unparalleled degree by the abundance of Scandinavian words, | cases Orm had recourse to the device of placing the mark while the French element in its vocabulary is extraordinarily over the vowel. Frequently, but apparently not according to small. The precise determination of the locality is not free from any discoverable rule, he distinguishes long vowels by one, two difficulty, as it is now recognized that the criteria formerly or three accents over the letter. Like some earlier writers, relied on for distinguishing between the eastern and the western he retained the Old English form of the letter g (3) where it varieties of the midland dialect are not valid, at least for this expressed a spirant sound (not, however, distinguishing between early period. The Ormulum certainly contains a surprisingly the guttural and the palatal spirant), and used the continental large number of words that are otherwise nearly peculiar to g for the guttural stop and the sound dzh. He was, however, western texts; but the inference that might be drawn from this original in distinguishing the two latter sounds by using slightly fact appears to be untenable in face of the remarkable lexical different forms of the letter. This fact was unfortunately not affinities between this work and Havelok, which is certainly of perceived by the editors, so that the printed text confounds the north-east midland origin. On the whole, the language of the two symbols throughout. The discovery was made by Professor Ormulum seems to point to north Lincolnshire as the author's A. S. Napier in 1890. It must be confessed that Orm often native district. forgets his own rules of spelling, and although hundreds of oversights are corrected by interlineation, many inconsistencies still remain. Nevertheless, the orthography of the Ormulum is the most valuable existing source of information on the development of sounds in Middle English.

The work is dedicated to a certain Walter, at whose request it was composed, and whom Orm addresses as his brother in a threefold sense-" according to the flesh," as his fellowChristian, and as being a member of the same religious fraternity, that of the Augustinian Canons. The present writer has suggested (Athenaeum, 19th May 1906) that Orm and Walter may have been inmates of the Augustinian priory of Elsham, near the Humber, which was established about the middle of the 12th century by Walter de Amundeville. In his foundation charter (Dugdale's Monasticon, ed. Caley and Bandinel, vi. 560) Walter endows the priory with lands, and also grants to it the services of certain villeins, among whom are his steward (praepositus) William, son of Leofwine, and his wife and family. As this William is said to have had an uncle named Orm, and probably owed his Norman name to a godfather belonging to the Amundeville family, it seems not unlikely that the author of the Ormulum and his brother Walter were his sons, named respectively after their father's uncle and his lord, and that they entered the religious house of which they had been made subjects.

The name Orm is Scandinavian (Old Norse Ormr, literally "serpent," corresponding to the Old Eng. wyrm, worm "), and was not uncommon in the Danish parts of England. It occurs once in the book. The Gallicized form Ormin is found only in one passage, where the author gives it as the name by which he was christened. If this statement be meant literally (i.e. if the writer was not merely treating the two names as equivalent), it shows that he must, like his brother, have had a Norman godfather. The ending in was frequently appended to names in Old French, e.g. in Johannin for Johan, John. The title Ormulum for the book which Orm made was probably an imitation of Speculum, a common medieval name for books of devotion or religious edification.

The Ormulum is written in lines alternately of eight and seven syllables, without either rhyme or alliteration. The rhythm may be seen from the opening couplet:

Nu, broperr Wallter, broperr min
Affterr þe flashess kinde."

The extant portion of the work, not including the dedication and introduction, consists of about 20,000 lines. But the table of contents refers to 242 homilies, of which only 31 are preserved; and as the dedication implies that the book had been completed, and that it included homilies on the gospels for nearly all the year, it would seem that the huge fragment which we possess is not much more than one-eighth of this extraordinary, monument of pious industry.

The Ormulum is entirely destitute of poetic merit, 'though the author's visible enjoyment of his task renders it not uninteresting reading. To the history of biblical interpretation and of theological ideas it probably contributes little or nothing that is not well-known from other sources. For the philologist, however, the work is of immense value, partly as a unique specimen of the north-midland dialect of the period, and partly because the author had invented an original system of phonetic spelling, which throws great light on the contemporary pronunciation of English. In closed syllables the shortness of a vowel is indicated by the doubling of the following consonant. In open syllables this method would have been misleading, as it would have suggested a phonetic doubling of the consonant. In such

The Ormulum was edited for the first time by R. M. White in 1854. A revised edition, by R. Holt, was published in 1878. Many im portant corrections of the text were given by E. Kölbing in the first volume of Englische Studien. With reference to the three forms of the letter g, see A. S. Napier, Notes on the Orthography of the Ormulum, printed with A History of the Holy Rood Tree (Early English Text Society, 1894). (H. BR.)

