries. His Memoirs of Charles XII. were translated into English in 1879. In 1885 he published his Address to the Academy of Music, and a translation of one of his essays on music appeared in Literature on the 19th of May 1900. He had a valuable collection of printed and MS. music, which was readily accessible to the historical student of music.
His eldest son, Oscar Gustavus Adolphus, duke of Wärmland (b. 1858), succeeded him as Gustavus V. His second son, Oscar (b. 1859), resigned his royal rights on his marriage in 1888 with a lady-in-waiting, Fröken Ebba Munck, when he assumed the title of Prince Bernadotte. From 1892 he was known as Count Wisborg. The king’s other sons were Charles, duke of Westergötland (b. 1861), who married Princess Ingeborg of Denmark; and Eugène, duke of Nerike (b. 1865), well known as an artist.
OSCEOLA (a corruption of the Seminole As-se-he-ho-lar, meaning black drink) (c. 1804–1838), a Seminole American Indian, leader in the second Seminole War, was born in Georgia, near the Chattahoochee river. His father was an Englishman named William Powell; his mother a Creek of the Red Stick or Mikasuki division. In 1808 he removed with his mother into northern Florida. When the United States commissioners negotiated with the Seminole chiefs the treaties of Payne’s Landing (9th of May 1832) and Fort Gibson (28th of March 1833) for the removal of the Seminoles to Arkansas, Osceola seized the opportunity to lead the opposition of the young warriors, and declared to the U.S. agent, General Wiley Thomp-
