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OLD family property, the town of that name having been founded in 1155 by the then ruler, who assumed the title of count. But the family possessions and the family dignity were greatly aggrandized at a later period by Count Dietrich the Fortunate, who obtained with his first wife the county of Delmenhorst, and with his second the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein. Dietrich's eldest son became in 1448 king of Denmark by the title of Christian I., in 1450 king of Norway, and in 1458 king of Sweden. The first of these royal dignities he owed to his descent on the mother's side, from Erik Glipping, and therefore from the ancient Danish monarchs; and with his elevation to the throne of the Valdemars began the long line of the Oldenburg dynasty in Denmark—a race of princes who may be acknowledged as generally meritorious, and seldom misusing the absolute sovereignty that, until recent times, was so completely theirs. On the deposition of Christian II., his uncle Frederick, son of Christian I., who had previously received Schleswig and Holstein, was made king of Denmark; and while Frederick's eldest son, Christian III., inherited that kingdom in 1513, his youngest son Adolf founded the house of Holstein-Gottorp, which has given rulers both to Sweden and Russia. Reverting again to Dietrich the Fortunate, it may be stated that his youngest son Gerard inherited Oldenburg and Delmenhorst; but the male line of this branch having become extinct in 1667, the counties then fell to the Danish crown. In course pf time further alterations occurred. The Grand-duke Paul of Russia, who was descended from the elder branch of the house of Holstein-Gottorp, surrendered in 1773 the whole of Holstein to Denmark, receiving in exchange Oldenburg and Delmenhorst. These were shortly after ceded to Frederick Augustus, bishop of Lubeck, who was descended from the younger branch of Holstein-Gottorp, and the exchange was sanctioned by the emperor of Germany, who in 1777 erected the two counties into a duchy, admitting the duke into the college of princes. In 1803 the reigning duke of Oldenburg received a considerable accession of territory, the commission for settling indemnities having assigned to him in perpetuity the bishopric of Lubeck, a portion of the bishopric of Munster, and also lands in Hanover. In 1810 he was expelled from all his possessions by Bonaparte; but after Leipsic he returned, and received the title of grand-duke at the congress of Vienna.—J. J.  OLDENBURG,, who sometimes wrote his name backwards as Grubendol, was a native of Bremen, employed for some years during the protectorate of Cromwell as the agent in England for his native country. In 1656 he entered as a student of the university of Oxford; after leaving which he travelled on the continent until 1661 with Mr. Richard Jones, son of Lord Ranelagh. In 1662 he became secretary of the Royal Society. For seven years his services were gratuitous, save that he was permitted to publish for his own benefit the Philosophical Transactions, of which he is justly regarded as the originator. The sale of so learned a publication afforded no profit to the editor, and from 1669 to his death he received a salary of £40 a year. So extensive and various was his correspondence with learned men at home and abroad, that he fell under the suspicion of conveying political intelligence to the king's enemies; and in June, 1667, he was arrested and sent to the Tower. His innocence was readily proved, and he was liberated in August following. He died suddenly at Charlton in Kent, September, 1677. Among his many eminent correspondents was Milton.—R. H.  OLDFIELD,, a celebrated English actress, was born in London in 1683. She was the daughter of an officer who left his family in indigent circumstances. At the Mitre, a London tavern in St. James' Market, kept by her aunt, Farquhar the dramatist heard her, then a seamstress, rehearse Beaumont and Fletcher's Scornful Lady. He introduced her to the stage, and she became, in genteel comedy, the chief actress of her time. She was a generous as well as a fascinating woman, and settled on the poet Savage in the depth of his misery an annual pension of £50. She died in 1730, and was buried in Westminster abbey, Bubb Dodington and Lord Hervey being among the pallbearers. By her own desire her corpse was handsomely attired for the tomb, hence the lines of Pope:—