ORMAZD, or ORMUZD (O. Persian Auramazda or Ahuramazda), the, supreme deity of Zoroastrianism. He is represented as the god and creator of good, light, intelligence, in perpetual opposi tion to Ahriman the lord of evil, darkness and ignorance. The dualism of the earlier Zoroastrians, which may be compared with the Christian doctrine of God and Satan, gradually tended in later times towards monotheism. At all times it was believed that Ormazd would ultimately vanquish Ahriman. See further ZOROASTER.

ORME, ROBERT (1728-1801), English historian of India, was born at Anjengo on the Malabar coast on the 25th of December 1728, the son of a surgeon in the Company's service. Educated at Harrow, he was appointed to a writership in Bengal in 1743. He returned to England in 1753 in the same ship with Clive, with whom he formed a close friendship. From 1754 to 1758 he was a member of council at Madras, in which capacity he largely influenced the sending of Clive to Calcutta to avenge the catastrophe of the Black Hole. His great work-A History of the Military Transactions of the British Nation in Indostan from 1745-was published in three volumes in 1763 and 1778 (Madras reprint, 1861-1862). This was followed by a volume of Historical Fragments (1781), dealing with an carlier period. In 1769 he was appointed historiographer to the East India Company. He died at Ealing on the 13th of January 1801. His valuable collections of MSS. are in the India Office library. The characteristics of his work, of which the influence is admirably shown in Thackeray's The Newcomes, are thus described by Macaulay: "Orme, inferior to no English historian in style and power of painting, is minute even to tediousness. In one volume he allots, on an average, a closely printed quarto page to the events of every forty-eight hours. The consequence is that his narrative, though one of the most authentic and one of the most finely written in our language, has never been very popular, and is now scarcely ever read." Not a few of the most picturesque passages in Macaulay's own Essay on Clive are borrowed from Orme. (J. S. Co.)

ORMEROD, ELEANOR A. (1828-1901), English entomologist, was the daughter of George Ormerod, F.R.S., author of The History of Cheshire, and was born at Sedbury Park, Gloucestershire, on the 11th of May 1828. From her earliest childhood insects were her delight, and the opportunity afforded for entomological study by the large estate upon which she grew up and the interest she took in agriculture generally soon made her a local authority upon this subject. When, in 1868, the Royal Horticultural Society began forming a collection of insect pests of the farm for practical purposes, Miss Ormerod largely contributed to it, and was awarded the Flora medal of the society. In 1877 she issued a pamphlet, Notes for Observations

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When Charles Butler, earl of Arran (1671-1758), the brother and successor of the 2nd duke, died in December 1758, the dukedom and marquessate became extinct, but the earldom was claimed by a kinsman, John Butler (d. 1766). John's cousin, Walter (1703-1783), inherited this claim, and Walter's son John (1740-1795) obtained a confirmation of it from the Irish House of Lords in 1791. He is reckoned as the 17th earl. His son Walter, the 18th earl (1770-1820), was created marquess of Ormonde in 1816, a title which became extinct on his death, but was revived in favour of his brother James (1774-1838) in 1825. James was the grandfather of James Edward William Theobald Butler (b. 1844), who became the 3rd marquess in 1854. The marquess sits in the House of Lords as Baron Ormonde of Llanthony, a creation of 1821.

See J. H. Round on "The Earldoms of Ormonde" in Joseph Foster's Collectanea Genealogica (1881-1883).

ORMONDE, JAMES BUTLER, IST DUKE OF (1610-1688), Irish statesman and soldier, eldest son of Thomas Butler, Viscount Thurles, and of Elizabeth, daughter of Sir John Poyntz, and grandson of Walter, 11th earl of Ormonde (see above), was born in London on the 19th of October 1610. On the death of his father by drowning in 1619, the boy was made a royal ward by James I., removed from his Roman Catholic tutor, and placed in the household of Abbot, archbishop of Canterbury, with whom he stayed until 1625, residing afterwards in Ireland with his grandfather. In 1629, by his marriage with his cousin, the Lady Elizabeth Preston, daughter and heiress of Richard, earl of Desmond, he put an end to the long-standing quarrel between the families and united their estates. In 1632 on the death of his grandfather he succeeded him to the earldom.

