OUDH (12,551), a province in the Bengal Presidency, occupying the basin of the Gumti, Gogra, and Rapti Rivers, and stretching from the N. bank of the Ganges to the lower Himalayas; is a great alluvial plain, through which these rivers flow between natural embankments, affording irrigation by their marshes and overflows.  The sole industry is agriculture; the crops are wheat and rice, which are exported by rail and river.  The population is one of the densest in the world, the labouring classes being very poor.  The only large town is Lucknow (273), on the Gumti.  One of the earliest centres of Aryan civilisation, Oudh became subject to the empire of Delhi in the 12th century, but was an independent State for a century prior to its annexation by the British in 1856.

OUDINOT, DUKE OF REGGIO, marshal of France, born at Bar-le-Duc; served with distinction under the Revolution and the Empire; led the retreat from Moscow, and was wounded; joined the Royalists after the fall of Napoleon, and died Governor of the Hotel des Invalides (1767-1847).

OUIDA, the pseudonym of Louise de la Ramee, English novelist, born at Bury St. Edmunds; resides chiefly at Florence; has written over a score of novels, “Under Two Flags” and “Moths” among the best; b. 1840.

OUSE, the name of several English rivers, of which the chief are (1) the Yorkshire Ouse, flowing through the great Vale of York southwards to the Humber, receiving the Swale, Ure, Nidd, Wharfe, and Aire from the W. and the Derwent from the E., and having in its basin more great towns than any other river in the country; (2) the Great Ouse, rising in the S. of Northamptonshire, pursuing a winding course NE. through the plains of Buckingham, Bedford, Huntingdon, Cambridge, and Norfolk to the Wash; and (3) the Sussex Ouse.

OUTRAM, SIR JAMES, British general, surnamed by Napier the “Bayard of India,” born in Derbyshire, began his military career in Bombay, served in the Afghan War and the war with Persia, played an important part in the suppression of the Mutiny, marching to the relief of Lucknow, magnanimously waived his rank in favour of Havelock, and fought under him (1803-1863).

OVERBECK, FRIEDRICH, celebrated German painter, born at Luebeck; was head of the new Romantic or Pre-Raphaelite school of German art; had devoted himself to religious subjects, abjured Lutheranism, and joined the Roman Catholic Church; is famed for his frescoes “Christ’s Entry into Jerusalem” and “St. Francis” in particular, still more than his oil-paintings; spent most of his life in Rome (1789-1869).

OVERBURY, SIR THOMAS, English gentleman, remembered chiefly from the circumstances of his death, having been poisoned in the Tower at the instance of Rochester and his wife for dissuading the former from marrying the latter, for which crime the principals were pardoned and the instruments suffered death; he was the author of certain works published after his death, and “The Wife,” a poem, his “Characters,” and “Crumbs from King James’s Table” (1581-1613).