It is the sun's fate, like your's, to be displeasing to owls and obscene animals, who cannot bear his lustre. Id. Letters.

OBSCURE', adj. & v. a. Fr. obscur; Lat. OBSCURATION, n. s. obscurus. Dark ; OBSCURE'LY, adv. gloomy; partially OBSCURE'NESS, n. s. enlightened; unOBSCURITY. enlightened; hence abstruse; unintelligible; living in the dark: to obscure is to darken; make less visible; less glorious, beautiful, striking, or intelligible; to conceal the adverb and nouns follow these

senses.

:

Who shall tempt with wandering feet The dark unbottomed infinite abyss, And through the palpable obscure find out His uncouth way? Id. Paradise Lost. Thinking by this retirement to obscure himself from God, he infringed the omnisciency and essential ubiquity of his Maker. Browne's Vulgar Errours.

Not to mention that obscureness that attends prophetic raptures, there are divers things knowable by the bare light of nature, which yet are so uneasy to be satisfactorily understood by our imperfect intellects, that, let them be delivered in the clearest expressions, the notions themselves will yet appear obscure. Boyle on Colours. There is scarce any duty which has been so ebscured by the writings of learned men as this.

Wake.

secro. Intreaty; supplication. OB'SEQUIES, n. s. Fr. obsequies, obsequium. Funeral rites or solemnities.

There was Dorilaus valiantly requiting his friends help, in a great battle deprived of life, his obsequies being not more solemnized by the tears of his partakers, than the blood of his enemies. Sidney.

Fair Juliet, that with angels doth remain,
Accept this latest favour at my hand;
That living honoured thee, and being dead,
With funeral obsequies adorn thy tomb.

I

Shakspeare.

Or tune a song of victory to me, Or to thyself, sing thine own obsequy.

Crashaw.

Him I'll solemnly attend, With silent obsequy and funeral train, Home to his father's house.

Milton's Agonistes.

spare the widow's tears, their woeful cries, And howling at their husband's obsequies; How Theseus at these funerals did assist, And with what gifts the mourning dames dismist. Dryden.

His body shall be royally interred, I will, myself, Be the chief mourner at his obsequies. Id.. Alas! poor Poll, my Indian talker dies, Go, birds, and celebrate his obsequies. Creech.

OBSEQUENS (Julius), a Latin writer, supposed to have lived before Honorius's reign. He made a collection of the prodigies which Livy related in his history. There are several editions of those remains. Lycosthenes endeavoured to supply what was wanting in the original. OBSE QUIOUS, adj. Latin obsequium. OBSEQUIOUSLY, adv, Compliant; obedient; OBSE QUIOUSNESS, n. s. unresisting; servile Shakspeare uses it for funeral: the adverb and substantive follow the foregoing senses.

Your father lost a father;

That father his; and the survivor bound
In filial obligation, for some term,

To do obsequious sorrow. Shakspeare. Hamlet.

I a while obsequiously lament The untimely fall of virtuous Lancaster.

Shakspeare.

Adore not so the rising son, that you forget the father, who raised you to this height; nor be you so obsequious to the father, that you give just cause to the son to suspect that you neglect him. Bacon.

I am ashamed to see these thy creatures so obsequiously pliant unto me while I consider my disposition and deportment towards thee my Creator. Bp. Hall. At his command the up-rooted hills retired Each to his place; they heard his voice, and went Obsequious. Milton's Paradise Lost. I followed her; she what was honour knew, And, with obsequious majesty, approved My pleaded reason.

Id.

Cowley.

See how the obsequious wind and liquid air The Theban swan does upward bear. A genial cherishing heat acts so upon the fit and obsequious matter, as to organize and fashion it according to the exigencies of its own nature. Boyle. They rise, and with respectful awe, At the word given, obsequiously withdraw.

Dryden. We cannot reasonably expect that any one should readily and obsequiously quit his own opinion, and embrace ours with a blind resignation.

Locke.

OBSERVE', v. a. & v. n. OBSERVABLE, adj.

OBSERVABLY, adv.

OBSERVANCE, n.s.

OBSERVANT, adj.

OBSERVATION, n. s. OBSERVATOR,

OBSERVATORY,

Swift.

Obsequious, artful, voluble, and gay, On Britain's fond credulity they play, All sciences a fasting Monsieur knows, And bid him go to hell, to hell he goes. Johnson. Fr. observer; Lat. observo. To regard with attention; watch; note; inspect; keep or practise strictly or religiously; to be attentive; make a remark: observJable is worthy or proper to be remarked; remarkable; eminent observance, notice; attention; respectful or ceremonial practice; rule of practice; punctilious or reverential regard: observant is a correspondent adjective: observation, the act or habit of observing; remark or note made; obedience: observator and observer, one who observes or peculiarly remarks: observatory, a place for astronomical or scientific observations: observing is synonymous with observant.

OBSERVER,

OBSERVING, part. adj. OBSERVINGLY, adv.