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while the difficulties of his position had been greatly increased by Glamorgan's treaty with the Roman Catholics on the 25th of August 1645, and it became clear that he could not long hope to hold Dublin against the Irish rebels. He thereupon applied to the English parliament, signed a treaty on the 19th of June 1647, interests of both Protestants and Roman Catholics so far as they gave Dublin into their hands upon terms which protected the had not actually entered into rebellion, and sailed for England at the beginning of August. He attended Charles during August and October at Hampton Court, but subsequently, in March 1648, in order to avoid arrest by the parliament, he joined the queen and prince of Wales at Paris. In September of the same wise looking favourable, he returned to Ireland to endeavour to year, the pope's nuncio having been expelled, and affairs otherconcluded a peace with the rebels on the basis of the free exercise unite all parties for the king. On the 17th of January 1649 he of their religion, on the execution of the king proclaimed Charles II. and was created a knight of the Garter in September. He upheld the royal cause with great vigour though with slight success, and on the conquest of the island by Cromwell he returned to France in December 1650.

Ormonde now, though in great straits for want of money, resided in constant attendance upon Charles and the queenmother in Paris, and accompanied the former to Aix and Cologne when expelled from France by Mazarin's treaty with Cromwell in 1655. In 1658 he went disguised, and at great risk, upon a secret mission into England to gain trustworthy intelligence as to the chances of a rising. He attended the king at Fuenterrabia in 1659 and had an interview with Mazarin; and was actively engaged in the secret transactions immediately preHe was already noted in Ireland, as had been many of his race, ceding the Restoration. On the return of the king he was at once appointed a commissioner for the treasury and the navy, made lord steward of the household, a privy councillor, lord for his fine presence and great bodily vigour. His active career began in 1633 with the arrival of Strafford, by whom he was treated, in spite of his independence of character, with great lieutenant of Somerset (an office which he resigned in 1672), favour. Writing to the king, Strafford described him as high steward of Westminster, Kingston and Bristol, chancellor 'young, but take it from me, a very staid head," and Ormonde of Dublin University, Baron Butler of Llanthony and earl of 1661 he was created duke of Ormonde in the Irish peerage and was throughout his Irish government his chief friend and support. Brecknock in the peerage of England; and on the 30th of March In 1640 during Strafford's absence he was made commander-inchief of the forces, and in August he was appointed lieutenant- lord high steward of England. At the same time he recovered general. On the outbreak of the rebellion in 1641 he rendered his enormous estates in Ireland, and large grants in recomadmirable service in the expedition to Naas, and in the march pense of the fortune he had spent in the royal service were made into the Pale in 1642, though much hampered by the lords to him by the king, while in the following year the Irish parliajustices, who were jealous of his power and recalled him after he ment presented him with £30,000. His losses, however, according had succeeded in relieving Drogheda. He was publicly thanked to Carte, exceeded his gains by £868,000. On the 4th of Novemby the English parliament and presented with a jewel of the ber 1661 he once more received the lord lieutenantship of Ireland, value of £620. On the 15th of April 1642 he gained the battle and was busily engaged in the work of settling that country. of Kilrush against Lord Mountgarret. On the 30th of August The most important and most difficult problem was the land he was created a marquess, and on the 16th of September was question, and the Act of Explanation was passed through the appointed lieutenant-general with a commission direct from the Irish parliament by Ormonde on the 23rd of December 1665. king. On the 18th of March 1643 he won the battle of New His heart was in his government, and he vehemently opposed so fatal a blow at Irish trade; and retaliated by prohibiting Ross against Thomas Preston, afterwards Viscount Tara. In the bill prohibiting the importation of Irish cattle which struck the import into Ireland of Scottish commodities, and obtained September, the civil war in England having meanwhile broken out, Ormonde, in view of the successes of the rebels and the uncertain loyalty of the Scots in Ulster, concluded with the latter, leave to trade with foreign countries. He encouraged Irish in opposition to the lords justices, on the 15th of September, manufactures and learning to the utmost, and it was to his Ormonde's personality had always been a striking one, and the "cessation" by which the greater part of Ireland was given efforts that the Irish College of Physicians owes its incorporation. up into the hands of the Catholic Confederation, leaving only small districts on the east coast and round Cork, together with in the new reign his virtues and patriotism became still more certain fortresses in the north and west then actually in their conspicuous. He represented almost alone the older and nobler possession, to the English commanders. He subsequently, by generation. He stood aloof while the counsels of the king were the king's orders, despatched a body of troops into England guided by dishonour; and proud of the loyalty of his race which (shortly afterwards routed by Fairfax at Nantwich) and was had remained unspotted through five centuries, he bore with appointed in January 1644 lord lieutenant, with special instruc- silent self-respect calumny, envy and the loss of royal favour, tions to do all in his power to keep the Scotch army occupied. declaring, "However ill I may stand at court I am resolved to He soon became the mark for attack from all that was worst In the midst of all the plots and struggles of Scots, Old Irish, lye well in the chronicle." Catholic Irish of English race, and Protestants, and in spite of the Ormonde's almost irresponsible govern. intrigues of the pope's nuncio as well as of attempts by the in the court. Buckingham especially did his utmost to underparliament's commissioners to ruin his power, Ormonde showed mine his influence. the greatest firmness and ability. He assisted Antrim in his ment of Ireland during troublous times was no doubt open to The impeachment, however, threatened by unsuccessful expedition into Scotland. On the 28th of March criticism. He had billeted soldiers on civilians, and had executed 1646 he concluded a treaty with the Irish which granted re- martial law. ligious concessions and removed various grievances. Mean-Buckingham in 1667 and 1668 fell through. Nevertheless by

