but he had not long performed the duties of that chair when he

was cut off in his thirty-first year.—W. J. M. R. NIFO, Agostino (Niphus), a learned author, born at Sessa in Terra di Lavoro about 1473; died probably in his birthplace in 1537 or 1538, though statements differ both as to locality and date. He held professorships in Padua, Naples, Rome, Bologna, and Pisa; was beloved by two princes of Salerno; and honoured and privileged by Leo X. His very numerous works comprise a treatise "De Intellectu et Dæmonibus," which, founded on the system of Averrhoes, was open to theological censure, and was subsequently modified by himself; copious illustrations of Aristotle; and other writings astronomical, medical, &c., now little remembered or sought after. One, however, in which he combats the general panic occasioned by the prediction of a deluge to ensue in the year 1524, deserves record. Nifo was admired for his talents, and his social qualities; but his person was unattractive, and his manners were free even in his old age.—C. G. R. NIGER, Caius Pescennius, a Roman soldier who rose from the ranks to the important office of governor of Syria. When the Roman empire was sold to Julian in 193, Pescennius was one of three generals, the others being Clodius Albinus and Septimius Severus, who took the field against him. Each of the three aimed at securing the supreme authority for himself. Pescennius had been hailed emperor by his own troops, but his rival Severus, after defeating Julian, marched against him with the Pannonian legions, routed his army after three engagements, and put him to death 194 b.c.—D. M. * NIGHTINGALE, Florence, was born in 1820 at Florence, from which city she derives her christian name. She is the younger of the two daughters and co-heiresses of William Edward Nightingale, Esq. of Lea Hurst, Derbyshire, and Embley park, Hampshire, and by the mother's side is a granddaughter of William Smith the philanthropist and dissenting leader, many years member for Norwich, and with whom Southey had a controversy. Miss Nightingale was educated at home at Lea Hurst, in a romantic Derbyshire valley not far from Cromford, where Arkwright erected the first cotton-mill. The education which she received was sound and varied, and at an early age she was noted for her love of doing good at Lea Hurst and its neighbourhood. Hospital management was an object of her particular interest, and from inspecting the hospitals in her vicinity she proceeded to visit those of the metropolis and of foreign countries. In her written evidence given to the royal commission on the state of the army in 1857, she said, "I have visited all the hospitals in London, Dublin, and Edinburgh; many country hospitals; some of the naval and military hospitals in England; and studied with the sœurs de charité the institution of the protestant deaconesses at Kaiserwerth, where I was twice in training as a nurse; the hospitals at Berlin and many others in Germany, at Lyons, Rome, Alexandria, Constantinople, Brussels." It was in 1849 that Miss Nightingale first enrolled herself among the voluntary nurses at Pastor Fliedner's remarkable establishment at Kaiserwerth, near Düsseldorf, on the Rhine, and there she became practically familiar with disease in its most dangerous forms. After her return to England she consented to take the management of the home for invalids of her own sex established in Harley Street, London; and seems to have been performing her self-imposed duties, when in the late autumn of 1854 came the report of what the sisters of charity were doing for the sick and wounded of the French army in the East, while the English soldiers had no such nurses. The late Lord Herbert was induced to send to the East a corps of voluntary nurses, and Miss Nightingale consented to go out with them and superintend their operations. With her assistants she reached Constantinople on the very day after the battle of Inkermann, which furnished her with but too many wounded soldiers to be tended in the barrack hospital at Scutari, where she presided. What she did and organized there for the British soldier, is too well known to need recording. When her work at Scutari was accomplished, she proceeded to Balaclava to inspect the hospitals of the camp, and was attacked by the hospital fever, and it was not until 1856 that she returned to England with a fame even greater than that of Howard; for this was a young and well-born woman, with every social and worldly advantage, who had sacrificed health and the enjoyments of her age and station to a perilous work of charity. Sovereign and people alike recognized the services which Miss Nightingale herself is the person to appreciate least. The