126 



NAIVETE NAMUR. 



\vt-vt it joins Inverness-shire. It is from sixteen to 

 twenty miles in length, and from ten to twelve in 

 breadth. The river Nairn, descending from the hills 

 of Inverness, and flowing towards the north-east 

 through a fertile valley, falls into the firth at the 

 county town, to which it gives its name. The Find- 

 horn intersects the southern part of the county, which 

 consists chiefly of high moorland. Population of the 

 county in 1831, 9,354. 



NAIVETE; a French word, which has become 

 naturalized in several other languages ; for instance, 

 in the English. The word is of Latin origin, derived 

 from nativus (natural, something possessed from na- 

 ture); in low Latin, naivus. The French Diction- 

 naire de I' Academic gives the following definition of 

 naif : natural, sans fard, sans artifice, also qui 

 represents bien la verite, qui imite Men la verite, and 

 of a person, qui dit sa pensee ingenument et sans 

 detour. Sometimes it is used in dispraise, and then 

 means, qui est trap ingenu dans sa simplicite. It 

 could easily be imagined, that a word of such a de- 

 scription, received into a foreign language, would be 

 used in no very distinct and precise meaning. The 

 essential meaning of the word is a natural, unreserved 

 expression of sentiments and thoughts, without regard 

 to conventional rules, and without weighing the con- 

 struction which may be put upon the language or 

 conduct. Thus it is intimately connected with what 

 the ancients called c/iaris ( gratia), as Ramdohr, in 

 his work Charis, has shown. Naivete, therefore, can 

 appear such only to a person accustomed to the prac- 

 tice of conventional proprieties. Natvett generally 

 implies inexperience of the world ; hence it is not 

 iinfrequently taken for want of judgment. It implies 

 simplicity of heart, unimpaired by the chilling ex- 

 periences of life, and unfettered by the capricious 

 regulations of society, trusting with childlike con- 

 fidence, as it has no disposition to cunning or guile. 

 Schiller says naivete unites childlike with childish 

 simplicity ; and the latter ingredient awakens in 

 the observer the smile of superiority. But as soon 

 as we have reason to believe that the childish sim- 

 plicity is more truly childlike, proceeding from a 

 heart full of innocence and truth, and a greatness of 

 soul which disdains concealment and artifice, then 

 the smile of self-complacency vanishes, and is suc- 

 ceeded by admiration of the ingenuousness presented 

 to us. The term is sometimes applied to works of 

 literature or the fine arts ; for instance, to poetry, 

 which expresses natural feeling in a simple manner ; 

 particularly to that of the earlier ages or lower orders 

 of society ; or to music, which, without studied cor- 

 rectness, speaks directly to the heart. No affectation 

 is so offensive as affected naivete, because it bears 

 the stamp of hypocrisy and deceit on its forehead ; 

 and yet how often is it met with in modern society ! 



NALDJ, SEB.ASTIANO; a celebrated Italian buffo 

 singer, who visited London in the early part of the 

 present century. Naldi met his death in Paris, in 

 1819, by the explosion of an apparatus which had 

 been invented for cooking by steam. 



NAMES. These are, 1. given or baptismal names 

 (see Dolz's work upon Baptismal Names, Leipsic, 

 1814); 2. family names, which are added as an here- 

 ditary distinction to the proper or baptismal names. 

 The Greeks, with the exception of a few families at 

 Athens and Sparta, had no family names. Among 

 the Romans, each person had commonly three names 

 a proper name (prcenomen, the distinction of the 

 individual), the name of the clan (nomen), and the 

 family name (cognomen). Sometimes, also, a sur- 

 name was added, which was borrowed from some 

 distinguished exploit or remarkable event. The 

 pranomen was placed first, and commonly written , 

 with one or two letters; for example, A., Aulus; i 



C., Caius; L., Lucius; M., Marcus; P.,Publius; 

 Q., Quintus ; T., Titus; Ap., Appius; Cn., Cneius; 