1669 constant importunity had had its usual effect upon Charles, He had, besides two daughters, three sons who grew to and on the 14th of March Ormonde was removed from the govern- maturity. The eldest of these, Thomas, earl of Ossory (1634ment of Ireland and from the committee for Irish affairs. He 1680) predeceased him, his eldest son succeeding as 2nd duke of made no complaint, insisted that his sons and others over whom Ormonde. The other two, Richard, created earl of Arran, and he had influence should retain their posts, and continued to fulfil John, created earl of Gowran, both dying without male issue, with dignified persistence the duties of his other offices, while and the male descent of the 1st duke becoming extinct in the the greatness of his character and services was recognized by his person of Charles, 3rd duke of Ormonde, the earldom subseelection as chancellor of Oxford University on the 4th of August.quently reverted to the descendants of Walter, 11th earl of In 1670 an extraordinary attempt was made to assassinate Ormonde. the duke by a ruffian and adventurer named Thomas Blood, already notorious for an unsuccessful plot to surprise Dublin Castle in 1663, and later for stealing the royal crown from the Tower. Ormonde was attacked by this person and his accomplices while driving up St James's Street on the night of the 6th of December, dragged out of his coach, and taken on horseback along Piccadilly with the intention of hanging himologia Cambrensis, 1869); Observations on the Articles of Peace at Tyburn. Ormonde, however, succeeded in overcoming the horseman to whom he was bound, and his servants coming up, he escaped. The outrage, it was suspected, had been instigated by the duke of Buckingham, who was openly accused of the crime by Lord Ossory, Ormonde's son, in the king's presence, and threatened by him with instant death if any violence should happen to his father; and some colour was given to these suspicions by the improper action of the king in pardoning Blood, and in admitting him to his presence and treating him with favour after his apprehension while endeavouring to steal the crown jewels.