There is a kind of character in thy life That to the observer doth thy history

Id.

Fully unfold. Id. Measure for Measure. There is some soul of goodness in things evil, Would men observingly distil it out. Shakspeare. These writers, which gave themselves to follow and imitate others, were observant spectators of those masters they admired. Raleigh.

The king after the victory, as one that had been bred under a devout mother, and was in his nature a great observer of religious forms, caused Te Deum to be solemnly sung in the presence of the whole army upon the place.

Bacon. Having had such experience of his fidelity and observance abroad, he found himself engaged in honour to support him.

Wotton.

If a slow-paced star had stolen away, From the observer's marking, he might stay Three hundred years to see't again. Donne. We are told how observant Alexander was of his master Aristotle. Digby on the Soul, Dedication. Remember, that as thine eye observes others, so art thou observed by angels and by men. Taylor.

There can be no observation or experience of greater certainty, as to the increase of mankind, than the strict and vigilant observance of the calculations and registers of the bills of births and deaths.

Hale's Origin of Mankind. The observator of the bills of mortality, hath given us the best account of the number that late plagues have swept away.

Hale.

Company, he thinks, lessens the shame of vice by sharing it; and therefore, if he cannot wholly avoid the eye of the observer, he hopes to distract it at least by a multiplicity of objects. South.

He was so strict an observer of his word that no consideration whatever could make him break it. Prior.

I took a just account of every observable circumstance of the earth, stone, metal, or other matter, from the surface quite down to the bottom of the pit, and entered it carefully into a journal.

Woodward's Natural History. Another was found near the observatory in Green. wich Park. Id. On Fossils. The great and more observable occasions of exercising our courage occur but seldom. Rogers.

OBSERVATORY. An observatory is a term applied emphatically to buildings erected and furnished with instruments for astronomical observations. Formerly it assumed the shape of a tower or turret erected on some eminence; but in modern erections of this kind convenience and scope in regard to aspect, and solidity of structure, have been more particularly regarded.

Astronomers carry us back not only to the pyramids of Egypt, but even to the tower of Babel as originally designed for some purpose of this kind. It would appear probable that the temple of Belus was devoted to this use by the Chaldæan astronomers; as was the famous tomb of Osymandias, in Egypt. See our article ASTRONOMY. At Alexandria an observatory was built more than 300 years before the Christian era, and continued in repute for upwards of five centuries.

ORIENTAL OBSERVATORIES. The oriental vestiges of ancient observatories are well collected in Bailly's Historie de l'Astronomie Indienne, and in the Asiatic Researches, by Sir William Jones, Mr. Colebrooke, &c. The Hindoo ob

servatories of more modern times are said to have been five in number, viz. at Delhi, Benares, Matra, Oujein, and Suvai Jeypour, and were erected by order of Mahommed Shah, with a view to reforming the calendar. The task of constructing them was committed to Jeysing, or Jeyasinha, rajah of Ambhere, learned in the mysteries of science.

Seeing that very important affairs,' says Jeysing, 'both regarding religion and the administration of empire, depend upon these; and that in the time of the rising and setting of the planets, and the seasons of eclipses of the sun and moon, many considerable disagreements of a similar nature were found; I (Jeysing) represented it to his majesty of dignity and power, the sun of the firmament of felicity and dominion, the splendor of the forehead of imperial magnificence, the unrivalled pearl of the sea of sovereignty, the incomparably brightest star of the heaven of empire,' &c. &c. His majesty was pleased to reply, 'Since you, who are learned in the mysteries of science, have a perfect knowledge of this matter; having assembled the astronomers and geometricians of the faith of Islam and the Brahmins and Pundits, and the astronomers of Europe, and having prepared all the apparatus of an observatory, do you so labor for the ascertaining of the point in question, that the disagreement between the calculated times of those phenomena and the times in which they are observed to happen may be rectified.' See a curious paper containing this astronomer's own account of his proceedings in the Asiatic Researches, vol. v. p. 177. Of the Benares observatory we have in the Philosophical Transactions vol. lxvii. the following account from Sir Robert Barker; who says that it was said in his time to have been built by the emperor Acber. Mr. Hunter's would seem, however, to be the best authenticated account.

'We entered this building,' says Sir Robert Barker, and went up a stair-case to the top of a part of it, near the river Ganges, that led to a large terrace, where, to my surprise and satisfaction, I saw a number of instruments yet remaining, in the best preservation, stupendously large, immoveable from the spot, and built of stone, some of them being upwards of twenty feet in height; and, though they are said to have been erected 200 years before, the graduations and divisions on the several arcs appeared as well" cut, and as accurately divided, as if they had been the performance of a modern artist. The execution in the construction of these instruments exhibited a mathematical exactness in the fixing, bearing, and fitting of the several parts, in the necessary and sufficient supports to the very large stones that compose them, and in joining and fastening them into each other by means of lead and iron cramps. The situation of the two large quadrants whose radius is nine feet two inches, by being at right angles with a gnomon at 25° elevation, are thrown into such an oblique situation as to render them the most difficult, not only to construct of such a magnitude, but to secure in the position for so long a period, and affords a striking instance of the

for, by the shadow of the gnomon thrown on the quadrants, they do not appear to have altered in the least from their original position; and so true is the line of the gnomon that by applying the eye to a small iron ring, of an inch diameter, at one end, the sight is carried through three others of the same dimension to the extremity at the other end, distant thirty-eight feet eight inches, without obstruction, such is the firmness and art with which this instrument has been executed. This performance is the more extraordinary when compared with the works of the artificers of Hindostan at this day, who are not under the immediate direction of a European mechanic; but arts appear to have declined equally with science in the east.

