993 



NOVELLA. 



NUMBER. 



E91 



entirely upon the other. The manifold character of modern romantic 

 literature, as compared with that uniformity which distinguished the 

 romances of the middle ages, when author after author exhausted his 

 powers in adding to one bulky record of the fall of Troy, or the con- 

 quests of Alexander, is the last proof which we need bring to show 

 that romances do really depend upon and go along with the prevailing 

 tone of the age in which they appear. 



It is not the province of this work to enlarge on the probable or 

 actual effects of any course of reading, but it may be as well to point 

 out that the injury supposed to be done to the mind by novel reading 

 is not peculiar to any one kind of study. A constant devotion to any 

 abstract speculation notoriously deadens the taste ; and too much 

 cultivation of any one pursuit necessarily gives the corresponding part 

 of the mind a growth disproportionate to that of the rest. The 

 peculiar evil of novel-reading depends on the bad quality of the food 

 devoured, which pampers our love for ideal griefs and joys, to the 

 prejudice of all well-organised efforts to grapple with the realities 

 of life. 



NOVELL^E. [JUSTINIAN'S LEGISLATION.] 



NOVEMBER, the eleventh month of the Julian year, was the ninth 

 in the year of Romulus, whence it received its name. This name was 

 assigned to it in the Alban calendar. It originally consisted of thirty 

 days, which were continued by Romulus and Numa. Julius Caesar 

 gave it another day, but Augustus reduced it again to thirty, and this 

 number it has ever since retained. 



Our Saxon ancestors called November Blot-monatli (blood-month), 

 the month of sacrifice, because at this season the heathen Saxons made 

 a provision for winter, and offered in sacrifice many of the animals 

 which were then killed. This is distinctly stated in an ancient 

 account of the Saxon months, printed in Hickes's ' Thesaurus' (vol. i., 

 p. 219). It was common at this season to slaughter oxen, sheep, hogs, 

 &c., for the use of the ensuing winter. The stock of salted meat 

 prepared at this time was to last through the winter months till vege- 

 tation came again sufficiently forward to enable them to resume the 

 use of fresh provisions. Some notion of the vast extent to which the 

 opulent provided for themselves and their retainers at this season may 

 be formed from the contents of the larder of the elder Spenser, in 

 1327, which, in the month of May, contained " the carcases of eighty 

 Baited beeves, five hundred bacons, and six hundred muttons," the 

 reliques of his winter provisions. 



Martlemass or Martinmas beef, cured about the festival of St. 

 Martin, the llth of this month, was a provision formerly well and in 

 some places still known. The Spanish proverb, " His Martinmas is 

 coming, when we shall be all hogs alike," alludes to the slaughter of 

 swine at this period. 



(Pitisci, Lexicon Antiq. Roman.; Bosworth's An^lo-Saxon Diet.; 

 Brady's Clavls C'alendaria.) 



NOVICE, the appellation given to persons of either sex who are 

 living in a monastery, in a state of probation previous to becoming pro- 

 fessed members of a monastic order. Persons who apply to enter the 

 noviciate state, on being admitted by the superior of the monastery, 

 promise obedience during the time of their stay, and are bound to 

 conform to the discipline of the house, but they make no permanent 

 vows, and may leave, if they find that the monastic life does not 

 suit them. The period of the noviciate must not be less than one 

 year, and the person who enters as a novice must have attained the 

 age of puberty. Richard, in the ' Bibliotheque Saeree,' article ' Novice,' 

 describes the qualities required according to the canons of the Council 

 of Trent for the admission of a novice : they are health, morality, 

 voluntary disposition for a monastic life, intellectual capacity, &c. No 

 married person can be admitted unless by the consent of both parties ; 

 no person who is incumbered with debts, or whose assistance is neces- 

 sary for the support of his parents, is admissible. Widowers and 

 widows may be admitted as novices, unless their labour is required 

 for the support of their children. After the termination of the year 

 of probation, the novice, if he (or she) persists in his vocation, and 

 his conduct and capacity have proved satisfactory, may be admitted 

 into the order by taking the solemn vows which are binding for life. 

 Ducauge, in his ' Glossariuin,' article ' Novitius,' quotes the 34th 

 canon of the Council of Aquisgrana, A.D. 817, in which superiors of 

 monasteries are cautioned against admitting novices with too great 

 ticility, and without a full examination of their disposition, morals, 

 arid mental and bodily qualifications. But in after-ages, as the number 

 of monasteries was multiplied beyond measure, prudential restrictions 

 were disregarded, and every means were resorted to in order to induce 

 young people to enter the monastic profession, and parents often 

 forced their children into it against their will. The misery and guilt 

 which resulted from this practice are well known, but few perhaps 

 have exhibited them in so vivid and fearful a light as the Italian 

 writer, Manzoni, in his ' Promessi Sposi,' in the episode of ' Gertrude.' 

