Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama Part 38

"In America," Newman reflected, "lads of twenty-five and thirty have old heads and young hearts, or at least, young morals; abroad they have young heads and very aged hearts, morals the most grizzled and wrinkled."--Henry James Jr., _The Americans_ (1877).

=Newton.=

Newton ... declared, with all his grand discoveries recent, That he himself felt only "like a youth Picking up sh.e.l.ls by the great ocean, truth."

Byron, _Don Juan_, vii. 5 (1824).

Newton discovered the prismatic colors of light, and explained the phenomenon by the emission theory.

Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in night.

G.o.d said, "Let Newton be," and all was light.

Pope, _Epitaph, intended for Newton's Monument in Westminster Abbey_ (1727).

Newton is called by Campbell "The Priest of Nature."--_Pleasures of Hope_, i. (1799).

=Newton and the Apple.= It is said that Newton was standing in the garden of Mrs. Conduitt, of Woolsthorpe, in the year 1665, when an apple fell from a tree and set him thinking. From this incident he ultimately developed his theory of gravitation.

=Nibelung=, a mythical king of Nibelungeland (_Norway_). He had twelve paladins, all giants. Siegfried [_Sege.freed_], prince of the Netherlands, slew the giants, and made Nibelungeland tributary.--_Nibelungen Lied_, iii. (1210).

=Nibelungen h.o.a.rd=, a mythical ma.s.s of gold and precious stones which Siegfried [_Sege.freed_], prince of the Netherlands, took from Nibelungeland and gave to his wife as a dowry. The h.o.a.rd filled thirty-six wagons. After the murder of Siegfried, Hagan seized the h.o.a.rd, and, for concealment, sank it in the "Rhine at Lockham,"

intending to recover it at a future period, but Hagan was a.s.sa.s.sinated, and the h.o.a.rd was lost for ever.--_Nibelungen Lied_, xix.

=Nibelungen Lied= [_Ne.by-lung.'nleed_], the German _Iliad_ (1210). It is divided into two parts, and thirty-two lieds or cantos. The first part ends with the death of Siegfried, and the second part with the death of Kriemhild.

Siegfried, the youngest of the kings of the Netherlands, went to Worms, to crave the hand of Kriemhild in marriage. While he was staying with Gunther, king of Burgundy (the lady's brother), he a.s.sisted him to obtain in marriage Brunhild, queen of Issland, who announced publicly that he only should be her husband who could beat her in hurling a spear, throwing a huge stone, and in leaping. Siegfried, who possessed a cloak of invisibility, aided Gunther in these three contests, and Brunhild became his wife. In return for these services, Gunther gave Siegfried his sister Kriemhild, in marriage. After a time, the bride and bridegroom went to visit Gunther, when the two ladies disputed about the relative merits of their respective husbands, and Kriemhild, to exalt Siegfried, boasted that Gunther owed to him his victories and his wife.

Brunhild, in great anger, now employed Hagan to murder Siegfried, and this he did by stabbing him in the back while he was drinking from a brook.

Thirteen years elapsed, and the widow married Etzel, king of the Huns.

After a time, she invited Brunhild and Hagan to a visit. Hagan, in this visit, killed Etzel's young son, and Kriemhild was like a fury. A battle ensued, in which Gunther and Hagan were made prisoners, and Kriemhild cut off both their heads with her own hand. Hildebrand, horrified at this act of blood, slew Kriemhild; and so the poem ends.--Authors unknown (but the story pieced together by the minnesingers).

? The _Volsunga Saga_ is the Icelandic version of the _Nibelungen Lied_.

This saga has been translated into English by William Morris.

The _Nibelungen Lied_ has been ascribed to Heinrich von Ofterdingen, a minnesinger; but it certainly existed before that epoch, if not as a complete whole, in separate lays, and all that Heinrich von Ofterdingen could have done was to collect the floating lays, connect them, and form them into a complete story.

F. A. Wolf, in 1795, wrote a learned book to prove that Homer did for the _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_ what Ofterdingen did for the _Nibelungen Lied_.

Richard Wagner composed a series of operas founded on the Nibelungen Lied.

=Nibelungen Not=, the second part of the _Nibelungen Lied_, containing the marriage of Kriemhild with Etzel, the visit of the Burgundians to the court of the Hun, and the death of Gunther, Hagan, Kriemhild, and others. This part contains eighty-three four-line stanzas more than the first part. The number of lines in the two parts is 9836; so that the poem is almost as long as Milton's _Paradise Lost_.

