Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 17.djvu/250

Rh 238 A S N A S twenty-five to thirty years. His &quot;nom de plume&quot; was &quot; Hujjat.&quot; Most of Nasir s lyrical poems were composed in his retirement, and their chief topics are an enthusiastic praise of Ali, his descendants, and Mostansir in particular; passionate outcries against Khorasan and its rulers, who had driven him from house and home; the highest satisfaction with the quiet solitude of Yumgan ; and utter despondency again in seeing himself despised by his former associates, and for ever excluded from participation in the glorious contest of life. But scattered through all these alternate outbursts of hope and despair we find precious lessons of purest morality, and solemn warnings against the tricks and perfidy of the world, the vanity of all earthly splendour and greatness, the folly and injustice of men, and the hypocrisy, frivolity, and viciousness of fashionable society and princely courts in particular. It is the same strain which runs, although in a somewhat lower key, through his two larger mathnawis or double-rhymed poems, the Rushandindma, or &quot;book of enlightenment, &quot; and the Saddat- ndma, or &quot;book of felicity.&quot; The former is divided into two sections : the first, of a metaphysical character, contains a sort of practical cosmography, chiefly based on Avieenna s theories, but frequently intermixed both with the freer speculations of the well- known philosophical brotherhood of Basra, the Ikhwdn-es-safa, 1 and purely Shi itic or Isma ilitic ideas ; the second, or ethical section of the poem, abounds in moral maxims and ingenious thoughts on man s good and bad qualities, on the necessity of shunning the company of fools and double-faced friends, on the deceptive allurements of the world and the secret snares of ambitious craving for rank and wealth. It concludes with an imaginary vision of a beautiful world of spirits who have stripped off the fetters of earthly cares and sorrows and revel in the pure light of divine wisdom and love. If we compare this with a similar allegory in Nasir s diwan, which culminates in the praise of Mostansir, we are fairly entitled to look upon it as a covert allusion to the eminent men who revealed to the poet in Cairo the secrets of the Isma ilitic faith, and showed him what he con sidered the &quot; heavenly ladder &quot; to superior knowledge and spiritual ffliss. The passage, thus interpreted, lends additional weight to the correctness of Dr Ethe s reconstruction of the date of the Eushandindma, viz., 440 A.H. (1049 A.D.), which, notwithstanding M. Schefer s objections, is warranted both by the astronomical details and by the metrical requirements of the respective verses. That of course does not exclude the possibility of the bulk of the poem having been composed at an earlier period ; it only ascribes its completion or perhaps final revision to Nasir s sojourn in Egypt. A similar series of excellent teachings on practical wisdom and the blessings of a virtuous life, only of a severer and more uncom promising character, is contained in the Sdddatndma; and, judging from the extreme bitterness of tone manifested in the &quot;reproaches of kings and emirs,&quot; we should be inclined to consider it a protest against the vile aspersions poured out upon Nasir s moral and religious attitude during those persecutions which drove him at last to Yumgan. Of all the other works of our author mentioned by Oriental writers there has as yet been found only one, the Zad-elmusa-firin (in the private possession of M. Schefer, Paris) ; and we can very well dismiss the rest as being probably just as apocryphal as Nasir s famous autobiography (found in several Persian tadhkiras or biographies of poets), a mere forgery of the most extravagant description, which is mainly responsible for the confusion in names and dates in older accounts of our author. See Sprenger s Catalogue of the Libraries of the King of Oudh, 1854 ; H. Elbe&quot;, &quot; Ndsir Chusrau s Rushanaindma,&quot; in Z. D. M. G., xxxiii., xxxiv., 1879-80; E Fagnan, &quot;Lelivre de laftflicitd,&quot; in vol. xxxiv. of the same journal, 643-674; Ch. Schefer, Se.fer Nameh, publie, traduit, etannote, Paris, 1881 ; H. Elbe&quot;, in Gottinger Nachrichten, 1882, pp. 124-152, and Z. D. M. G., 1882, pp. 478-508. Fagnan in Journ. As., 7th ser., vol. xiii. p. 164 sq., and Rieu, Cat. Pers. MSS. in Br. Mus., concluded that the poet and the pilgrim were different persons. The opposite view was developed by Elbe&quot;. (H. E.) NASMYTH, ALEXANDER (1758-1840), portrait and landscape painter, was born in Edinburgh on September 9, 1758. He studied at the Trustees Academy under Runciman, and, having been apprenticed as an heraldic painter to a coachbuilder, he, at the age of sixteen, attracted the attention of Allan Ramsay, who took the youth with him to London, and employed him upon the subordinate portions of his works. Nasmyth returned to Edinburgh in 1778, and was soon largely patronized as a portrait painter. He also assisted Mr Miller of Dalswinton, as draughtsman, in his mechanical researches and experi ments; and, this gentleman having generously offered the painter a loan to enable him to pursue his studies abroad, he left in 1782 for Italy, where he remained two years. 