In 1671 Ormonde successfully opposed Richard Talbot's attempt to upset the Act of Settlement. In 1673 he again visited Ireland, returned to London in 1675 to give advice to Charles on affairs in parliament, and in 1677 was again restored to favour and reappointed to the lord lieutenancy. On his arrival in Ireland he occupied himself in placing the revenue and the army upon a proper footing. Upon the outbreak of the popish terror in England, he at once took the most vigorous and comprehensive steps, though with as little harshness as possible, towards rendering the Roman Catholics, who were in the proportion of 15 to 1, powerless; and the mildness and moderation of his measures served as the ground of an attack upon him in England led by Shaftesbury, from which he was defended with great spirit by his son Lord Ossory. In 1682 Charles summoned Ormonde to court. The same year he wrote "A Letter ... in answer to the earl of Anglesey, his Observations upon the earl of Castlehaven's Memoires concerning the Rebellion of Ireland," and gave to Charles a general support. On the 9th of November 1683 an English dukedom was conferred upon him, and in June 1684 he returned to Ireland; but he was recalled in October in consequence of fresh intrigues. Before, however, he could give up his government to Rochester, Charles II. died; and Ormonde's last act as lord lieutenant was to proclaim James II. in Dublin. Subsequently he lived in retirement at Cornbury in Oxfordshire, lent to him by Lord Clarendon, but emerged from it in 1687 to offer a firm and successful opposition at the board of the Charterhouse to James's attempt to assume the dispensing power, and force upon the institution a Roman Catholic candidate without taking the oaths according to the statutes and the act of parliament. He also refused the king his support in the question of the Indulgence; notwithstanding which James, to his credit, refused to take away his offices, and continued to hold him in respect and favour to the last. Ormonde died on the 21st of July 1688, not having, as he rejoiced to know, "outlived his intellectuals"; and with him disappeared the greatest and grandest figure of the times. His splendid qualities were expressed with some felicity in verses written on welcoming his return to Ireland and printed in 1682:

"A Man of Plato's grand nobility,

An inbred greatness, innate honesty;
A Man not form'd of accidents, and whom
Misfortune might oppress, not overcome...
Who weighs himself not by opinion

But conscience of a noble action."

He was buried in Westminster Abbey on the 1st of August.

AUTHORITIES.-Life of the Duke of Ormonde, by Thomas Carte; the same author's Collection of Original Letters, found among the Duke of Ormonde's Papers (1739), and the Carte MSS. in the Bodleian Library at Oxford; Life of Ormonde, by Sir Robert Southwell, printed in the History of the Irish Parliament, by Lord Mount morres (1792), vol. i.; Correspondence between Archbishop Williams and the Marquess of Ormonde, ed. by B. H. Beedham (reprinted from Archaebetween James, Earl of Ormonde, and the Irish Rebels, by John appendix p. 499, and Rep. xiv. App.: pt. vii., MSS. of Marquis of Milton; Hist. MSS. Comm. Reps. ii.-iv. and vi.-x., esp. Rep. viii, Ormonde, together with new series; Notes and Queries, vi. ser. v., pp. 343, 431; Gardiner's Hist. of the Civil War; Calendar of State Papers (Domestic) and Irish,1633-1662,with introductions; Biographia Britannica (Kippis); Scottish Hist. Soc. Publications: Letters and Papers of 1650, ed. by S. R. Gardiner, vol. xvii. (1894).

ORMONDE, JAMES BUTLER, 2ND DUKE OF (1665-1745), Irish statesman and soldier, son of Thomas, earl of Ossory, and grandson of the 1st duke, was born in Dublin on the 29th of April 1665, and was educated in France and afterwards at Christ Church, Oxford. On the death of his father in 1680 he became earl of Ossory by courtesy. He obtained command of a cavalry regiment in Ireland in 1684, and having received an appointment at court on the accession of James II., he served against the duke of Monmouth. Having succeeded his grandfather as duke of Ormonde in 1688, he joined William of Orange, by whom he was made colonel of a regiment of horse-guards, which he commanded at the battle of the Boyne. In 1691 he served on the continent under William, and after the accession of Anne he was placed in command of the land forces co-operating with Sir George Rooke in Spain. Having been made a privy councillor, Ormonde succeeded Rochester as viceroy of Ireland in 1703, a post which he held till 1707. On the dismissal of the duke of Marlborough in 1711, Ormonde was appointed captaingeneral in his place, and allowed himself to be made the tool of the Tory ministry, whose policy was to carry on the war in the Netherlands while giving secret orders to Ormonde to take no active part in supporting their allies under Prince Eugene. Ormonde's position as captain-general made him a personage of much importance in the crisis brought about by the death of Queen Anne. Though he had supported the revolution of 1688, he was traditionally a Tory, and Lord Bolingbroke was his political leader. During the last years of Queen Anne he almost certainly had Jacobite leanings, and corresponded with the duke of Berwick. He joined Bolingbroke and Oxford, however, in signing the proclamation of King George I., by whom he was nevertheless deprived of the captain-generalship. In June 1715 he was impeached, and fled to France, where he for some time resided with Bolingbroke, and in 1716 his immense estates were confiscated to the crown by act of parliament, though by a subsequent act his brother, Charles Butler, earl of Arran, was enabled to repurchase them. After taking part in the Jacobite invasion in 1715, Ormonde settled in Spain, where he was in favour at court and enjoyed a pension from the crown. Towards the end of his life he resided much at Avignon, where he was seen in 1733 by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. Ormonde died on the 16th of November 1745, and was buried in Westminster Abbey.

