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NEP three books, a life of Cicero, and other historical works now lost. Cicero mentions in one of his letters to Atticus that he was expecting a communication from Nepos, with whom he and Atticus seem to have been intimate. Nothing more is known of him, but that he died in the reign of Augustus. A biographical work is still extant under the name of Cornelius Nepos. It contains the lives of twenty-four distinguished generals and statesmen—viz., nineteen Greeks, one Persian, two Carthaginians, and two Romans. Although, however, the book is commonly ascribed to Cornelius Nepos, its authorship is still a moot point among the learned. By many scholars it is assigned to Æmilius Probus, a grammarian of the fourth century. The Latinity, however, is too pure, and the style too simple, to belong to any but the Ciceronian age; yet it is not unlikely that Probus or some other grammarian may have reduced the biographies to their present form, as an abridgment of a larger work. An exception, however, must he made in respect to the life of Atticus, which is undoubtedly an authentic composition by Nepos himself. It is eulogized by Niebuhr as one of the two best ancient biographies that have come down to us, the other being the life of Agricola by Tacitus. This collection of lives almost ever since its first appearance has been a favourite school-book, and hence the editions are very numerous. That of Lemaire, Paris, 1820, is considered one of the best.—G.  NEPOS,, governor of Dalmatia, was proclaimed emperor of the West by Leo I., the Byzantine emperor, at a date which is variously fixed from 472-474. He appears to have deposed his rival, Glycerius, and established himself at Rome as emperor in 474. He is said to have given up the province of Auvergne, which still belonged to the empire, to the Visigoths who had invaded it. In August, 475, he was driven from Italy into Dalmatia by a revolt of his army, and accordingly ceased to be emperor after an actual reign of about fourteen months. He governed Dalmatia about five years more, but was assassinated at Salona by two of his officers. 480.—G.  NERATIUS,, a Roman jurist, lived under Trajan and Hadrian. He filled the office of consul, and enjoyed a high reputation in the state. Trajan is even said to have contemplated naming him as his successor in the empire. He wrote several works on jurisprudence, and is frequently cited as an authority by subsequent jurists.—G.  NERI,, a saint of the Roman calendar, and founder of the congregation of the Oratory, was born in Florence, 22nd July, 1515. His parents having lost almost all their property by a fire, he was sent in 1531 to live with a rich uncle in St. Germano, at the foot of Mont Cassino, who became so much attached to him that he offered to make him his heir. But before 1533 his devotional feelings had become so strong under the influence of the benedictines of the famous monastery of Mont Cassino, that he declined these offers, and removed in that year to Rome, to be educated for the priesthood. He studied philosophy and theology under the Augustinians, and devoted much of his time to works of piety and charity. When he had completed the usual course of study he sold all his books for the benefit of the poor, and gave himself up entirely to the spiritual exercises of an ascetic devotion and to self-denying labours among the sick poor. He was often in raptures of prayer, and at times was almost overwhelmed by the power of his devout emotions. In 1551 he was ordained a priest, and soon after took a leading part in forming the brotherhood of the most Holy Trinity, which devoted itself chiefly to the care of the convalescent poor, and to the hospitable reception of strangers and pilgrims. He was on intimate terms with the founders of the order of the Jesuits, though not a member of the order, and shared largely in their zeal for the restoration and revival of the Roman church after the heavy blows inflicted upon her by the Reformation. It was with this view that he formed the order of the Oratory, which began to assume its characteristic features in 1556, though it was not till 1575 that it was sanctioned and its statutes confirmed by the pope. It took its rise in the holding of daily evening meetings for worship and edification in a large apartment or hall, which began to be called by those who frequented it the Oratorium. Both priests and laity, old and young, attended these meetings, the exercises of which consisted in prayers, hymns, readings of scripture, church history, and martyrology, and catechising. No reading or address must exceed half an hour. Every thing subtle or rhetorical was avoided, and a familiar tone of address ran through the whole. It was the musical performances