OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Oryx

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​ORYX (Gr. ὄροξ, a pickaxe, hence applied to the animal), the scientific name of a group of African antelopes of relatively large size with long straight or scimitar-shaped horns, which are present in both sexes, and long tufted tails. They are all desert animals. The true oryx of classical writers was probably the East and North-east African beisa-oryx (Oryx beisa), which is replaced in South Africa by the gemsbuck (Oryx gazella). In Northern Africa the group is represented by the scimitar-horned O. leucoryx or O. algazal, and in Arabia by the small white oryx (O. beatrix) . See Antelope.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Osaka

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​OSAKA, or Ozaka, a city of Japan in the province of Settsu. Pop. (1908) 1,226,590. It lies in a plain bounded, except westward, where it opens on Osaka Bay, by hills of considerable height, on both sides of the Yodogawa, or rather its headwater the Aji (the outlet of Lake Biwa), and is so intersected by river-branches and canals as to suggest a comparison with a Dutch town. Steamers ply between Osaka and Kobe-Hiogo or Kobe, and Osaka is an important railway centre. The opening of the railway (1873) drew foreign trade to Kobe, but a harbour for ocean-steamers has been constructed at Osaka. The houses are mainly built of wood, and on the 31st of July 1909 some 12,000 houses and other buildings were destroyed by fire. Shin-sai Bashi Suji, the principal thoroughfare, leads from Kitahama, the district lying on the south side of the Tosabori, to the iron suspension bridge (Shin-sai Bashi) over the Dotom-bori. The foreign settlement is at Kawaguchi at the junction of the Shirinashi and the Aji. It is the seat of a number of European mission stations. Buddhist and Shinto temples are numerous. The principal secular buildings are the castle, the mint and the arsenal. The castle was founded in 1583 by Hideyoshi; the enclosed palace, probably the finest building in Japan, survived the capture of the castle by Iyeyasu (1615), and in 1867 and 1868 witnessed the reception of the foreign legations by the Tokugawa shoguns; but in the latter year it was fired by the Tokugawa party. It now provides military headquarters, containing a garrison and an arsenal. The whole castle is protected by high and massive walls and broad moats. Huge blocks of granite measuring 40 ft. by 10 ft. or more occur in the masonry. The mint, erected and organized by Europeans, was opened in 1871. Osaka possesses iron-works, sugar refineries, cotton spinning mills, ship-yards and a great variety of other manufactures. The trade shows an increase commensurate with that of the population, which in 1877 was only 284,105.
Osaka owes its origin to Rennio Shonin, the eighth head of the Shin-Shu sect, who in 1495–1496 built, on the site now occupied by the castle, a temple which afterwards became the principal residence of his successors. In 1580, after ten years’ successful defence of his position, Kenryo, the eleventh “abbot,” was obliged to surrender; and in 1583 the victorious Hideyoshi made Osaka his capital. The town was opened to foreign trade in 1868.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Oruro

