Page:Imperialdictiona03eadi Brandeis Vol3a.pdf/553

NAS great advantages in point of convenience. By means of those instruments he has made many most interesting observations of the structure of the surface of the moon.—R.  NASMYTH,, the son of Alexander, was born in Edinburgh in 1786, and was instructed in landscape painting by his father, whose style he adopted. When about twenty years of age, Patrick settled in London, and his simple, forcible, little pictures attracted so much attention as to procure him the title of the English Hobbema. His works are carefully elaborated in all their parts, owing their effects not to contrasts of masses of light and gloom, but to the honest representation of true daylight varieties of colour, light, and shade. The national gallery possesses two beautiful small examples of his work. One of his most important pictures is a "View in Hampshire," in the collection of Mr. Thomas Baring; another is a large view of Windsor castle. Owing to an accident which happened to his right hand, Patrick Nasmyth used to paint with his left. He died in the prime of life in London, in South Lambeth, on the 17th August, 1831.— (Literary Gazette, 1831.)—R. N. W.  NASSIR-ED-DIN , a Persian astronomer, was born in Khorassan in 1201, and died at Mergawar in Azerbijan on the 25th of June, 1274. About the time of the conquest of Bagdad by Holakoo (grandson of Gengis Khan), Nassir-ed-Din, who had made himself useful to that prince, was provided by him with the means of establishing an observatory at Mergawar, and was intrusted with the control of education in Persia. He wrote a long series of works on almost all the sciences known in his time, the most celebrated of which are, an Arabic translation of Euclid's Elements, with a commentary; and a collection of astronomical and geographical tables.—W. J. M. R.  NATHAN, a learned rabbi, president of the Jewish school at Rome, died in 1106. He is much esteemed by the Jews as the author of "Aruch," and is hence called Baal Aruch. The work in question is a Talmudical lexicon alphabetically arranged, and has been much used by Buxtorf and others. The first edition without date, was printed before 1480, and the next at Pesaro in 1517. It has been modified in various ways by numerous editors, but a critical edition is still a desideratum.—B. H. C.  NATHAN,, or , flourished from 1437 to 1475; compiled the "Meir Nethib," the first Hebrew concordance, said to have occupied him from 1437 to 1448, and first published by Bomberg at Venice in 1523. The work is also called "Jair Nethib." It was published with the Latin version of Reuchlin, without date; again at Venice in 1564; and in an improved form at Basle in 1580 or 1581. The name of Mordecai upon the title-page of this last-named edition is an error. The "Heir Nethib" is based upon the Latin concordances which preceded it, but is itself the basis of all subsequent Hebrew concordances.—B. H. C.  NATOIRE,, was born at Nimes in 1700, and died at Castel Gandolfo, near Rome, in 1777. He studied painting in the school of Lemoine at Paris; and having obtained the Prix de Rome, was sent by the Royal Academy of Painting to complete his studies in the French academy at Rome. Natoire became an academician in 1734, and in 1751 was appointed by Louis XV. director of the academy at Rome, a post he held until 1774, when he retired on account of ill health. He painted chiefly classical subjects, and was distinguished for his decorative works in the style of Boucher.—R. N. W.  NAUCYDES, a celebrated Greek statuary of Argos, was the son of Mothon, and the brother and instructor of the younger Polycletus of Argos. Pliny fixes his best time in the 95th Olympiad, that is 400. Among his most celebrated works, of which one in ivory and gold, and nine in bronze, are enumerated by ancient writers, two bronze statues of Chimon, a victor in the Olympic games, are mentioned as his best by Pausanias. Of these ten one was a figure of a discobolus or quoit-thrower; and accordingly, without any other foundation, the well-known discobolus in repose, standing with a quoit in his hand, is called the discobolus of Naucydes, the Vatican statue being assumed to be a copy of it.—(Junius, Catalogus Artificum.)—R. N. W.  