acres. A grand trial was here made of Mr. Owen's communistic system; and if the trial failed it was from the force of elements beyond Mr. Owen's control. In 1827 Mr. Owen, having returned to Scotland, arranged his retirement from the New Lanark mills. Once more in America, he in 1828 resolved on a fresh experiment of communistic colonization; but the hinderances were more formidable than he could vanquish. A prolonged and somewhat stormy debate on the subject of religion took place in 1829, at Cincinnati, between Mr. Owen and the Rev. Mr. Campbell. Mr. Owen continued to travel and to toil for the dissemination of his creed. He delivered countless lectures and speeches, and published countless pamphlets and books. His enthusiastic disciples strove to carry out his philosophy into practice. The Owenites flourished for a season as a sect, especially in the large manufacturing towns; numerous Owenite establishments likewise, some of them on a colossal scale, were formed. The failure of these did not damp the ardour or destroy the hope of the pertinacious Welshman. He went on prophesying an Owenite paradise, as if nothing had happened. Mr. Owen's latter years were spent in England. Not a little was the ridicule which he drew on himself by adopting the notions of the spirit-rappers. His last public appearance was at the Social Science Congress at Liverpool in the autumn of 1858. He was only able to utter a few words; and, completely exhausted, he was borne out of the hall. For a few weeks he lingered; and, with the mark and presentiment of death, he was at his own desire conveyed to his native town. Calmly he passed away from that earth which he had striven so hard to make better. Whatever may be thought of his economical ideas, Robert Owen will always be respected as a promoter of education. His defect of imagination was the source of all his mistakes; for it prevented him from recognizing the spontaneousness of human nature, and made him rely too much on an external mechanism.—W. M—l.
OWEN, William, an excellent portrait-painter, was born at Ludlow in Shropshire in 1769; his father was a bookseller there. Through the influence of Payne Knight, young Owen was placed with Catton, the royal academician, to learn painting, and at the academy he attracted the notice of Sir Joshua Reynolds. Owen was distinguished as a portrait-painter as early as 1793, and, like Romney, he sometimes painted fancy pieces. He married in 1797; and in the following year exhibited a portrait of the Lord-chancellor Loughborough, and several other persons of distinction, notwithstanding the rivalry of Hoppner, Lawrence, and Beechey. Owen was elected a member of the Royal Academy in 1806, and was afterwards appointed principal portrait-painter to the prince regent. He visited Paris with Callcott in 1814, and was now so prosperous that he removed from Leicester Square to the more fashionable neighbourhood of Bruton Street, where he took a house in 1818; but he was shortly afterwards seized with paralysis, and was a helpless invalid for the remaining years of his life. He died February 11, 1825, in consequence of swallowing a quantity of opium instead of an aperient draught, for which he took it in mistake. Among his best pictures is a portrait of Sir William Scott, Lord Stowell, the brother of Lord Eldon, painted for the town of Newcastle-on-Tyne.—R. N. W.