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​ORURO, a department and town of Bolivia. The department is bounded N. by La Paz, E. by Cochabamba and Potosí, S. by Potosí, and W. by Chile; it forms a part of the ancient Titicaca lacustrine basin, and has an area of 19,127 sq. m., the greater part of which is semi-arid and covered with extensive saline deposits. It is bordered by Cordilleras on the E. and W., and by transverse ridges and detached groups of elevations on the N. and S. The slope and drainage is toward the S., but many of the streams are waterless in the dry season. The outlet of Lake Titicaca, the Desaguadero river, flows southward into Lake Pampa-Aullaguas, or Poöpo, on the eastern side of the department near the Cordillera de los Frailes. Lake Pöpo is 12,139 ft. above sea-level, or 506 ft. lower than Titicaca, and its waters discharge through a comparatively small outlet, called the Lacahahuíra, into the lagoon and saline morasses of Coipasa (12,057 ft. elevation) in the S.W. corner of the department. Oruro is almost exclusively a mining department, the country being too arid for agriculture, with the exception of a narrow strip in the foothills of the Cordillera de los Frailes, where a few cattle, mules and llamas, and a considerable number of sheep are reared. The mineral wealth has not been fully developed except in the vicinity of the capital, in the north-east part of the department, where there are large deposits of tin, silver and copper, Oruro being the second largest producer of tin in the republic. There are borax deposits in the western part of the department, but the output is small.
The capital of the department is Oruro, 115 m. S.S.E. (direct) of La Paz; it is an old mining town dating from the 17th century, when it is said to have had a population of 70,000. The census of 1900 gave it a population of 13,575, the greater part of whom are Indians. A considerable number of foreigners are interested in the neighbouring mines. The elevation of Oruro is 12,250 ft. above sea-level, and its climate is characterized by a short cool summer and a cold rainy winter, with severe frosts and occasional snow-storms. The mean annual temperature is about 43 F. Oruro is the Bolivian terminus of the Antofagasta railway (0·75 metre gauge), 574 m. long, the first constructed in Bolivia. A law of the 27th of November 1906 provided for the construction of other lines, of metre gauge, from La Paz (Viacha) to Oruro, from Oruro to Cochabamba, and from Oruro to Tupiza, making Oruro the most important railway centre in Bolivia. Oruro enjoys the nominal distinction of being one of the four capitals of the republic, an anomaly which was practically ended by the revolution of 1898, since which time the government has remained at La Paz.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Orzeszko, Eliza

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​ORZESZKO or Orszeszko, ELIZA (1842–), Polish novelist, was born near Grodno, of the noble family of Pawlowski. In her sixteenth year she married Piotr Orzeszko, a Polish nobleman, who was exiled to Siberia after the insurrection of 1863. She wrote a series of powerful novels and sketches, dealing with the social conditions of her country. Eli Makower (1875) describes the relations between the Jews and the Polish nobility, and Meir Ezofowicz (1878) the conflict between Jewish orthodoxy and modern liberalism. On the Niemen (1888), perhaps her best work, deals with the Polish aristocracy, and Lost Souls (1886) and Cham (1888) with rural life in White Russia. Her study on Patriotism and Cosmopolitanism appeared in 1880. A uniform edition of her works appeared in Warsaw, 1884–1888.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Escobar y Mendoza, Antonio

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​ESCOBAR Y MENDOZA, ANTONIO (1589–1669), Spanish churchman of illustrious descent, was born at Valladolid in 1589. He was educated by the Jesuits, and at the age of fifteen took the habit of that order. He soon became a famous preacher, and his facility was so great that for fifty years he preached daily, and sometimes twice a day. In addition he was a voluminous writer, and his works fill eighty-three volumes. His first literary efforts were Latin verses in praise of Ignatius Loyola (1613) and the Virgin Mary (1618); but he is best known as a writer on casuistry. His principal works belong to the fields of exegesis and moral theology. Of the latter the best known are Summula casuum conscientiae (1627); Liber theologiae moralis (1644), and Universae theologiae moralis problemata (1652–1666). The first mentioned of these was severely criticised by Pascal in the fifth and sixth of his Provincial Letters, as tending to inculcate a loose system of morality. It contains the famous maxim that purity of intention may be a justification of actions which are contrary to the moral code and to human laws; and its general tendency is to find excuses for the majority of human frailties. His doctrines were disapproved of by many Catholics, and were mildly condemned by Rome. They were also ridiculed in witty verses by Molière, Boileau and La Fontaine, and gradually the name Escobar came to be used in France as a synonym for a person who is adroit in making the rules of morality harmonize with his own interests. Escobar himself is said to have been simple in his habits, a strict observer of the rules of his order, and unweariedly zealous in his efforts to reform the lives of those with whom he had to deal. It has been said of him that “he purchased heaven dearly for himself, but gave it away cheap to others.” He died on the 4th of July 1669.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Escombe, Harry

