N — Nicholas Nickleby to Nim ue (Part 2 of 3)

How many Cæsars and Pompeys … by mere inspiration of the names, have been made worthy of them! and how many … might have done … well … had they not been Nicodemus’d into nothing!—Sterne: Tristram Shandy, vol. i. 19.

Nicol, Anglo-Norman for Lincoln.

The eight counties of Lincoln—
Nichole e Hamton [Northampton],
Hereford [Hertfodd] e Huntedune,
Leicestre e Bedefurd,
Buckinham e Oxnefford.
   —Gaimar: Lestorie des Engles.

Nicole, a female servant of M. Jourdain, who sees the folly of her master, and exposes it in a natural and amusing manner.—Molière: Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme (1670).

Nidhögg, the dragon or adder that gnaws the fabled ash tree yggdrasil (q.v.) in old Scandinavian mythology.

Niflheim, the region of cold and darkness into which one of the roots of the ash tree yggdrasil (q.v.) descends.—Scandinavian Mythology.

Nigel. (See Fortunes of Nigel, p. 387.)

Night or Nox. So Tennyson calls sir Peread, the Black Knight of the Black Lands, one of the four brothers who kept the passages to Castle Perilous.—Tennyson: Idylls of the King (“Gareth and Lynette”); sir T. Malory: History of Prince Arthur, i. 126 (1470).

Night and Morning, a novel by lord Lytton (1841).

Night Side of Nature (The), a collection of ghost stories by Mrs. Crowe (1848).

Night Thoughts, a series of poems in blank verse by Dr. Young. The first eight books were published in 1742, the ninth book in 1745.

Night 1, on Life, Death, and Immortality.
Night 2, on Time, Death, and Friendship.
Night 3, Narcissa.
Night 4, The Christian Triumph.
Night 5, The Relapse.
Night 6 and 7, The Infidel reclaimed (in 2 parts).
Night 8, Virtue’s apology, or the Man of the World answered.
Night 9, Consolations.
The great defect of the Night Thoughts is the want of continuity. The nine nights are full of detached bursts of passion and poetic fancy, but even Lorenzo excites in us no interest. There is plenty of epigram, some pathos, much emotion, and several fine reflections; but the book should not be read through at once, or it would pall the appetite. I know of no book more fitted for “select beauties” and judicious extracts.

Nightingale (The). It is said that this bird is unknown in Wales, Ireland, and Scotland; that it does not visit Cornwall, nor even the west of Devon.
The Arcadian Nightingale, an ass.
The Cambridgeshire Nightingale, the edible frog, once common in the fen district; also called the “Whaddon organ.”
The Fen Nightingale, edible frog.
The Italian Nightingale, Angelica Catalani; also called “The Queen of Song” (1782–1849).
The Liege Nightingale, the edible frog.
The Swedish Nightingale, Jenny Lind, afterwards Mme. Goldschmidt. She appeared in London 1847, and retired 1851 (1821–1886):
The Nightingale of Wittenberg. Martin Luther is so called by Sachs, one of the minnesingers (1483–1546).

Nightingale and the Lutist. The tale is that a lute-master challenged a nightingale in song. The bird, after sustaining the contest for some time, feeling itself outdone, fell on the lute, and died broken-hearted.

This tale is from the Latin of Strada, translated by Richard Crashaw, and called Music’s Duel (1650). It is most beautifully told by John Ford, in his drama entitled The Lover’s Melancholy, where M enaphon is supposed to tell it to Amethus (1628).