NIEBUIIR 



NIEMEN 



lifl.l various appointments, which he resigned in 

 1N06 to enter tin- I'rnssiaii ci\il sen ice on the 

 invitation nf Stein. During the next three years, 

 tin- daikest in the history of 1'russia, Nicbnhr 

 was actively employe"! in public business and in 

 various secret financial missions. Hut hi- scholar's 

 temperament a- hut ill o<lnj>te<l for ]H>litical 

 intrigue, and 'the o|H-ning of the university of 

 Berlin in 1810 proved a new era in his life. He 

 care (1810-12) a course of lectures on Itonmn 

 hi-tory which, hy making known the results of tin- 

 new iiml critical tl ry that he hail applied to the 



elucidation of obscure historical evidence, c-tah- 

 li-hcd his position as one of the most original anil 

 philosophical of mod. -in historians. His appoint- 

 nii-iit, in ISlti, to the |vot of Prussian ambMMulor 

 at the pa|>al court, where he remained till 1823, 

 gave him an opportunity of testing on the spot the 

 accuracv of his conjectures in regard to many ques- 

 tions of local and social bearing. On his return 

 from Koine Ni<>1mlir took up his residence at Itonn, 

 where his admirable lectures gave a powerful im- 

 petus to classical and arclurotngical learning. He 

 was thus employed when the revolution of 1830 

 roused him from the calm of his literary pursuits. 

 His sensitive nature, unstrung hy physical weak- 

 ness, led him to take an exaggerated view of the 

 consequences of this movement, and to anticipate a 

 recurrence of all the horrors of the former trench 

 revolution, and the result was to bring al>out a 

 state of mental depression and bodily prostration, 

 which ended in his death, 2d January 1831. 



Niebnhr's attainments were of extraordinary 

 range, ami his genius strikingly original in cast. 

 He nail mastered twenty languages before the age 

 of thirty, ami his tenacious memory retained every- 

 thing he read ; while he possessed in a remarkable 

 decree the gift of intuitive sagacity that enabled 

 him to sift true from false historic evidence, and 

 often to supply by felicitous conjecture the link 

 wanting in some imi>erfeet chain of evidence. It 

 is not to lie denied, however, that his scepticism 

 as to the credibility of early history goes too far, 

 and that he is often arbitrary and unliistorical in 

 his conjectures ; indeed, the stricter sort of sceptical 

 critics, like the late Sir George Corncwall Lewis, 

 go so far as to regard his effort to construct a 

 continuous Koman history out of such legendary 

 materials as we possess as, on the whole, a failure. 

 Niebuhr's theory of the construction of the earlier 

 Roman history from still earlier liallads is not 

 now accepted by scholars ; but the fact remains 

 that the bulk of lux contribution to history 

 still stands substantially unshaken, and it would 

 be difficult to overestimate the strength of the 

 impetus he gave to its study on a really scientific 

 method. 



Of hi* KlmiteJu Oa&iehte (vols. i. and ii. 1811-12; 2d 

 i i i-.T > . \ il. iii., IITI..T,.: ,;..!, i.i . mi ,,f lir-t 

 Punic war, edited from his paper* by Classen, 1832) the 

 first two volume! were translated by Julius Hani and 

 Connop Thirlwall, and the third by I)r W. Smith and 

 ]>r k SchmiU ; other works translated by Schmitz into 

 Knghsh are Lrrturri on the Hitt. of Kntae, to Fall of 

 Wrtttrn Kmpirr (2d ed. 3 vols. 18SO), Lecture* on Ancifnt 

 Hilt. (3 vols. 1852), and Lrcturtt on Ancifnt Ktkno- 

 prapkf and Grog. (2 voU 1*>3). Other works are 

 Gritch. HrroenijtrhiehU (1842), written for his son 

 Marcus; Kltine hutoruekrn und jjiilnlmjuehrn fit-It rif- 

 ten (2 vols. 1*2S 43); U-sides numerous other csxays 

 on philological, historical, and archmological questions. 

 Niehnhr co-operated with Kekker and others in re-editing 

 fin-iptora Jtuloriie limintin/r ; he also discovered 

 hitherto nnpnntvd fragments of classical author*, as 

 of Cicero's Oration* and portions of Gains ; published 

 the Imeriptiimrt KubirnKi ( Koine. ISL'l ) ; and was a 

 constant contributor to tin- literary journals of Orinany. 