 Sex., Sextus, &c. Then followed the nomen; for 

 example, Cornelius, Fabius, Julius (from the clan 

 (gens), Cornelian, Fabian, Julian). Lastly came the 

 cognomen ; for example, Cicero, Caesar, Scipio, ami 

 others. In the name M. Tullius Cicero, M. is 

 the prcenomen, which distinguishes him from his 

 brother, Quintus ; Tullius, the nomen, which distin- 

 guishes the clan (gens); and Cicero the cognomen, 

 which shows his family. Instances of surnames 

 (agnomen) are Africanus (see Scipio) and the like. 

 In Germany, and other kindred nations, family names 

 were little used by commoners before the fourteenth 

 century. Every one had a baptismal name only. 

 The most ancient method of distinguishing different 

 individuals of the same name consisted in adding 

 their father's name to their own ; hence originated 

 many English, Danish, and German names, which 

 end in son, so/in, sen; for example, Johnson, f Wil- 

 liamson, Thorivaldson, IVilmsen (that is Ifilliums- 

 son). To this class belong, without doubt, also, 

 those proper names ending in i (the termination of 

 the Latin genitive), which frequently occur as names 

 of a clan, such as Augusti (Augusti JUius). In a 

 similar manner originated the Spanish names ending 

 in ez, such as Fernandez, Rodriguez ; that is to say, 

 Ferdinand's, Rodrigo's son. (See the articles Mac, 

 and Fitz.) The Arabians call no one by his own or 

 proper name. Suppose some one whose father is 

 named Hali, and whose own name is Zoar ; he would 

 be called Ebn Hali (Hali's son), and his son Ebn 

 Zoar. With feudalism, new names were introduced, 

 derived from the districts conferred on the nobles, or 

 from the feudal relations. The nobility had, every- 

 where, family names long before the commoners. 

 Another class of family names among commoners was 

 derived from their occupations or the places of their 

 birth ; for example, Smith, Miller, Fisher, French, 

 Welsh, Dutch, &c., or from the signs which trades- 

 men put up before their skops, such as King, Duke. 

 Sometimes striking external peculiarities have given 

 origin to names, which have descended to the pos- 

 terity of those on whom they were bestowed, such as 

 Brown, Long, Broadhead. In Germany, family 

 names first came into general use among commoners 

 in the seventeenth century. See Wiarda's Ueber 

 Deutsche Vor und Geschlechtsnamen (Berlin, 1800), 

 Euse'b. Salverte's Essai Historique et Philosopliit/ite 

 sur les Noms d' Homines, de Peuples et de Lieitx, 

 consideres principalement dans leurs Rapports avec 

 la Civilisation (Paris, 1824, 2 vols.). 



NAMUR ; lately a province of the kingdom of the 

 Netherlands, since 1831 belonging to Belgium. It 

 is composed of the greatest part of the county of 

 Namur, of a part of the principality of Liege, and 

 some parts of the duchy of Brabant and French 

 Hainault ; within these limits, constituted in 1814, 

 it contains 156,400 inhabitants, on a superficial area 

 of 1380 square miles. The soil is remarkably rich ; 

 the face of the country is a plain, interrupted by low 

 hills, which are covered with woods. Besides the 

 products of tillage and grazing, which is extensively 

 carried on, iron, copper, lead, marble, and coal are 

 found. The county of Namur was sold by the last 

 count to Philip the Good, duke of Burgundy, in 1421. 

 By the marriage of Maximilian with Mary of Bur- 

 gundy (1477), it passed, with the other Belgic pro- 

 vinces, to the house of Austria ; by the peace of 

 Luneville, it was ceded to France, and formed a part 

 of the French empire till 1814, when it was annexed 

 to the new kingdom of the Netherlands. See 

 'Netherlands. 



NAMUR; the capital of the Belgic province of 

 the same name, and an Episcopal see, situated nt 



