Neck or Nothing, a farce by Garrick (1766). Mr. Stockwell promises to give his daughter in marriage to the son of Sir Harry Harlowe, of Dorsetshire, with a dot of £10,000; but it so happens that the young man is privately married. The two servants of Mr. Belford and Sir Harry Harlowe try to get possession of the money, by passing off Martin (Belford’s servant) as Sir Harry’s son; but it so happens that Belford is in love with Miss Stockwell, and hearing of the plot through Jenny, the young lady’s-maid, arrests the two servants as vagabonds. Old Stockwell gladly consents to his marriage with Nancy, and thinks himself well out of the terrible scrape.
Nectaba´nus, the dwarf at the cell of the hermit of Engaddi. Sir W. Scott, The Talisman (time, Richard I.).
Nectar, the beverage of the gods. It was white as cream, for when Hebê spilt some of it, the white arch of heaven, called the Milky Way, was made. The food of the gods was ambrosia.
Ned (Lying), “the chimney-sweeper of Savoy,” that is, the duke of Savoy, who joined the allied army against France in the war of the Spanish Succession.—Dr. Arbuthnot, History of John Bull (1712).
Negro´ni, a princess, the friend of Lucrezia di Borgia. She invited the notables who had insulted the Borgia to a banquet, and killed them with poisoned wine.—Donizetti, Lucrezia di Borgia (an opera, 1834).
Ne´gus, sovereign of Abyssinia. Erco´co, or Erquico, on the Red Sea, marks the north-east boundary of this empire.
The empire of Negus to his utmost port,
Ercoco.
Milton, Paradise Lost, xi. 397 (1665).
Nehemiah Holdenough, a Presbyterian preacher.—Sir W. Scott, Woodstock (time, commonwealth).
Neilson (Mr. Christopher), a surgeon at Glasgow.—Sir W. Scott, Rob Roy (time, George I.).
Neim´heid (2 syl.) employed four architects to build him a palace in Ireland; and, that they might not build another like it or superior to it for some other monarch, had them all secretly murdered.—O’Halloran, History of Ireland.