=Nibelungers=, whoever possessed the Nibelungen h.o.a.rd. When it was in Norway, the Norwegians were so called: when Siegfried [_Sege.freed_] got the possession of it, the Netherlanders were so called; and when the h.o.a.rd was removed to Burgundy, the Burgundians were the Nibelungers.

=Nic. Frog=, the Dutch as a nation; as the English are called John Bull.--Dr. Arbuthnot, _History of John Bull_ (1712).

=Nica'nor=, "the Protospathaire," a Greek general.--Sir W. Scott, _Count Robert of Paris_ (time, Rufus).

=Nice= (_Sir Courtley_), the chief character and t.i.tle of a drama by Croune (1685).

=Nicholas=, a poor scholar, who boarded with John, a rich old miserly carpenter. The poor scholar fell in love with Alison, his landlord's young wife, who joined him in duping the foolish old carpenter. Nicholas told John that such a rain would fall on the ensuing Monday as would drown every one in "less than an hour;" and he persuaded the old fool to provide three large tubs, one for himself, one for his wife, and the other for his lodger. In these tubs, said Nicholas, they would be saved; and when the flood abated, they would then be lords and masters of the whole earth. A few hours before the time of the "flood," the old carpenter went to the top chamber of his house to repeat his _pater nosters_. He fell asleep over his prayers, and was roused by the cry of "Water! water! Help! help!" Supposing the rain had come, he jumped into his tub, and was let down by Nicholas and Alison into the street. A crowd soon a.s.sembled, were delighted at the joke, and p.r.o.nounced the old man an idiot and fool.--Chaucer, _Canterbury Tales_ ("The Miller's Tale," 1388).

_Nicholas_, the barber of the village in which Don Quixote lived.--Cervantes, _Don Quixote_, I. (1605).

_Nicholas_ (_Brother_), a monk at St. Mary's Convent.--Sir W. Scott, _The Monastery_ (time, Elizabeth).

_Nicholas_ (_St._), patron saint of boys, parish clerks, sailors, thieves, and of Aberdeen, Russia, etc.

_Nicholas_ (_St._). The legend is, that an angel told him a father was so poor he was about to raise money by the prost.i.tution of his three daughters. On hearing this St. Nicholas threw in at the cottage window three bags of money, sufficient to portion each of the three damsels.

The gift Of Nicholas, which on the maidens he Bounteous bestowed, to save their youthful prime Unblemished.

Dante, _Purgatory_, xx. (1308).

=Nicholas of the Tower= (_The_), the duke of Exeter, constable of the Tower.

=Nicholas's Clerks=, highwaymen; so called by a pun on the phrase _Old Nick_ and _St. Nicholas_ who presided over scholars.

_St. Nicholas's Clerks_, scholars; so called because St. Nicholas was the patron of scholars. The statutes of Paul's School require the scholars to attend divine service on St. Nicholas's Day.--Knight, _Life of Dean Colet_, 362 (1726).

=Nicholas Minturn=, hero of novel of that name, by Josiah Gilbert Holland (1876).

=Nickleby= (_Nicholas_), the chief character and t.i.tle of a novel by C.

d.i.c.kens (1838). He is the son of a poor country gentleman, and has to make his own way in the world. He first goes as usher to Mr. Squeers, schoolmaster at Dotheboys Hall, in Yorkshire; but leaves in disgust with the tyranny of Squeers and his wife, especially to a poor boy named Smike. Smike runs away from the school to follow Nicholas, and remains his humble follower till death. At Portsmouth, Nicholas joins the theatrical company of Mr. Crummles, but leaves the profession for other adventures. He falls in with the brothers Cheeryble, who make him their clerk; and in this post he rises to become a merchant, and ultimately marries Madeline Bray.

_Mrs. Nickleby_, mother of Nicholas, and a widow. She is an enormous talker, fond of telling long stories with no connection. Mrs. Nickleby is a weak, vain woman, who imagines an idiot neighbor is in love with her because he tosses cabbages and other articles over the garden wall.

In conversation, Mrs. Nickleby rides off from the main point at every word suggestive of some new idea. As a specimen of her sequence of ideas, take the following example: "The name began with 'B' and ended with 'g,' I am sure. Perhaps it was Waters" (p. 198).

? "The original of 'Mrs. Nickleby,'" says John Foster, "was the mother of Charles d.i.c.kens."--_Life of d.i.c.kens_, iii. 8.

_Kate Nickleby_, sister of Nicholas; beautiful, pure-minded, and loving.

Kate works hard to a.s.sist in the expenses of housekeeping, but shuns every attempt of Ralph and others to allure her from the path of virgin innocence. She ultimately marries Frank, the nephew of the Cheeryble brothers.