176 



NESS NESTOR. 



nervous system. Ft has been asserted that nervous 

 diseases are rendered more common by the progress 

 <>f civilisation ; and, in feet, the nerves become more 

 irritable, and therefore more liable to be diseased 

 with the progress of intelligence. But the refine- 

 ments of the moderns in their food and drinks, the 

 use of fermented liquors, wine, coffee and tea, are 

 the most frequent causes of nervous maladies. The 

 early and excessive use of these liquids provokes the 

 nerves, and diseases the stomach, and gives rise to 

 cerebral fevers in children, to the vapours or hyster- 

 ics (q. v.) in women, to hypochondria (see hypochon- 

 driasis), apoplexy and paralysis in men. It is not 

 always easy to distinguish the symptoms of neurosis 

 from those of inflammation ; but, as the treatment in 

 the two cases must be entirely different, it is of the 

 greatest importance to use every caution in this re- 

 spect. Particular medicines, which were considered 

 as specific remedies in nervous diseases, were for- 

 merly in use ; but experience has proved, that warm 

 bathing, soothing drinks, vegetable diet, exercise, 

 recreation, sometimes bleeding, at others rubefacients, 

 opium in a few cases, when the pain is great, and 

 Peruvian bark, are the best antagonists of neurosis. 

 The treatment of nervous diseases, however, has often 

 embarrassed the scientific practitioner, as they often 

 resist the most skilful and sagacious applications. 

 See the articles Nerves, Mental Derangement, &c. 



NESS ; a termination common in Scandinavian 

 geographical names, and signifying 1 promontory. 



NEST ; the place or bed formed or used by a bird 

 for incubation, or the mansion of her young until 

 they are able to fly. The word is also used for the 

 bed in which certain insects deposit their eggs. The 

 construction and situations of the nests of birds are 

 as remarkable as the variety of materials employed 

 by them. Some birds build their nests with what, in 

 the case of rational beings, would be called great 

 ingenuity ; others with the greatest negligence. They 

 seem to be governed in the process merely by instinct. 

 In fact, naturalists place this class of animals below 

 the mammalia. Thus birds of cooler climates, that 

 build early in the spring, require warmth and shelter 

 for their young, and the blackbird and thrush line 

 their nests with a plaster of clay, perfectly excluding 

 the keen icy gales of the season ; yet, should acci- 

 dent destroy this first abode, they will construct an- 

 other, even when the summer is far advanced, upon 

 the model of the first, and with the same precautions 

 against severe weather, when all necessity for such 

 provision has ceased, and the usual temperature of 

 the season rather requires coolness and a free circula- 

 tion of air. The house-sparrow will commonly build 

 four or five times in the year, and, without the least 

 consideration of site or season, collect a great mass 

 of straw and hay, and gather many feathers to line 

 the nest. The wood-pigeon and jay, which build on 

 the tall underwood in the open air, will construct 

 their nests so slightly, and with such a scanty provi- 

 sion of materials, that they seem scarcely adequate 

 to support their broods ; and the rook's nest is, at 

 times, torn from its airy site, or its eggs are shaken 

 from it by the gales of spring. The house-martin 

 builds its earthy shed under the roof of the house, &c., 

 and usually brings out its young in July and August; 

 but one rainy day at this period, attended with wind, 

 will often moisten the earth that composes the nest ; 

 the cement fails, and all the unfledged young ones 

 are dashed upon the ground. The variety of spots 

 chosen by birds according to their species is endless. 



NESTOR was the most distinguished of the Gre- 

 cian heroes at Troy for wisdom, the consequence of 

 his great age (hence the phrase a Nestor) ; he was 

 also particularly celebrated for his mild and persua- 

 sive eloquence. These are the qualities Homer has 



attributed to him in the Iliad. Nestor was the son 

 of Neleus and Chloris. He was educated at Gerania, 

 and succeeded his father as prince of Pylos. In liis 

 youth and manhood, he distinguished himself by many 

 bold exploits, but also early acquired the reputation 

 of a prudent counsellor and persuasive orator. He 

 signalized himself among the Lapith;e, whom he as- 

 sisted in their war with the Centaurs. After Lyn- 

 ceus and Idas, the sons of Aphareus, were killed by 

 the Dioscuri, he also became king of Messenia. Not- 

 withstanding he had lived through two generations, 

 when the expedition to Troy was undertaken, he, 

 nevertheless, took part in it, and conducted the forces 

 under his command in twenty, or, according to some. 

 accounts, in ninety vessels to Troy. Whether we 

 reckon a generation at a hundred years, as the an- 

 cients did, or at thirty years, as is usual with us, in 

 either case Nestor was too old to take a personal 

 share in the combats before Troy. The part which 

 is attributed to him in the Ilia>d, is that of an expe- 

 rienced counsellor. He endeavoured to produce a 

 reconciliation between Agamemnon and Achilles, and 

 encouraged, advised, instructed, and blamed the Gre- 

 cian heroes. Without his interference, the siege of 

 Troy would more than once have been abandoned. 

 After the capture of Troy, he returned to Greece. 

 According to the Odyssey, Telemachus here visited 

 him to obtain information concerning Ulysses. Ho- 

 mer states Eurydice, the oldest daughter of Clymene, 

 to have been his wife ; others, Anaxibia, the daughter 

 of Craticus. He had several sons and daughters, but 

 they are not distinguished in history. After Nestor 

 had outlived three generations, he died quietly at 

 Pylos, where, even to a late period, the inhabitants 

 have pretended to distinguish his dwelling and his 

 grave. 



NESTOR, a Russian historian, born about 1056, 

 was a monk in the Petscherian or cavern monastery 

 in Kiev, and died after 1116. Besides biographies of 

 abbots and ether pious members of his monastery, the 

 fragments of which were collected by another hand, 

 he wrote a chronicle in his vernacular tongue, which 

 is an important contribution to the history of the 

 North, having evidently imitated and profited by the 

 Byzantine historians with regard to the most ancient 

 history. The other sources from which he obtained 

 information are unknown. He wrote much as a con- 

 temporary, or from the traditions of an old monk of 

 the monastery, Jan. This work is modelled accord- 

 ing to the spirit of his age.* Pious reflections and 

 scriptural language are frequently interwoven with 

 the narration, and the persons are usually introduced 

 speaking. But the original text of his chronicle is 

 lost, and by the interpolations of those who have 

 continued the history (bishop Sylvester of Kiev, and 

 many others) to the year 1203, it is altered to an 

 incredible degree, so that no correct decision can be 

 passed upon his historical merits before strict inqui- 

 ries have been made to determine how much of the 

 historical information now extant is derived from the 

 ancient Nestor. It has never yet been determined 

 with certainty to what year his researches extended. 

 Schlozer has rendered great service to this father of 

 Russian history, by the publication of his unfortu- 

 nately not completed work, Nestor's Russian Annals 

 (from 862 to 1110), compared with the original Scla- 

 vonic text, and with the errors and interpolations 

 expurgated as far as possible, explained and trans- 

 lated (into German only to the year 980, Gottingen, 

 18029, 5 vols.), besides which may be mentioned, 

 as an abridgment and improvement, Jos. Muller's 

 Ancient Russian History, from Nestor, with reference 

 to Schlozer's Russian Annals (Russische Anna ten'}, 

 which are here corrected, completed, and enlarged 

 (Berlin, 1818). A part of Nestor's chronicle from 