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​ESCOMBE, HARRY (1838–1899), South African statesman, a member of a Somersetshire family, was born at Notting Hill, London, on the 25th of July 1838, and was educated at St Paul’s school. After four years in a stockbroker’s office, he emigrated, in 1859, to the Cape. The following year he moved to Natal, and, after trying other occupations, qualified as an attorney. He became recognized as the ablest pleader in the colony, and, in 1872, was elected for Durban as a member of the legislative council, and subsequently was also placed on the executive council. In 1880 he secured the appointment of a harbour board for Natal, and was himself made chairman. The transformation of the port of Durban into a harbour available for ocean liners was due entirely to his energy. In 1888–1889 he defended Dinizulu and other Zulu chiefs against a charge of high treason. For several years he opposed the grant of responsible government to Natal, but by 1890 had become convinced of its desirability, and on its conferment in 1893 he joined the first ministry formed, serving under Sir John Robinson as attorney-general. In February 1897, on Sir John’s retirement, Escombe became premier, remaining attorney-general and also holding the office of minister of education and minister of defence. In the summer of that year he was in London with the other colonial premiers at the celebration of the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria, and was made a member of the privy council. Cambridge University conferred upon him the honorary degree of LL.D. The election that followed his return to Natal proved unfavourable to his policy, and he resigned office (October 1897). Throughout his life he took an active interest in national defence. He had served in the Zulu War of 1879, was commander of the Natal Naval Volunteers and received the volunteer long service decoration. In October 1899 he went to the northern confines of the colony to take part in preparing measures of defence against the invasion by the Boers. He died on the 27th of December 1899.
The Speeches of the late Right Hon. Harry Escombe (Maritzburg, 1903), edited by J. T. Henderson, contains brief biographical notes by Sir John Robinson and the editor.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Escovedo, Juan de

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​ESCOVEDO, JUAN DE (d. 1578), Spanish politician, secretary of Don John of Austria, and chiefly notable as having been the victim of one of the mysteries of the 16th century, began life in the household of Ruy Gomez de Silva, prince of Eboli, the most trusted minister of the early years of the reign of Philip II. By the will of the prince he was endowed for life with the post of Regidor, or legal representative of the king in the municipality of Madrid. He was also associated with Antonio Perez as one of the secretaries who acted as the agents of the king in all dealings with the various governing boards which formed the Spanish administration. When Don John of Austria, after the battle of Lepanto in 1571, began to launch on a policy of self-seeking adventure, Escovedo was appointed as his secretary with the intention that he should act as a check on these follies. Unhappily for himself and for Don John he went heart and soul into all the prince’s schemes. He began to disobey orders from Madrid and became entangled in intrigues to manage or even to coerce the king. In July 1577, and contrary to the king’s orders, he came to Spain from Flanders, where Don John was then governor. It is said that he discovered the love intrigue between Antonio Perez and the widowed princess of Eboli, Ana Mendoza de la Cerda. This is, however, mere gossip and supposition. There can be no doubt that he was a busy intriguer, or that the king, acting on the then very generally accepted doctrine that the sovereign has a right to act for the public interest without regard to forms of law, gave orders to Antonio Perez that he was to be put out of the way. After two clumsy attempts had been made to poison him at Perez’s table, he was killed by bravos on the night of Easter Monday, the 31st of March 1578. According to an old tradition the murder took place outside the church of St Maria in Madrid, which was pulled down in 1868.
See Gaspar Muro, La Princesse d’Eboli (Paris, 1878); and W. H. Prescott, Reign of Philip II. (1855–59).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Escuintla

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​ESCUINTLA, the capital of the department of Escuintla, Guatemala; on the southern slope of the Sierra Madre, 45 m. S.W. of Guatemala city. Pop. (1905) about 12,000. Escuintla is locally celebrated for its hot mineral springs. It is the commercial centre of a fertile district, which produces coffee, cane-sugar and cocoa; it has also a brisk transit trade in most of the products of Guatemala, owing to its position on the interoceanic railway between Puerto Barrios on the Atlantic and San José (30 m. S.) on the Pacific. A branch railway which goes westward to San Augustin meets this line at Escuintla.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Esher