OXENSTIERNA, Axel, Count, in some respects perhaps the most illustrious statesman of modern times, was born at Fanö in Upland in the year 1583. His family was one of high consideration in Sweden, its head for thirteen generations having held a seat in the senate. Axel's father, Gabriel Oxenstierna, one of the first hereditary barons created by Erik XIV., died not long after the birth of his son, whose preliminary education was carried on under the care of his mother. At an early period, however, young Oxenstierna was sent to Germany, where he studied at the universities of Rostock, Wittenberg, and Jena, evincing wonderful assiduity and the possession of a rare and precocious genius. Before he reached his eighteenth year he proceeded to visit the various German courts, and devoted his attention, with a zeal that well repaid him at a subsequent period, to acquire a thorough knowledge of the views and interests of each ere he returned to his native land. After that return in 1602 he was made a senator by Charles IX., and also employed in various diplomatic missions, where he showed so much ability that his political reputation might be deemed already established. But it was with the accession of Gustavus Adolphus in 1611 that the great Swede's career rightly commenced; and thenceforward were exhibited before the eyes of the world, in a field capacious enough for their amplest display, those extraordinary powers of statesmanship which, put forth by Oxenstierna, and combined with the far-reaching intellect of the monarch whom he served, made Sweden for a time the arbiter of the destinies of Europe. During the whole reign of Gustavus, Oxenstierna filled the post of chancellor or prime minister; and personally present with his sovereign throughout a large part of his immortal campaigns in Germany, he rendered him invaluable aid by the sagacity and firmness of his counsels. On the Swedish king's death at the battle of Lutzen in 1632, Oxenstierna had a still more difficult task to accomplish; for by the fall of Gustavus the great results of his victories seemed on the point of being lost. The chancellor's unflinching intrepidity and consummate skill proved the salvation of the protestant cause in this momentous crisis; and while commanders like Torstenson, Wrangel, and others, formed in the heroic school of Gustavus, successfully led the Swedish forces, the master-mind of Oxenstierna, who had now returned to Stockholm, inspired from that place the various diplomatic negotiations ending with the peace of Westphalia in 1648—a peace that closed the Thirty Years' war, and was highly advantageous to Sweden. While the minority of Christina lasted, Oxenstierna officiated as regent, and after she assumed the government he still remained prime minister. To her abdication of the crown in 1654 he was strongly opposed; and nothing could induce him either to sanction the act as a senator, or to appear in the scene where it was executed. That abdication he did not long survive. His once powerful constitution, broken by time and extreme labour, at last gave way, and in August, 1654, he left the world in which he had played a part so distinguished. Oxenstierna was a man of noble and commanding presence, and singularly temperate in his mode of life, to which circumstance he was doubtless partially indebted for the vigour of his frame and his almost uninterrupted health. Profoundly erudite and devoted to the interests of literature, yet a brave and successful soldier (although always feeling himself better fitted to act in the cabinet than in the field), humane, just, and still a politician, his character was the harmony of many attributes that are seldom. If ever, combined in one individual. As a statesman, he stands, in the completeness of his moral and intellectual gifts, perhaps higher than any other in the history of modern Europe. Matched with Richelieu, he could meet him on equal terms; a master of policy, he refused to sacrifice to it principle; free from the taint of mere vulgar ambition, his efforts were solely directed to increase the glory and prosperity of his country. Count Oxenstierna had several sons who attained positions of high rank and honour.—John, born in 1611, was ambassador and plenipotentiary at the peace of Westphalia. It was to him that the great chancellor, when the young envoy lamented his political inexperience, wrote the famous sentence, "Nescis, mi fili, quantilla prudentia homines regantur" (You know not, my son, with how little wisdom mankind may be governed). He died at Weimar in 1657.—Another son, Erik—born 1624; died 1656—was accused of desiring to marry Queen Christina, but the charge rests upon the merest surmise, and may be dismissed as unworthy of regard. One of his sons became grand marshal of Sweden; and a second, grand chancellor of that kingdom.—J. J.
OXFORD, Earls of. See Harley and Vere.
OZELL, John, a diligent translator of foreign writings into English, was educated at the Free school, Ashby-de-la-Zouch, and at Christ's hospital, London. He continued and extended his studies of languages after he had entered a city counting-house, and amused himself with translating Moliere's plays, some of Corneille's and Racine's, Fenelon's Telemachus, the works of Rabelais (no easy task), and various others. He prospered in his affairs, became auditor of the city and bridge accounts, of St. Paul's cathedral, and of St. Thomas' hospital. He was farther enriched by the bequest of a deceased friend. He was quite unequal to the task of translating dramatic poetry, especially Moliere. Pope made an allusion to the fact in the Dunciad, book i., 284-6; and Ozell replied by a foolish and angry advertisement in the Weekly Medley. Mr. Ozell died on the 15th October, 1743.—R. H.
