Part 42 (1/2)

=Nosebag= (_Mrs._), wife of a lieutenant in the dragoons. She is the inquisitive travelling companion of Waverley when he travels by stage to London.--Sir W. Scott, _Waverley_ (time, George II.).

=Nosey= (_Play up!_) This exclamation was common in our theatres in the days of Macklin, etc. M. Nozay was the leader of the orchestra in Covent Garden Theatre.

? Some persons affirm that ”Old Nosey” was Cervetto, the violoncello player at Drury Lane (1753), and say that he was so called from his long nose.

Napoleon III., was nicknamed _Grosbec_ (”Nosey”).

=Nosnot-Bocai= [_Bo'.ky_], prince of purgatory.

Sir, I last night received command To see you out of Fairy-land.

Into the realm of Nosnot-Bocai.

King, _Orpheus and Eurydice_.

=Nostrada'mus= (_Michael_), an astrologer of the sixteenth century, who published an annual _Almanac_ and a _Recueil of Prophecies_, in verse (1503-1566).

=Nostrada'mus of Portugal=, Goncalo Annes Bandarra, a poet-cobbler, whose career was stopped, in 1556, by the Inquisition.

=Nottingham= (_The countess of_), a quondam sweetheart of the earl of Ess.e.x, and his worst enemy, when she heard that he had married the countess of Rutland. The queen sent her to the Tower to ask Ess.e.x if he had no pet.i.tion to make, and the earl requested her to take back a ring, which the queen had given him as a pledge of mercy in time of need. As the countess out of jealousy forbore to deliver it, the earl was executed.--Henry Jones, _The Earl of Ess.e.x_ (1745).

=Nottingham Lambs=, (_The_), the Nottingham roughs.

=Nottingham Poet= (_The_), Philip James Bailey, the author of _Festus_, etc. (1816- ).

=No'tus=, the south wind; _Afer_ is the south-west wind.

Notus and Afer, black with thundrous clouds.

Milton, _Paradise Lost_, (1665).

=Noukhail=, the angel of day and night.

The day and night are trusted to my care. I hold the day in my right hand and the night in my left; and I maintain the just equilibrium between them, for if either were to overbalance the other, the universe would either be consumed by the heat of the sun, or would perish with the cold of darkness.--Comte de Caylus, _Oriental Tales_ (”History of Abdal Motallab,” 1743).

=Nouman= (_Sidi_), an Arab who married Amine, a very beautiful woman, who ate her rice with a bodkin. Sidi, wis.h.i.+ng to know how his wife could support life and health without more food than she partook of in his presence, watched her narrowly, and discovered that she was a ghoul, who went by stealth every night and feasted on the fresh-buried dead. When Sidi made this discovery, Amine changed him into a dog. After he was restored to his normal shape, he changed Amine into a mare, which every day he rode almost to death.--_Arabian Nights_ (”History of Sidi Nouman”).

Your majesty knows that ghouls of either s.e.x are demons which wander about the fields. They commonly inhabit ruinous buildings, whence they issue suddenly on unwary travellers, whom they kill and devour. If they fail to meet with travellers, they go by night into burying grounds, and dig up dead bodies, on which they feed.--”History of Sidi Nouman.”

=Nouredeen=, son of Khacan (vizier of Zinebi, king of Balsora). He got possession of the ”beautiful Persian” purchased for the king. At his father's death he soon squandered away his patrimony in the wildest extravagance, and fled with his beautiful slave to Bagdad. Here he encountered Haroun-al-Raschid in disguise, and so pleased the caliph, that he was placed in the number of those courtiers most intimate with his majesty, who also bestowed on him so plentiful a fortune, that he lived with the ”beautiful Persian” in affluence all the rest of his life.--_Arabian Nights_ (”Nouredeen and the Beautiful Persian”).