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​ESHER, a township in the Epsom parliamentary division of Surrey, England, 14½ m. S.W. of London by the London & South Western railway (Esher and Claremont station). It is pleasantly situated on rising ground above the river Mole, 3 m. from its junction with the Thames. To the north-west lie the grounds of Esher Place. Of the mansion-house founded by William of Waynflete, bishop of Winchester (c. 1450), in which Cardinal Wolsey resided for three or four weeks after his sudden fall from power in 1529, only the gatehouse remains. It is known as Wolsey’s Tower, but is apparently part of Waynflete’s foundation. A new mansion was erected in 1803. To the south is Claremont Palace, built by the great Lord Clive (1769) on the site of a mansion of Sir John Vanbrugh. In 1816 it was the residence of Princess Charlotte, wife of Prince (afterwards King) Leopold. She died here in 1817, and on the death of her husband in 1865 the property passed to the crown. Louis Philippe, ex-king of the French, resided here from 1848 until his death in 1850. In 1882 Claremont became the private property of Queen Victoria. Christ Church, Esher, contains fine memorials of King Leopold and others, and one of its three bells is said to have been brought from San Domingo by Sir Francis Drake. To the north near the railway station is Sandown Park, where important race meetings are held. Esher is included in the urban district of Esher and The Dittons, of which Thames Ditton is a favourite riverside resort. The whole district is largely residential. Pop. (1901) 9489.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Eschweiler

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​ESCHWEILER, a town of Germany, in the Prussian Rhine province, on the Inde, and the railways Cologne-Herbesthal and Munich-Gladbach-Stolberg, about 8 m. E.N.E. from Aix-la-Chapelle. Pop. (1905) 20,643. The town has an Evangelical and four Roman Catholic churches, a gymnasium and an orphanage. The manufacture of iron and steel goods is carried on; other industries include the manufacture of zinc wares, tanning, distilling and brewing. In the neighbourhood there are valuable coal mines.
See Koch, Geschichte der Stadt Eschweiler (Frankfort, 1890).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Escutcheon

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​ESCUTCHEON (O. Fr. escucheon, escusson, modern écusson, through a Late Lat. form from Lat. scutum, shield), an heraldic term for a shield with armorial bearings displayed (see Heraldry). The word is also applied to the shields used on tombs, in the spandrils of doors or in string-courses, and to the ornamented plates from the centre of which door-rings, knockers, &c., are suspended, or which protect the wood of the key-hole from the wear of the key. In medieval times these were often worked in a very beautiful manner.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Good, John Mason

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​GOOD, JOHN MASON (1764–1827), English writer on medical, religious and classical subjects, was born on the 25th of May 1764 at Epping, Essex. After attending a school at Romsey kept by his father, the Rev. Peter Good, who was a Nonconformist minister, he was, at about the age of fifteen, apprenticed to a surgeon-apothecary at Gosport. In 1783 he went to London to prosecute his medical studies, and in the autumn of 1784 he began to practise as a surgeon at Sudbury in Suffolk. In 1793 he removed to London, where he entered into partnership with a surgeon and apothecary. But the partnership was soon dissolved, and to increase his income he began to devote attention to literary pursuits. Besides contributing both in prose and verse to the Analytical and Critical Reviews and the British and Monthly Magazines, and other periodicals, he wrote a large number of works relating chiefly to medical and religious subjects. In 1794 he became a member of the British Pharmaceutical Society, and in that connexion, and especially by the publication of his work, A History of Medicine (1795), he did much to effect a greatly needed reform in the profession of the apothecary. In 1820 he took the diploma of M.D. at Marischal College, Aberdeen. He died at Shepperton, Middlesex, on the 2nd of January 1827. Good was not only well versed in classical literature, but was acquainted with the principal European languages, and also with Persian, Arabic and Hebrew. His prose works display wide erudition; but their style is dull and tedious. His poetry never rises above pleasant and well-versified commonplace. His translation of Lucretius, The Nature of Things (1805–1807), contains elaborate philological and explanatory notes, together with parallel passages and quotations from European and Asiatic authors.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Gonzalo de Berceo

