excelled in the delineation of female character. Exuberant fancy, with warm affections and passions, everywhere mark the "Metamorphoses." In many respects Ovid resembled Euripides, and like him in our time he is unjustly neglected. He was a favourite with Milton and Shakspeare, and the attentive student will find much in him to admire.—G.
OVIEDO Y VALDES, Gonzalo Fernandez de, a Spanish historian and traveller under Ferdinand and Isabella, was born in 1478, and attached as a page to the household of the infante, Don Juan. In 1513 he was sent out as inspector of mines to San Domingo, where he resided for forty years, paying occasional visits to Spain; and died at Valladolid in 1557. During nearly his whole life he seems to have been devoted to literary pursuits, and he received every assistance which the government could afford in the compilation of his great work, "Historia general e natural de las Indias occidentales," of which the first volume, containing twenty books, was published at Seville in 1535; but the rest, containing thirty more, has never been published, although the Spanish Royal Academy propose to print the manuscript now in their possession. It contains many documents and facts useful as the material of history, but is marked by all the garrulity of the old chroniclers, and is not wholly to be relied on in matters relating personally to Columbus. Oviedo also published in 1525 a summary of the history of Hispaniola, and subsequently chronicles of Ferdinand and Isabella, and of Charles V.; also a life of Cardinal Ximenez. His other principal work is entitled "Las Quinquagenias," a series of dialogues, giving an account of the principal families of Spain in that age.—F. M. W.
OWEN, David Dale, an eminent American geologist, son of Robert Owen, was born in Scotland, on 24th June, 1807, and died in the United States, on 13th November, 1860. He was educated in Switzerland in the establishment of M. de Fellenberg. Here he acquired a taste for chemistry. On his return to England he studied under Dr. Turner, professor of chemistry in the university of London, and became acquainted with many eminent geologists, as Mantell, Murchison, and Lyell. In 1838 he graduated at Ohio medical college. In 1837 he gave lectures on geology, and was employed to make a geological survey of the state of Indiana. In 1848 he was employed by the United States government to make a survey of Minnesota, Iowa, and Wisconsin, the results of which were published in 1852, in a quarto volume of upwards of six hundred pages. He was also engaged on the geological survey of Kentucky. In 1857 he surveyed Arkansas. The Smithsonian Institution have distributed some of his publications. Dr. Owen was a most laborious geologist, and he seems to have shortened his life by his assiduous labours. He died from rheumatism attacking his heart.—J. H. B.
OWEN, George, M.D., one of the earliest fellows of the Royal College of Physicians, was born in the diocese of Worcester. He was educated at Oxford, became a probationer fellow of Merton college in 1519, and obtained his doctor's degree in 1527. He was soon after appointed physician to Henry VIII., and he held the same office in the courts of Edward IV. and Queen Mary. He became a fellow of the College of Physicians in 1545, and in 1553 he was elected president of that body, to which office he was re-elected the following year. It seems probable that he united obstetric practice with that of physic, for it is said that Edward VI. was brought into the world by his instrumentality, he having performed the Cæsarian section on his mother, Jane Seymour. There is no doubt that he enjoyed the confidence of Henry; he received from that king and from Edward VI. grants of land and tenements in the neighbourhood of Oxford, which had been formerly held by religious houses, and he was one of the subscribing witnesses to Henry's will, under which he received a legacy of £100. In the first year of Queen Mary he was instrumental in obtaining an act which enlarged and confirmed the powers of the College of Physicians. Some time after, when a dispute arose between the university of Oxford and the college respecting the granting of medical degrees by the former, the university was compelled by its chancellor, Cardinal Pole, to consult with Dr. Owen and Dr. Huys, the queen's physicians, on the subject. The only book which he published is entitled "A Meet Diet for the New Ague, set forth by Mr. Owen," folio, London, 1558. He died the same year of an epidemic intermittent fever.—F. C. W.