national gratitude assumed the form of a subscription, to found and place under her supervision an institution for the training of nurses. Besides an account of "The Institution at Kaiserwerth for the practical training of Deaconesses," 1851, Miss Nightingale has published two works—the first (1859) "Notes on Hospitals, being two papers read before the National Association for the promotion of social science at Liverpool in October, 1858, with evidence given to the royal commission on the state of the army, 1857;" and the second (1860), "Notes on Nursing; what it is, and what it is not." Both of these are remarkable for the sound practical sense and mastery of minute details which Miss Nightingale adds to a noble spirit of self-sacrifice.—F. E. NIGIDIUS, Publius Figulus, a Roman senator, assisted Cicero in the suppression of Catiline's conspiracy, 63 b.c. He was prætor in 59 b.c.; took an active part in the civil war on the side of Pompey; was compelled in consequence by Cæsar to live abroad, and died in exile 44 b.c. He was celebrated for his great learning, especially in mathematics and astrology (two branches of knowledge commonly joined together by the Romans), and his treatises on these subjects, all now lost, were celebrated in antiquity. He is termed by Gellius the most learned among the Romans, except Varro. Nigidius embraced the doctrines of the Pythagorean philosophy, and is spoken of in high terms by Cicero. His skill in astrology is praised by Lucan.—G. NILEUS, a Greek physician, the inventor of an apparatus for the reduction of dislocations, called πλινθίον, which is described by Oribasius. This name is variously written, sometimes Nilus and Neleus, but Νείλευς is probably the correct form of the word. He must have lived in or before the third century b.c., as he is referred to by Heracleides of Tarentum. He is also quoted by Celsus, Cælius Aurelianus, Galen, Alexander Trallianus, Oribasius, Ætius, and Paulus Ægineta.—F. C. W. * NILSSON, Evan, professor of natural history in the university of Lund, was born in 1787. He prosecuted his studies at Lund, and was chosen teacher of natural history in 1812. He devoted attention specially to zoology. He passed as doctor of medicine in 1818, and in 1832 he was appointed to his present office in the university of Lund, and at the same time he occupies a clerical position as prebend in the church. He superintends the natural history museum of the Academy of Sciences. He has visited Britain and France. His works on Scandinavian zoology have raised him to a high rank in that department. He has studied archæology, especially as regards the Scandinavian races, and he has also devoted attention to geology and palæontology.—J. H. B. NINON. See L'Enclos. * NISARD, Jean-Marie-Napoléon-Désiré, professor, and author of several works, chiefly on French literature, was born at Chatillon-sur-Seine in 1806. In 1826 he joined the Journal des Débats, then in the liberal interest, and afterwards went on the staff of the National, leaving this to fill a post at the école normale, which he held until 1844. Other appointments followed—the chair of Latin rhetoric at the college of France, being the only one of which he was not deprived by the revolution of February. Four years after that event, M. Nisard re-entered public life, obtaining the chair of French rhetoric, which he now fills by deputy, having been appointed director of the higher normal school. Since 1856 M. Nisard has been a commander of the legion of honour.—W. J. P. * NISARD, Marie-Edouard-Charles, author, was born at Chatillon-sur-Seine. M. Nisard did not settle down to a literary career until after three years of commercial life. From 1831 to 1848 his profession was that of a journalist. He afterwards collaborated with his brother in the Collection des Classiques Latins, translating Valerius Flaccus, Martial, and Ovid. Among other works of Nisard are a disquisition on the literary triumvirate of the sixteenth century (Scaliger, Lipsius, and Casaubon), and a history of popular books from the fifteenth century to 1852—the latter a very curious work.—W. J. P. NISSEL, Johann George, a native of the Palatinate, who settled in Holland, and devoted himself to the promotion of oriental learning. He prepared and printed at his own expense, and with his own types, an edition of the Hebrew Bible, which appeared in 1659, and was again issued in a corrected edition after his death by Professor Uchtmann, with a recommendatory preface by Heidan, Cocceius, and Hoornbeek, Lug. Bat., 1662. This is an extremely beautiful and very accurate edition of the Hebrew text, which is divided into verses with Latin headings to the chapters. Nissel edited also some books of