practised at these gatherings that gave rise and name to oratorios, and it was the papers on church history read by Cæsar Baronius on these occasions at the suggestion of Neri, that were afterwards developed into the Annales Ecclesiastici. The first house of the Oratory consisted of priests and laymen who were brought together by these evening exercises; and it was distinguished from all the other fraternities of Rome, both old and new, by the tone of cheerfulness, geniality, and humour which Philip Neri infused into the spirit and habits of its members. He had no sympathy with the gloomy rigorism which the restoration of discipline had then brought into fashion at Rome. He was full of humour, was fond of a joke, and even kept a book of jests and ludicrous stories beside him, from which he would sometimes read portions to visitors who had been attracted to call upon him by the reputation of his sanctity. This peculiarity of the founder of the Oratorians, and some of the cheerful, unmortified ways of the order, more than once gave offence to the cardinals, but made them great favourites with the Roman people, who have still in their mouths, we are told, even at the present day, many of Neri's witty sayings. The Roman writers have always affected to condemn Luther's humour as scandalous, otherwise, it is alleged, the brethren of the Oratory might long ago have given to the world as rich a collection of Neri's sallies as the famous table-talk of Luther. He spent all his days in Rome, and never once revisited Florence. When asked on one occasion why he did not visit his native city, he jocularly replied, "I shall be hung up in Florence." He anticipated his canonization, and that his picture would be hung up as a saint in the churches of that city. He died in 1595, and was canonized in 1622. The Oratorians became one of the most popular brotherhoods in Italy, and are still to be found in all its cities, where they are called the Philippians. Malebranche, Mascaron, and Massillon belonged to the order in France, and in 1847 it was introduced into England by Dr. Newman, who is himself a father of the Oratory.—P. L.  NERI,, a jurist, and one of the first Italian economists of the eighteenth century, born in Florence in 1707, his father being a lawyer; died there 14th September, 1776. At an early age he became professor of law in the university of Pisa; and, upon the accession of the house of Lorraine to the grand-dukedom of Tuscany, was made one of the secretaries of council, which post he retained till 1749. He was then appointed president of the Giunta di Censimento in Milan, for the valuation of all the landed property in Lombardy; and was afterwards at the head of a coinage commission. Recalled to Tuscany in 1758, he was nominated one of the counsellors of regency during the minority of the Grand-duke Leopold. He founded the Tuscan Academy of Botany, and left behind him a library ranking as one of the first in Europe in the branch of jurisprudence. One of his principal works is the "Observations on the Legal Value of the Currency," 1751; he wrote also upon taxation, law, and the history of the Tuscan nobility.—W. M. R.  NERLI,, a senator and historian of Florence, born there of a noble family in 1485; died in 1556. He is supposed to have been the same Nerli who was governor of Modena for the church, and was afterwards, when the anti-Medicean party in Florence prevailed in 1527, excluded from the latter city, along with Guicciardini. In after years Cosmo I. was much attached to him, and made him a magistrate in his native city. Nerli has left two historical works—"Commentaries upon the Civil Transactions in the city of Florence, from 1215 to 1537," published in 1728, a book whose veracity is impugned by the adverse party; and a "History of Pistoja, from the rise of the Black and White factions in 1300."—W. M. R.  NERO, the Roman emperor, whose original name was Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, was born in December,. 37. He was the son of Cneius Domitius Ahenobarbus, and Agrippina, the great-granddaughter of Augustus. Being adopted by the Emperor Claudius on his marriage with Agrippina,. 50, he received the name of Nero. Nero had the usual education of a Roman noble, one of his chief instructors being Seneca the philosopher. At the age of sixteen he was married to Octavia, the daughter of Claudius and Messalina, and a few months afterwards, on the death of Claudius,. 54, he succeeded to the empire through the influence of his mother, the representative of Germanicus and Augustus. In the following year Nero entered upon that course of crime which has made his name a proverb of infamy for ever, by causing Britannicus, the son of Claudius, to be poisoned at a banquet. During the early part of his reign the 