Chapter Nicholas Nickleby to Nimue of N by Brewer's Readers Handbook

Nightingale and the Thorn.

As it fell upon a day
In the Merry month of May,
Sitting in a pleasant shade
Which a grove of myrtles made—
Beasts did leap, and birds did sing,
Trees did grow, and plants did spring,
Everything did banish moan,
Save the nightingale alone;
She, poor bird, as all forlorn,
Leaned her breast up-till a thorn.
   —Barnfield: Address to the Nightingale (1594),

So Philomel, perched on an aspen sprig,
Weeps all the night her lost virginity,
And sings her sad tale to the merry twig,
That dances at such joyful mysery.
Ne ever lets sweet rest invade her eye,
But leaning on a thorn her dainty chest,
For fear soft sleep should steal into her breast,
Expresses in her song grief not to be expressed.
   —G. Fletcher: Christ’s Triumph over Death (1610).

The nightingale that sings with the deep thorn
Which fable places in her breast.
   —Byron: Don Juan, vi. 87 (1824).

Nightmare of Europe (The), Napoleon Bonaparte (1769, reigned 1804–1814, died 1821).

Nightshade (Deadly). We are told that the berries of this plant so intoxicated the soldiers of Sweno the Danish king, that they became an easy prey to the Scotch, who cut them to pieces.

Called “deadly,” not from its poisonous qualities, but because it was used at one time for blackening the eyes in mourning.

Nihil. Ex nihilo nihil fit (“Nothing can com e out of nothing”). The axiom of Xenophanês , founder of the Eleatic school.

Nimrod, pseudonym of Charles James Apperley, author of The Chase, The Road, The Turf (1777–1843).

Nimue, “damsel of lake,” who cajoled Merlin in his dotage to tell her the secret “whereby he could be rendered powerless;” and then, like Delilah, she overpowered him, by “confining him under a stone.”

Then after these quests, Merlin fell in a dotage on … one of the damsels of the lake, hight Nimue, and Merlin would let her have no rest, but always he would be with her in every place. And she made him good cheer till she had learned of him what she desired.… And Merlin shewed to her in a rock, whereas was a great wonder … which went under a stone. So by her subtle craft, she made Merlin go under that stone … and he never came out, for all the craft that he could do.—Malory: History of Prince Arthur, i. 60 (1470).

Without doubt the name Nimue is a clerical error for Nineve or Ninive. It occurs only once in the three volumes. (See Nineve.)

N.B.—Tennyson makes Vivien the seductive betrayer of Merlin, and says she enclosed him “in the four walls of a hollow tower;” but the History says “Nimue put him under the stone” (pt. i. 60).