With little of his grandfather's ability, and inferior to him in elevation of character, Ormonde was nevertheless one of the great figures of his time. Handsome, dignified, magnanimous and open-handed, and free from the meanness, treachery and venality of many of his leading contemporaries, he enjoyed a popularity which, with greater stability of purpose, might have enabled him to exercise commanding influence over events.

See Thomas Carte, Hist. of the Life of James, Duke of Ormonde | back to nature, but to nature trained in the way of ornament. 16 vols., Oxford, 1851), which contains much information respecting The Styles of ornament, so-called, mark the evolution of design, the life of the second duke; Earl Stanhope, Hist of England, com prising the Reign of Queen Anne until the Peace of Utrecht (London, being the direct outcome of Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Gothic 1870): F. W. Wyon, Hist. of Great Britain during the Reign of Queen or other conditions, in days when fashion moved slowly. Post. Anne (2 vols., London, 1876); William Coxe, Memoirs of Marl-Renaissance ornament goes by the name of the reigning king; borough (3 vols., new edition, London; 1847). but the character of the historic periods was not sought by artists; it came of their working in the way natural to them and doing their best. "Style," as distinguished from" the Styles," comes of an artist's intelligent and sympathetic treatment of his material, and of his personal sincerity and strength. International traffic has gone far to do away with national characteristics in ornament, which becomes yearly more and more alike all the world over. The subsidiary nature of ornament and its subjection to conditions lead to its frequent repetition, which results in pallern, repeated forms falling inevitably into lines, always self-asserting, and liable to annoy in proportion as they were not foreseen by the designer. He cannot, therefore, safely disregard them. Indeed, his first business is to build pattern upon lines, if not intrinsically beautiful, at least helpful to the designers are generally quite frank about the construction of their pattern, and not afraid of pronounced lines. Of course, adaptation being all-essential to pattern, an artist must be versed in the technique of any manufacture for which he designs. His art is in being equal to the occasion. (L. F D.)

ORMSKIRK, a market town and urban district in the Ormskirk parliamentary division of Lancashire, England, 11 m. N.E. of Liverpool by the Lancashire and Yorkshire railway Pop. (1901), 6857. The church of St Peter and St Paul is a spacious building in various styles of architecture, but principally Perpendicular. It possesses the rare feature of two western towers, the one square and embattled, the other octagonal and bearing a short spire. There are various Norman fragments, including a fine carly window in the chancel. To the south-east of the church, and divided from it by a screen, is the Derby chapel, the exclusive property of the earls of Derby, whose vault is contained within. A free grammar school was founded about 1614. Rope and twine making, iron-founding and brewing are carried on, and the town has long been famous for its ginger-scheme of decoration. He may disguise them, but capable bread.

The name and church existed in the time of Richard I., when the priory of Burscough was founded. A few fragments of this remain about 2 m. N. of Ormskirk. The prior and convent obtained from Edward I. a royal charter for a market at the manor of Ormskirk. On the dissolution of the monasteries the manor was granted to the earl of Derby.

