rry 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.

Richard 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.
Never 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.

Giles 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.

[Asterism] Called "deadly," not from its poisonous qualities, but
because it was used at one time for blackening the eyes in mourning.

=Nimrod=, pseudonym of Charles James Apperley, author of _The Chase, The
Road, The Turf_ (1852), etc.[TN-34]

=Nim'ue=, a "damsel of the 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 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.--Sir T. Malory, _History of Prince Arthur_, i. 60
(1470).

It is not unlikely that this name is a clerical error for Nineve or
Ninive. It occurs only once in the three volumes. (See NINIVE.)[TN-35]

[Asterism] Tennyson makes Vivien the se