Chapter Nina-Thoma to No One of N by Brewer's Readers Handbook

Nineve, the Lady of the Lake, in Arthurian romance.

Then the Lady of the Lake, that was always friendly unto king Arthur, understood by her subtle crafts that he was like to have been destroyed; and so the Lady of the Lake, that hight Nineve, came into the forest to seek sir Launcelot du Lake.—Sir T. Malory: History of Prince Arthur, ii. 57 (1470).

This name occurs three times in the Morte d’Arthur—once as “Nimue,” once as “Nineve,” and once as “Ninive.” Probably “Nimue” (q.v.) is a clerical error, as we also find Nynyue.

Nineveh (The Fall of), an historic poem by Edwin Atherstone, in thirty books. Six were published in 1825, seven more in 1830, and the rest in 1847.

Ninon de Lenclos, a beautiful Parisian, rich, spirituelle, and an atheist, who abandoned herself to epicurean indulgence, and preserved her charms to a very advanced age. Ninon de Lenclos renounced marriage, and had numberless lovers. Her house was the rendezvous of all the most illustrious persons of the period, as Molière, St. Evremont, Fontenelle, Voltaire, and so on (1615–1705).

Some never grow
Ugly; for instance, Ninon de Lenclos.
   —Byron: Don Juan, v. 98 (1820).

Niobe [Né-o-by], the beau-ideal of grief. After losing her twelve children, she was changed into a stone, from which ran water.

The group of “Niobe and her Children in Florence,” discovered at Rome in 1583, was the work either of Praxitelês or Scopas.

She followed my poor father’s body,
Like Niobê, all tears.
   —Shakespeare: Hamlet, act I. sc. 2 (1596).

Niobe of Nations (The). Rome is so called by Byron.—Childe Harold, iv. 79 (1817).

Niphates, a mountain on the borders of Mesopotamia. It was on this mountain that Satan lighted when he came from the sun to visit our earth.

… toward the coast of earth beneath,
Down from the ecliptic, sped with hoped success …
Nor stayed till on Niphates’ top he lights.
   —Milton: Paradise Lost, iii. 739, etc. (1665).

Nipper (Susan), generally called “Spitfire,” from her snappish disposition. She was the nurse of Florence Dombey, to whom she was much attached. Susan Nipper married Mr. Toots (after he had got over his infatuation for Florence).

Susan Nipper says, “I may wish to take a voyage to Chaney, but I mayn’t know how to leave the London Docks.”—Dickens: Dombey and Son (1846).

Nippotate , “a live lion stuffed with straw,” exhibited in a raree-show. So called from the body of a tame hedgehog exhibited by Old Harry, a notorious character in London at the beginning of the eighteenth century (died 1710).

Of monsters stranger than can be expressed,
There’s Nippotatê lies amongst the rest.
   —Sutton Nicholls.

Niquee [Ne’-kay], the sister of Anasterax, with whom she lived in incest. The fairy Zorphee was her godmother, and enchanted her, in order to break off this connection.—Vasco de Lobeira: Amadis de Gaul (thirteenth century).