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​GONZALO DE BERCEO (c. 1180–c. 1246), the earliest Castilian poet whose name is known to us, was born at Berceo, a village in the neighbourhood of Calahorra in the province of Logroño. In 1221 he became a deacon and was attached, as a secular priest, to the Benedictine monastery of San Millan de la Cogolla, in the ​diocese of Calahorra. His name is to be met with in a number of documents between the years 1237 and 1246. He wrote upwards of 13,000 verses, all on devotional subjects. His best work is a life of St Oria; others treat of the life of St Millan, of St Dominic of Silos, of the Sacrifice of the Mass, the Martyrdom of St Laurence, the visible signs preceding the Last Judgment, the Praises of Our Lady, the Miracles of Our Lady and the Lamentations of the Virgin on the Passion of her Son. He writes in the common tongue, the roman paladino, and his claim to the name of poet rests on his use of the cuaderna via (single-rhymed quatrains, each verse being of fourteen syllables). Sometimes, however, he takes the more modest title of juglar (jongleur), when claiming payment for his poems. His literary attainments are not great, and he lacks imagination and animation of style, but he has a certain eloquence, and in speaking of the Virgin and the saints a certain charm, while his verse bears at times the imprint of a passionate devotion, recalling the lyrical style of the great Spanish mystics. There is, however, a very strong popular element in his writings, which explains his long vogue. The great majority of his legends of the Virgin are obviously borrowed from the collection of a Frenchman, Gautier de Coinci; but he has succeeded in making this material entirely his own by reason of a certain conciseness and a realism in detail which make his work far superior to the tedious and colourless narrative of his model.
His Poesias are in the Biblioteca de autores españoles of Rivadeneyra, vol. lvii. (1864); La Vida de San Domingo de Silos has been edited by J. D. FitzGerald (Paris, 1904; see the Bibliothèque de l’École des Hautes Études, part 149); see also F. Fernandez y Gonzalez in the Razón (vol. i., Madrid, 1860); N. Hergueta, “Documentos referentes a Gonzalo de Berceo,” in the Revista de archivos, (3rd series, Feb.-March, 1904, pp. 178-179). (P. A.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/González-Carvajal, Tomas José

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​GONZÁLEZ-CARVAJAL, TOMAS JOSÉ (1753–1834), Spanish poet and statesman, was born at Seville in 1753. He studied at the university of Seville, and took the degree of LL.D. at Madrid. He obtained an office in the financial department of the government; and in 1795 was made intendant of the colonies which had just been founded in Sierra Morena and Andalusia. During 1809–1811 he held an intendancy in the patriot army. He became, in 1812, director of the university of San Isidro; but having offended the government by establishing a chair of international law, he was imprisoned for five years (1815–1820). The revolution of 1820 reinstated him, but the counter-revolution of three years later forced him into exile. After four years he was allowed to return, and he died, in 1834, a member of the supreme council of war. González-Carvajal enjoyed European fame as author of metrical translations of the poetical books of the Bible. To fit himself for this work he commenced the study of Hebrew at the age of fifty-four. He also wrote other works in verse and prose, avowedly taking Luis de Leon as his model.
See biographical notice in Biblioteca de Rivadeneyra, vol. lxvii., Poetas del siglo 18.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Gonvile, Edmund

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​GONVILE, EDMUND (d. 1351), founder of Gonville Hall, now Gonville and Caius College, at Cambridge, England, is thought to have been the son of William de Gonvile, and the brother of Sir Nicholas Gonvile. In 1320 he was rector of Thelnetham, Suffolk, and steward there for William, earl Warren and the earl of Lancaster. Six years later he was rector of Rushworth, and in 1342 rector of Terrington St John and commissioner for the marshlands of Norfolk. In this year he founded and endowed a collegiate church at Rushworth, suppressed in 1541. The foundation of Gonville Hall at Cambridge was effected by a charter granted by Edward III. in 1348. It was called, officially, the Hall of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin, but was usually known as Gunnell or Gonville Hall. Its original site was in Free-school Lane, where Corpus Christi College now stands. Gonvile apparently wished it to be devoted to training for theological study, but after his death the foundation was completed by William Bateman, bishop of Norwich and founder of Trinity Hall, on a different site and with considerably altered statutes. (See also Caius, John.)