 It was in order to guard against such abuses and their fatal results. 

 that the Council of Trent, session 25, can. 17, prescribed that female 

 novices, after the expiration of their noviciate, should leave the walls 

 of the monastery and return to their friends, and be carefully examined 

 by the bishop of the diocese, or by his vicar by him delegated, in order 

 to ascertain that they were under no constraint or deception, that they 

 were fully aware of the duties and privations of the monastic life, and 

 that they voluntarily choae to enter it. These humane precautions, 



ARTS ASD SCI. DIV. VOL. V. 



however, have been evaded in many instances ; and it may be doubted 

 whether a very young person should be allowed to bind himself for 

 life by irrevocable vows. 



NU'CLEUS (a small nut), a term first given to the central and con- 

 densed portion of a comet, and thence to the central part of any 

 appearance which is transparent towards the extremities and opaque 

 towards the centre. 



NUISANCE, or NUSANCE, is a term in English law derived 

 immediately from the French nuire, and ultimately from the Latin 

 nocere, " to hurt ; " signifying an unlawful act or omission which 

 occasions annoyance, damage, or inconvenience to others. Nuisances 

 may consist of injurious acts done, or of omissions to perform duties 

 prescribed by law, and are of two kinds, common or public nuisances, 

 which affect all the queen's subjects, and private nuisances, which 

 injure individuals. Instances of the former are, annoyances in high- 

 ways, public bridges, or navigable rivers, which are produced by 

 rendering the passage inconvenient or dangerous, either positively by 

 actual destructions, or negatively by omitting to repair in cases where 

 the law imposes the duty of repairing. 



Noxious processes of trade or manufacture in towns are common 

 nuisances by reason of the danger to the health of the inhabitants ; 

 and brothels, disorderly alehouses, gaming-houses, and unlicensed stage- 

 plays are held to be common nuisances, both on account of the injury 

 done by them to public morals and of the danger to the public peace 

 by drawing together numbers of dissolute and irregular persons. The 

 remedy for a public nuisance is by presentment or indictment ; and 

 the offender, upon conviction, may be punished by fine and imprison- 

 ment. It is said also that in the case of a positive obstruction to the 

 free enjoyment of a public right, it may form part of the judgment 

 that the offender shall remove the nuisance at his own cost; "audit 

 seemeth to be reasonable," says Hawkins (book i. ch. 75, sect. 15), 

 " that those who are convicted of any other common nuisance should 

 also have the like judgment." 



Private nuisances are annoyances which affect individuals only. 

 Thus, if my neighbour builds a house so near to mine that he obstructs 

 my ancient lights, or throws the water from his roof upon my house 

 or land, this is a private nuisance ; so also if he keeps noisome animals, 

 or sets up an offensive trade or hazardous manufactory so near to my 

 dwelling-house that the free enjoyment of my property is interrupted 

 either by injury to my health or comfort, or the apprehension of 

 danger. The remedy for a private nuisance is by action, in which 

 damages may be recovered according to the injury sustained. Private 

 nuisances, injurious to health, may be summarily suppressed on 

 application to the magistrates, under the Nuisances Removal and 

 Diseases Prevention Acts. 



NULLITY OF MARRIAGE. [MAURIAOE.] 



NUMBER. The general considerations which this word would 

 suggest cannot be treated independently of those required in treating 

 the notion of ratio in general. As this will form a part of the sub- 

 ject of PROPORTION, we refer to that article as the continuation of 

 the present one. 



The notion of number is suggested by repetition or succession ; and 

 it is customary to call the actual things repeated, considered as a 

 collection, a concrete number ; while the notion formed from com- 

 paring the collection with one of the things collected is called an 

 abstract number. This abstract number arises from repetition of 

 objects, in which the attention is directed to the repetitions as 

 repetitions, and not to the objects as distinguished from any other 

 objects. It is therefore a number of times, not a number of things. 

 [MULTIPLICATION.] 



If we never numbered any things capable of division into parts like 

 themselves, our notion of number would rest in what is now called 

 ichule number. If the intellect were taught to count by the beating 

 of a clock, and never came in contact with any other magnitude except 

 that of the intervals between the beats, it is difficult to see how the 

 idea of fractions would be obtained. But when we come to put 

 together continuous magnitudes, which might increase or decrease 

 without any alteration except that of magnitude, such as lines, sur- 

 faces, &c.. we then begin to see that the unit is. purely arbitrary, con- 

 sidered as a magnitude, so that the consideration of smaller or larger 

 units, and the reduction of processes from one unit to another, become 

 necessary. Hence the doctrine of fractions, and finally that of 

 INCOMMKNSUHABLES. 



The unit of magnitude and the unit of repetition are as distinct as 

 concrete and abstract number. A given magnitude being chosen, we 



irally give ___ 



in arithmetic we can perform all operations upon magnitudes repre- 

 sented by numbers ; the operations are performed by our minds upon 

 notions of repetition, not of magnitude. Any question of numbers 

 arising out of geometry might, so far as the pure arithmetical pro- 

 cesses are concerned, as well have the prototypes of its numbers in 

 collections of beats of a clock or motions of the arm, as in repe- 

 titions of lengths or areas. It is not true that such simple successions 

 would suggest as many problems as geometry or commercial business ; 

 but that is a distinct consideration. 



Discussion formerly took place upon the question whether 1 repre- 



33 