'Lieut. col. Arch. Campbell, at that time (1777) chief engineer in the East India company's service at Bengal, a gentleman whose abilities do honor to his profession, made a perspective drawing of the whole apparatus that could be brought within his eye at one view; but I lament he could not represent some very large quadrants, whose radii were about twenty feet, being on the side whence he took his drawing. Their description, however, is, that they are exact quarters of circles of different radii, the largest of which I judged to be twenty feet, constructed very exactly on the sides of stone walls built perpendicular, and situated, I suppose, in the meridian of the place: a brass pin is fixed at the centre or angle of the quadrant, from which the brahmin informed me they stretched a wire to the circumference when an observation was to be made; from which it occurred to me the observer must have moved his eye up or down the circumference, by means of a ladder or some such contrivance, to raise or lower himself, till he had discovered the altitude of any of the heavenly bodies in their passage over the meridian, so expressed on the arcs of these quadrants; these arcs were very exactly divided into nine large sections; each of these again into ten, making ninety less divisions or degrees; and those also into twenty, expressing three minutes each, of about two-tenths of an inch asunder; so that it is probable they had some method of dividing even these into more minute divisions, at the time of observation.

'My time would only permit me to take down the particular dimensions of the most capital instrument, or the greater equinoctial sun-dial, which appears to be an instrument to express solar time by the shadow of a gnomon on two quadrants, one situated to the east and the other to the west of it; and indeed the chief part of their instruments at this place appear to be constructed for the same purpose, except the quadrants, and a brass instrument described hereafter. There is another instrument for the purpose of determining the exact hour of the day by the shadow of a gnomon, which stands perpendicular to, and in the centre of, a flat circular stone, supported in an oblique situation by means of four upright stones and a cross piece; so that the shadow of the gnomon, which is a perpendicular iron rod, is thrown on the divisions of

'cular stone. There is also a brass circle, about two feet diameter, moving vertically on two pivots between two stone pillars, having an index or hand turning round horizontally on the centre of this circle. This instrument appears to be made for taking the angle of a star at setting or rising, or for taking the azimuth or amplitude of the sun at rising or setting. The use of another instrument I was at a loss to guess. It consists of two circular walls; the outer of which is about forty feet in diameter, and eight feet high; the wall within about half that height, and appears intended for a place to stand in to observe the divisions on the upper circle of the outer wall, rather than for any other purpose; and yet both circles are divided into 360°, each degree being subdivided into twenty small divisions, the same as the quadrants. There is a door-way to pass into the inner circle, and a pillar in the centre, of the same height with the lower circle, having a hole in it, being the centre of both circles, and seems to be a socket for an iron rod to be placed perpendicularly in it. The divisions on these, as well as all the other instruments, will bear a nice examination with a pair of compasses. There is also a smaller equinoctial sun-dial, constructed on the same principle as the large one. This observatory at Benares is said to have been built by the order of the emperor Ackbar; for, as this wise prince endeavoured to improve the arts, so he wished also to recover the sciences of Hindostan, and, therefore, directed that three such places should be erected; one at Delhi, another at Agra, and the third at Benares. Some doubts have arisen with regard to the certainty of the ancient brahmins having a knowledge in astronomy, and whether the Persians might not have introduced it into Hindostan when conquered by that people; but these doubts, I think, must vanish, when we know that the present brahmins pronounce, from the records and tables which have been handed to them by their forefathers, the approach of the eclipses of the sun and moon, and regularly as they advance give timely information to the emperor and the princes in whose dominions they reside.'Philosophical Transactions, vol. lxvii. p. 598, or Abridgment, vol. xiv. p. 214.

Mr. Hunter's paper speaks distinctly of the same astronomer having bound the girdle of resolution to his soul, and constructed at Delhi several of the instruments of an observatory, such as had been formerly erected at Samercand, agreeably to the Mussulman books.' 'Thus an accurate method,' it continues, of constructing an observatory was established; and the difference which had existed between the computed and observed places of the fixed stars and planets, by means of observing their mean motions and aberrations with such instruments was removed. And, in order to confirm the truth of these observations, he constructed instruments of the same kind in Suvai Jeypour, and Matra, and Benares, and Oujein.'

Father le Compte describes a very magnificent observatory, erected at Pekin so far back as the thirteenth century, and furnished by the late