1 Compare the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, 1848, vol. xvii., part 1, p. 501 sq., and part 2, p. 183 sq. On his return he painted the excellent portrait of Burns, now in the Scottish National Gallery, so well known through Walker s engraving. Political feeling at that time ran high in Edinburgh, and Nasmyth s pronounced Liberal opinions, which he was too outspoken and sincere to disguise, gave offence to many of his aristocratic patrons, and led to the diminution of his practice as a portraitist. In his later years, accordingly, he devoted himself mainly to landscape work, and did not disdain on occasion to set his hand to scene-painting for the theatres. He has been styled, not unjustly, the &quot;father of Scottish landscape art.&quot; His subjects are carefully finished and coloured, but are wanting in boldness and freedom. Nasmyth was also largely employed by noblemen throughout the country in the improving and beautifying of their estates, in which his fine taste rendered him especially skilful ; and he was known as an architect, having designed the Dean Bridge, Edinburgh, and the graceful circular temple covering St Bernard s Well, which stands near it. Nasmyth died in his native city on 10th April 1840. His youngest son, James, is the well-known inventor of the steam-hammer. His six daughters all attained a certain local reputation as artists, but it was in his eldest son, Patrick, that the artistic skill of his family was most powerfully developed. For an interesting account of the Nasmyth family see James Nasmyth s Autobiography, 1883. NASMYTH, PATRICK (1787-1831), the eldest son of Alexander Nasmyth, was born at Edinburgh on January 7, 1787. Having studied under his father, he went to London at the age of twenty, and soon attracted attention as a clever landscapist. He was a diligent student of the works of Claude and Richard Wilson, and of Ruysdael and Hobbema, upon whom his own practice was mainly founded. His most characteristic paintings are of English domestic scenery, full of quiet tone and colour, and detailed and minute expression of foliage, and with considerable brilliancy of sky effect. They were executed with his left hand, his right having in early life been injured by an accident. He died at Lambeth, August 17, 1831, during a thunderstorm, which at his own request he had been raised in bed to contemplate. NASSAU, now forming the bulk of the government district of Wiesbaden, in the Prussian province of Hesse- Nassau, was till 1866 an independent and sovereign duchy of Germany, consisting of a compact mass of territory, 1830 square miles in area, bounded on the S. and W. by the Main and Rhine, on the N. by Westphalia, and on the E. by Hesse. This territory is divided into two nearly equal parts by the river Latin, which flows from east to west into the Rhine. The southern half is almost entirely occupied by the Taunus Mountains, which attain a height of 2900 feet in the Great Feldberg, while to the north of the Lahn is the barren Westerwald, culminating in the Salzburgerkopf (2000 feet). The valleys and low- lying districts, especially the Rheingau, are very fertile, producing abundance of grain, flax, hemp, and fruit ; but by far the most valuable product of the soil is its wine, which includes several of the choicest Rhenish varieties (Johannisberger, Marcobrunner, Assmannshauser, &c.). Nassau is one of the most thickly wooded regions in Germany, about 42 per cert, of its surface being occupied by forests, which yield good timber and harbour large quantities of game. The rivers abound in fish, the salmon fisheries on the Rhine being especially important. There are upwards of a hundred mineral springs in the district, most of which formerly belonged to the duke, and afforded him a considerable part of his revenue. The best-known are those of Wiesbaden, Ems, Soden, Schwalbach, Schlang- enbad, Geilnau, and Fachingen. The other mineral wealth of Nassau includes iron, lead, copper, building