Page:Cousins's Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature.djvu/295

 Dictionary of English Literature 283

also wrote Essays Classical and Modern, and Lives of Wordsworth and Shelley. Becoming interested in mesmerism and spiritualism he aided in founding the Society for Psychical Research, and was joint author of Phantasms of the Living. His last work was Human Personality and its Survival of Bodily Death (1903).

N ABBES, THOMAS (fl. 1638). Dramatist, was at Oxf. in

1621. He lived in London, and wrote comedies, satirising bourgeois society. He was most successful in writing masques, among which are Spring's Glory and Microcosmus. He also wrote a continuation of Richard Knolles' History of the Turks.

NAIRNE, CAROLINA (OLIPHANT), BARONESS (1766-1845).

B. at the House of Gask (" the auld house "), m. in 1806 her second cousin, Major Nairne, who on reversal of attainder became 5th Lord Nairne. On his death, after residing in various places in England, Ireland, and on the Continent, she settled at the new house of Gask ! j(the old one having been pulled down in 1801). Of her songs 87 in number many first appeared anonymously in The Scottish Minstrel (1821-24) ; a collected ed. with her name, under the title of Lays' from Strathearn, was pub. after her death. Although the songs, some of which were founded on older compositions, had from the first an xtraordinary popularity, the authoress maintained a strict anony- it'y during her life. For direct simplicity and poetic feeling Lady . perhaps comes nearer than any other Scottish song-writer to urns, and many of her lyrics are enshrined in the hearts of her ellow-countrymen. Among the best of them are The Land of the eal (1798), Caller Herrin', The Laird o' Cockpen, The Auld House, 'he Rowan Tree, The Hundred Pipers, and Will ye no come back gain ? The Jacobitism of some of these and many others was, of ourse, purely sentimental and poetical, like that of Scott. She was truly religious and benevolent character, and the same modesty hich concealed her authorship withdrew from public knowledge .er many deeds of charity.

NAPIER, MARK (1798-1879). Historian, s. of a lawyer Edinburgh, was called to the Bar, practised as an advocate, and as made Sheriff of Dumfries and Galloway. He pub. Memoirs of he Napiers, of Montrose, and of Graham of Claverhouse, the last f which gave rise to much controversy. N. wrote from a strongly lavalier and Jacobite standpoint, and had remarkably little of the udicial spirit in his methods. His writings, however, have some istorical value.

NAPIER, SIR WILLIAM FRANCIS PATRICK (1785-1860).

iras one of the sons of Col. the Hon. George N. and Lady Sarah ^ennox, dau. of the 2nd Duke of Richmond, and the object of a romantic attachment on the part of George III. One of his brothers /as Sir Charles N., the conqueror of Scinde. Entering the army at 15, he served with great distinction in the Peninsula under Moore ind Wellington. His experiences as a witness and participator in the stupendous events of the war combined with the possession of pemarkable acumen and a brilliant style to qualify him for the great rork of his life as its historian. The History of the War in the Penin-