—F. E.  OLDHAM,, Bishop of Exeter, founder of the Manchester grammar-school, was a native of Lancashire, and born about the middle of the fifteenth century. The Athenæ Cantabrigienses states that his birth-place was most probably Crumpsale in the parish of Manchester; according to Whatton (History of Manchester School), he was born at Oldham, in a house "still (1834) standing in Goulburn Street." He was educated in the household of Thomas Stanley, earl of Derby, at Exeter college, Oxford, and at Queen's college, Cambridge. He obtained various preferments in the church, and in 1504 was made bishop of Exeter, dying in 1519. More a patron of learning than himself a learned man, Oldham aided in the endowment of Corpus Christi college, Oxford, and furnished the original library of Brazennose. The free grammar-school, Manchester, he endowed during his lifetime.—F. E.  OLDHAM,, an English satirical poet, who has of late years been diligently studied, and whose writings, which were long forgotten, have a masculine vigour about them only inferior to that of Dryden, was born 9th August, 1653, at Shipton, near Tetbury, Gloucestershire. His father, who was a nonconformist minister at that place, gave him the elements of an excellent education, which the boy continued at Tetbury grammar-school. From thence he went to Edmund Hall, Oxford, where he distinguished himself both as a Latinist and as a writer of English verse. He took his B.A. degree in 1674, and accepted a situation as usher at the free school, Croydon. Whilst engaged in this humble capacity, some of his poems attracted the attention of such London wits as the earl of Dorset, Sedley, and Rochester. They sought him out, and procured him an appointment as tutor in the family of Sir Edward Thurlow of Reigate. Leaving this in 1681, he filled a similar office in the house of an eminent London physician, Dr. Lower, who advised him to commence the study of medicine. This study, however, he abandoned on the termination of his engagement, and thenceforth his life was that of a "man of wit and pleasure about town." His chief patron was the earl of Kingston, who is stated to have persuaded him to prepare himself for holy orders, and promised to make him his chaplain. At the early age of thirty, however, John Oldham died of smallpox at Holme Pierpoint, the earl's seat, on December 8, 1683. His chief works were "Satires against the Jesuits;" translations from Juvenal; and "Pindaric Odes." Rough and free in his style, he has yet a pith and pungency which still make him readable. He received the warm praise of Dryden; and in our own day Mr. Hallam has awarded him a place next to that lord of the "mighty line." His poems have been frequently reprinted; the latest and best edition is that which is enriched by an able biography and an appreciative criticism of his writings, from the graceful pen of Mr. Robert Bell.— (Annotated Edition of the English Poets.)—W. J. P.  OLDISWORTH,, a pamphleteer and miscellaneous writer of the early part of last century, would doubtless have been forgotten but for the mention made of him by Pope in a letter to the earl of Burlington, in which the bard of Twickenham gives a whimsical account of a ride through Windsor forest towards Oxford, in company with the bookseller Lintot. Attempting to cozen the poet out of an impromptu version of an ode of Horace, the bookseller is described as saying, "Oldisworth, in a ramble round Wimbledon hill, would translate a whole ode in half this time. I'll say that for Oldisworth (though I lost by his Timothy), he translates an ode of Horace the quickest of any man in England." This excellent translator was evidently the bookseller's hack. He wrote in the Hoadly controversy against Blackall, bishop of Exeter, was one of the original writers for the Examiner, and died in 1734. See list of his works in Watt's Biblioth.—R. H.  OLDMIXON,, a miscellaneous writer, whose abilities would be more generally recognized than they have hitherto been, but for his violent partisanship, was born in 1673 of a respectable family, near Bridgewater, Somersetshire. The place of his education is not known. His first public appearance as an author was in 1696, when he printed "Poems in imitation of Anacreon." He then tried his fortune with three dramatic pieces, "Amyntas, a pastoral," 1698; "The Grove, or Love's Paradise," 1700; and "The Governor of Cyprus," in 1703. The dedication of his first book to Lord Ashley must be accepted as a proof that his political leaning was towards the whigs from the beginning of his career. His work of various kinds for the booksellers embraced criticism, poetry, history, and in one known instance (the Court Tales, 