 Sea Madame Henslcr's Lrlxnmaehrirhttn ( 1KW ; Kng. 

 trans, by Miss Winkworth, 3 vols. 1852 1, and the studies 

 bjr CluMu (1876) and Eysscnhardt ( 1880). 



Mflmlir. KARSTKX, a distinguished geograpln-r 

 and traveller, was born in IT.'l.'t. in the Haunt erian 

 territory of Hadeln. He spent sen-nil \rai- as a 

 day-lal>oiircr ; but hating uci|uiied a inmll pio- 

 ]K-rty, he studied at Cottin^en. eiiten-d the Danish 

 .-eivice, and in ITtil joined an e\|H-ditinn toe\plme 

 portions of Arabia, Peisiu, Asiatic Tuike>. ami 

 India. On his return to Denmark in I7l<7 he 

 published the results of his mis>ion, l!<sc/,ni/,iniij 

 run Arii/iifii I Copeiihngen. 1772), and RtUtbtldurtif. 

 mil/ (3 vols. 17/4-98). He also edited and pub. 

 lisheil at his own cost the nainial history notes of 

 his deceaw.il friend and fellow travel It -r. I 1 ' l-'oi>k:il. 

 Defcrijitioties Antmalium (1775) and Flora jEyiti* 

 tiiti-ii-Arnhiru (1776). He accept, d in 1778 a cml 

 post at Meldorf, in the Dit marsh district of Hoi- 

 stein, then Danish. He died -Jtith . Vpril 1815. See 

 his son's Leben Niebuhr* ( 1817 ). 



Xfederwald, the western termination of the 

 Taunus range, that abuts upon the Khine over 

 against Dingen. On a comniaiidin^ site near its 



summit was erected, on 28th Sept U-r lNh3, the 



national (German) memorial eoniineniorative of 

 the successful war of 1870-71. An extensive 

 pedestal, ornamented with allegorical figures, is 

 surmounted by a bronze figure of Gerinania, 34 J 

 feet in height. The whole was designed by Schill- 

 ing, a Dresden sculptor. Toothed lailwavs cany 

 visitors up to the monument from the villages of 

 Kiideslieini and Assmannshausen at the foot, both 

 noted for their wine. 



\i'l. AnOLPHE, French niarshal, was liom at 

 Muret (Upper Garonne) on 4th ()ctol-r 18IC2, and 

 entered the army as an engineer officer ; he took 

 part in the storming of Constaiitine in Algeria 

 (1836), the siege of Rome (1849), the Ixmiluud- 

 ment of ISonmrsund in Finland (1854), the fall of 

 Sebastopol (1856), and in the battles of Magenta 

 and Solici ino i Is.v.l). His share in these battles 

 won him the marshal's baton. He was mode 

 minister of war in 1867, and was busily employed 

 reorganising the French army when he died, 141 h 

 August 1869. It is from him that the favourite 

 Marshal Kiel (yellow) rose derives its name. 



Xh'Ilo-WOrk (Hal. niello, from Low Lat. 

 nigcllum, 'block enamel'), a method of ornament- 

 ing silver or gold plates by engraving the surface, 

 and tilling up the lines with a Mark composition to 

 give clearness and effect to the incised design. The 

 plates so ornamented were principally employed in 

 t he making of church-plate i elicpia i irs, and for costly 

 personal ornament. Traces of the art are found in 

 ancient Roman work, and it was much pnirti-d 

 under the Byzantine empire from the Itith century 

 onwards. The Italian goldsmiths attained remark- 

 able skill in niello-work ; and the most eminent 

 and famous of these was the Florentine Moso or 

 Tommoso Finiguerra, whose work, in addition to 

 its artistic excellence, derives peculiar interest from 

 the fact that he, being the first to take paper proofs 

 from his engraved work, directly led the way to 

 the production of line-engravings. The name niello 

 is given not only to the engraved ami niellatcd 

 metal-work, but also to the paper proofs taken from 

 them ; and as these were only casually taken they 

 are very rare, and bring great prices, as much as 

 :K) L'lii'neas having In-en paid for a single small 

 proof Niello-work is still practised by goldsmiths, 

 especially in Russia, the silver niellated boxes 

 made in that country lieing popularly known as 

 'platina lioxes.' See EXC;I:AVIM:, Vol. IV. p. 

 3<8j and a long article in the Athenninn for 27th 

 February 1886 on the extensive fabrication of nielli 

 at Venice in the early part of the 19th century. 



\i'im-n. a river of western Russia, whoso 

 lower course (70 of its 600 miles) lies within the 

 province of East Prussia, where it is culled the 



