Chapter Numbers to Nysê, Doto, and Nerine of N by Brewer's Readers Handbook

up to heaven, whereupon the prefect caused him to be beaten to death with whips of lead.—Chaucer: Canterbury Tales (1388).

(This tale is very similar to that of St. Cecilia in the Legenda Aurea. See also Acts xvi. 25–34.)

Nupkins, mayor of Ipswich, a man who has a most excellent opinion of himself, but who, in all magisterial matters, really depends almost entirely on Jinks, his half-starved clerk.—Dickens: The Pickwick Papers (1836).

Nushka [i.e. “look!”], the cry of young men and maidens of North American Indian tribes when they find a red ear of maize, the symbol of wedlock.

And whene’er some lucky maiden
Found a red ear in the husking, …
“Nushka!” cried they altogether;
“Nushka!” you shall have a sweetheart,
You shall have a handsome husband!”
   —Longfellow: Hiawatha, xiii. (1855).

Nut-Brown Maid (The), the maid wooed by the “banished man.” The “banished man’ describes to her the hardships she would have to undergo if she married him; but finding that she accounted these hardships as nothing compared with his love, he revealed himself to be an earl’s son, with large hereditary estates in Westmoreland, and he married her.—Percy: Reliques, series ii. bk. i. 6.

(This ballad is based on the legendary history of lord Henry Clifford, called “The Shepherd Lord.” It was modernized by Prior, who called his version of the story Henry and Emma. The oldest form of the ballad extant is contained in Arnolde’s Chronicle, 1502.)

Nutshell (The Iliad in a). George P. Marsh tells us he had seen the whole Korân in Arabic inscribed on a piece of parchment four inches wide and half an inch in diameter. In any photographer’s shop may be seen a page of the Times newspaper reduced to about an inch long, and three-quarters of an inch in breadth, or even to smaller dimensions. Charles Toppan, of New York, engraved on a plate one-eighth of an inch square 12,000 letters. The Iliad contains 501,930 letters, and would, therefore, require forty- two such plates, both sides being used. Huet, bishop of Avranches, wrote eighty verses of the Iliad on a space equal to that occupied by a single line of this dictionary. Thus written, 2000 lines more than the entire Iliad might be contained in one page. The Toppan engraving would require only one of these columns for the entire Iliad.

So that when Pliny (Natural History, vii. 21) says the whole Iliad was written on a parchmeht which might be put into a nutshell, we can credit the possibility, as by the Toppan process, the entire Iliad might be engraved on less than half a column of this dictionary, provided both sides were used. See Iliad, p. 519.)

Nym, corporal in the army under captain sir John Falstaff, introduced in The Merry Wives of Windsor and in Henry V., but not in Henry IV. It seems that lieutenant Peto had died, and given a step to the officers under him. Thus ensign Pistol becomes lieutenant, corporal Bardolph becomes ensign, and Nym takes the place of Bardolph. He is an arrant rogue, and both he and Bardolph are hanged (Henry V.). The word means “to pilfer.”

It would be difficult to give any other reply save that of corporal Nym—it was the author’s humour or caprice.—Sir W. Scott.

Nymphidia, a mock-heroic by Drayton. The fairy Pigwiggen is so gallant to queen Mab as to arouse the jealousy of king Oberon. One day, coming home and finding his queen absent, Oberon vows vengeance on the gallant, and sends Puck to ascertain the whereabouts of Mab and Pigwiggen. In the mean time, Nymphidia gives the queen warning, and the queen, with all her maids of honour, creep into a hollow nut for concealment. Puck, coming up, sets foot in the enchanted circle which Nymphidia had charmed, and, after stumbling about for a time, tumbles into a ditch. Pigwiggen seconded by Tomalin, encounters Oberon seconded by Tom Thum, and the fight is “both fast and furious.” Queen Mab, in alarm, craves