OWEN, Henry, a scholarly divine, was born in 1716, in the county of Merioneth, where his father possessed a good estate. He was educated at Jesus college, Oxford, and having renounced the study of medicine, to which at first he was inclined, he took orders, and after various steps of preferment became minister of St. Olave, Hart Street, London, and vicar of Edmonton. Dr. Owen wrote a great variety of volumes bearing on biblical literature, and died in 1795. His principal works are, "Inquiry into the state of the Septuagint version," "The modes of quotation used by the Evangelists," "Observations on the four Gospels," "Harmonia Trigonometrica," "Critica Sacra," "Collatio Codicis Cottoniani Geneseos," and "Critical Disquisitions." He was also a contributor to Bowyer's Critical Conjectures and Observations on the New Testament. Owen was a man of sound judgment and great research, though none of his works have acquired lasting celebrity.—J. E.
OWEN, John (Audœnus), a celebrated writer of Latin epigrams, was born at Llanarmon in Caernarvonshire, and educated at Winchester school and New college, Oxford. He took his degree of B.C.L. in 1590; and giving up his fellowship the following year became a schoolmaster, first at Trylegh, near Monmouth, and afterwards at Warwick. He was befriended by his countryman. Bishop Williams, the lord-keeper. The causticity of one of his couplets, which has been thus translated—
" Many, that Peter ne'er saw Rome, declare,
But all must own that Simon must be there,"
cost him a legacy previously destined for him by an uncle, whose papistical notions were shocked by the witty lines. The "Epigrammata" were twice printed in the first year of publication, 1606, and very frequently since. They have been translated by Vicars, Pecke, and Harvey respectively.—R. H.
OWEN, John, the famous nonconformist divine, was the second son of Henry Owen, vicar of Stadham, and was born at the vicarage in 1616. After enjoying a few years of tuition at a private academy at Oxford, he was at the age of twelve entered a student at Queen's college. Here he studied hard, and also heartily enjoyed the ordinary juvenile recreations. In his nineteenth year "he commenced master of arts," and toward the end of his university course the divine life made its power felt within him. The innovations of Laud forced him at length to leave Oxford, and prior to that time he had been admitted to holy orders. Sir Philip Dormer invited him to become his chaplain and tutor to his eldest son, and he is found next in the family of Lord Lovelace. Lovelace espoused the royalist cause, and Owen left his house. A Welsh uncle, by whom he had been supported at college and cherished as his heir, displeased with his puritanism, now formally disinherited him. The young man then removed to London, and in 1642 published his first work, the "Display of Arminianism," which was printed by order of a committee of the house of commons. He next settled as pastor in Fordham and married, devoting himself with conscientious industry to the work of the ministry. His fame was growing, and on the 29th of April he preached at the monthly fast before parliament. He next removed to Coggeshall in Essex, and a large congregation was at once gathered around him, and governed according to the independent platform. Here he published his well-reasoned and popular treatise—"Salus Electorum, Sanguis Jesu; or the Death of Death in the Death of Christ." This volume only developes one aspect of the atonement, as its title implies; and Richard Baxter challenged the great Calvinistic giant on some points of the treatise. Owen was called on to preach the day after the trial and condemnation of King Charles, and his text was Jeremiah xv. 19, 20. Appended to the sermon are excellent remarks on toleration. Having made the acquaintance of Cromwell he was induced to accompany him to Ireland, where he preached as opportunity offered, and not without fruit. Afterwards he came down with the great soldier to Scotland, and preached in Berwick and in Edinburgh. In 1651 Owen became dean of Christ church, Oxford, and vice-chancellor of the university, the chief students offering him their congratulations on the appointment. His inaugural address was worthy of him—dignified and chaste, not a dry and dogmatic harangue, but full of life and vigour, and pervaded by a meek and cheerful christian spirit. In 1653 he and Goodwin, president of Magdalen college, "the two Atlases and patriarchs of independency," as Wood calls them, were honoured with the diploma of D.D. During his residence at Oxford he published his most metaphysical work—"Diatriba de divina justitia;" and this was followed up by the "Doctrine of the Saint's Perseverance explained and confirmed." The Long parliament being dissolved in 1653, Owen was returned to the new