ORNAMENT (Lat. ornare, to adorn), in decorative art, that element which adds an embellishment of beauty in detail. Ornament is in its nature accessory, and implies a thing to be ornamented, which is its active cause and by rights suggests its design (q.v.). It does not exist apart from its application. Nor is it properly added to a thing already in existence (that is but a makeshift for design), but is rather such modification of the thing in the making as may be determined by the consideration of beauty. For example, the construction and proportions of a chair are determined by use (by the necessity of combining the maximum of strength with the minimum of weight, and of fitting it to the proportions of the human body, &c.); and any modification of the plan, such as the turning of legs, the shaping of arms and back, carving, inlay, mouldings, &c.—any reconsideration even of the merely utilitarian plan from the point of view of art has strictly to do with Ornament, which thus, far from being an afterthought, belongs to the very inception of the thing. Ornament is good only in so far as it is an indispensable part of something, helping its effect without hurt to its use. It is begotten of use by the consideration of beauty. The test of ornament is its fitness. It must occupy a space, fulfil a purpose, be adapted to the material in which and the process by which it is executed. This implies treatment. The treatment befitting a wall space does not equally befit a floor space of the same dimensions. What is suitable to hand-painting is not equally suitable to stencilling; nor what is proper to mosaic proper to carpet-weaving. Neither the purposes of decoration nor the conditions of production allow great scope for naturalism in ornament. Its forms are derived from nature, more or less; but repose is best secured by some removedness from naturenecessitated also by the due treatment of material after its kind and according to its fashioning. In the case of recurring ornament it is inept to multiply natural flowers, &c., which at every repetition lose something of their natural attraction. The artist in ornament does not imitate natural forms. Such as he may employ he transfigures. He does not necessarily set out with any idea of natural form (this comes to him by the way); his first thought is to solve a given problem in design, and he solves it perhaps most surely by means of abstract ornament-witness the work of the Greeks and of the Arabs. The extremity of tasteless naturalism, reached towards the beginning of the Victorian era, was the opportunity of English reformers, prominent amongst whom was Owen Jones, whose fault was in insisting upon a form of ornament too abstract to suit English ideas. William Morris and others led the way

ORNE, a department of the north-west of France, about half of which formerly belonged to the province of Normandy and the rest to the duchy of Alençon and to Perche. Pop. (1906) 315,993. Area, 2371 sq. m. It is bounded N. by Calvados, N.E. by Eure, E. and S.E. by Eure-et-Loir, S by Sarthe and Mayenne and W. by Manche. Geologically there are two distinct regions: to the west of the Orne and the railway from Argentan to Alençon lie primitive rocks connected with those of Brittany, to the east begin the Jurassic and Cretaceous formations of Normandy. The latter district is agriculturally the richest part of the department; in the former the poverty of the soil has led the inhabitants to seek their subsistence from industrial pursuits. Between the northern portions, draining to the Channel, and the southern portion, belonging to the basin of the Loire, stretch the hills of Perche and Normandy, which generally have a height of from 800 to 1000 ft. The highest point in the department, situated in the forest of Ecouves north of Alençon, reaches 1368 ft. The department gives birth to three Seine tributaries-the Eure, its affluent the Iton, and the Risle, which passes by Laigle. The Touques, passing by Vimoutiers, the Dives and the Orne fall into the English Channel, the last passing Sées and Argentan, and receiving the Noireau with its tributary the Vère, which runs past Flers. Towards the Loire flows the Huisne, a feeder of the Sarthe passing by Mortagne, the Sarthe, which passes by Alençon, and the Mayenne, some of whose affluents rise to the north of the dividing range and make their way through it by the most picturesque defiles. The department, indeed, with its beautiful forests containing oaks several centuries old, its meadows, streams, deep gorges and stupendous rocks, is one of the most picturesque of all France. In the matter of climate Orne belongs to the Seine region. The mean temperature is 50° F.; the summer heat is never extreme; the west winds are the most frequent; the rainfall, distributed over about a hundred days in the year, amounts to 36 in. or about 5 in. more than the average for France.

Horse-breeding is the most flourishing business in the rural districts; there are three breeds--those of Perche, Le Merlerault and Brittany. The great government stud of Le Pin-au-Haras (established in 1714), with its school of horse-breeding, is situated between Le Merlerault and Argentan. Several horse-training establishments exist in the department. A large number of lean cattle are bought in the neighbouring departments to be fattened; the farms in the vicinity of Vimoutiers, on the borders of Calvados, produce the famous Camembert checse, and others excellent butter. The bee industry is very flourishing. Oats, wheat, barley and buckwheat are the chief cereals, besides which fodder in great quantity and variety, potatoes and some