NAUDÉ,, an illustrious French scholar, was born at Paris in 1600. Educated for the medical profession, he conceived an over-mastering love for literature. Successively librarian to Henry de Mesines and to the Cardinal de Bagni, he accompanied the latter to Rome in 1631. In 1633 he took the degree of M.D. at Padua, and after a short residence with the Cardinal Barberini, was recalled to France by Richelieu, and returned to Paris in 1642. Under the orders of Richelieu, he had been making researches into the long-vexed question about the authorship of the Imitation of Christ. He pronounced strongly against the pretensions of Gerson, and authoritatively attributed the book to Thomas à Kempis, thereby bringing upon himself the anger of the whole Benedictine order. Naudé was engaged by Mazarin as his librarian after the death of Richelieu. Admirably fitted for the post, Naudé collected a noble library, which he had the inexpressible chagrin of seeing dispersed during the troubles of the Fronde. Subsequently he became librarian to Christina, queen of Sweden, an office which he soon resigned on account of his dislike to the climate. The fatigue of his return brought on a fever; stopping at Abbeville, he died there in July, 1653. Amongst his writings are a very remarkable "Apology for great persons falsely suspected of Magic," 1625, and a singular treatise on coups d'etat, in which he distinctly approves the massacre of St. Bartholomew (1639), viewing it not as a religious atrocity, but as a political measure. The Naudæana were printed together with the Patiniana in 1701, and another edition by Bayle appeared in 1703.—W. J. P. <section end="553H" /> <section begin="553I" />NAUNTON,, the author of a biographical pamphlet containing an interesting and nearly contemporary account of Queen Elizabeth and her court, received his education at Cambridge, and in 1601 was elected public orator of that university. Having attracted the notice of King James I. by a Latin oration he delivered in 1603, on behalf of the university, before his majesty at Sir Oliver Cromwell's, Hinchinbroke, the king gave him the situation of master of requests, which proved but the first step in court preferment. In 1615 he was knighted at Windsor. In January, 1618, he was made secretary of state. On the 16th February, 1622-23, the seals were taken from him, "but upon what conditions he parted with them is uncertain," says Chamberlain in a letter to Sir Dudley Carleton; "some say money, some land, but most upon promise of a better place." He was succeeded by Sir Edward Conway, and in the following July the mastership of the court of wards was conferred upon him. He died in March, 1635, and was buried at Letheringham in Suffolk. An engraving of his monument will be found in the History of Leicestershire (vol. iii., 515) by Nicols, who bought his brass of a tradesman at Woodbridge in 1789, when the church had been allowed to fall into a dilapidated state. His little book of graphic portraits of the great queen and twenty-two leading men of her reign, is deservedly applauded by all students of history. It is a gallery of warriors and statesmen, possessing the stoutest hearts and most subtle spirits of an age of enterprise and great deeds. The work was first printed in 1641 in 4to, again in 1642, in 1653, and together with Carey's Memoirs under the editorial care of Sir W. Scott, in 1808, in 8vo. The best edition appeared in 1814, edited by James Caulfield, and with twenty-one portraits, 4to. The same editor also published a Memoir of Sir Robert Naunton.—(See Retrospective Review, v. 303.)—R. H. <section end="553I" /> <section begin="553J" />NAVAGERO, (in Latin, Naugerius), a Venetian man of letters, born in Venice of a noble family in 1483; died at Blois 8th May, 1529. Erudite and eloquent, Navagero addicted himself almost wholly to literature, in preference to public employments. He was ambassador, however, to Charles V. from 1525 to 1528, and was then sent upon an embassy to Francis I., which was cut short by his death. His works were collected and published in 1718. They consist of poems, harangues, and letters; the most noted being the Latin poems (a book of epigrams, and one of eclogues), written in antique elegance and simplicity, and wholly alien from that flashy play of conceits and style of which the example is found in Martial—an author so obnoxious to Navagero that he was wont to burn some copies of his book every year on a certain day. The Italian poems are inferior, but not without merit; an account which Navagero wrote of his travels in Spain and France shows keen observation of facts, natural and historical. He burned in his last illness a history of Venice from 1486, which he had been commissioned to write.—Of the same family was , bishop of Verona, cardinal, and a president in the council of Trent, author of harangues, and a life of Pope Paul IV. He died in 1565, aged fifty-eight.—W. M. R. <section end="553J" /> <section begin="553Zcontin" />NAVARRETE,, a Spanish dominican, was sent out in 1647 on a mission to China, but did not arrive <section end="553Zcontin" />