n, used by
lawyers in actions of ejectment.

NOBLE, a gold coin first minted by Edward III., formerly current in
the country; worth 6s. 8d., and ultimately 10s., when the value of the
gold increased.

NOCTURNE, picture of a night scene; also a musical piece appropriate
to the night.

NODES, name given to the two points in the orbit of a planet where
it crosses or intersects the ecliptic, called ascending when it goes N.,
and descending when it goes S.

NODIER, CHARLES, able French litterateur, born at Besancon; a man of
great literary activity and some considerable literary influence; author
of charming stories and fairy tales; "did everything well," says
Professor Saintsbury, "but perhaps nothing supremely well" (1780-1844).

NOLLEKENS, JOSEPH, sculptor, born in London, son of an Antwerp
painter; studied in Rome; his _forte_ lay in busts, of which he modelled
a great many, including busts of Garrick, Sterne, Dr. Johnson, Pitt, and
Fox, and realised thereby a large fortune; he was a man of no education;
his principal work is "Venus with the Sandal" (1737-1813).

NOMINALISM, the name given to the theory of those among the
Scholastics who maintained that general notions, which we denote by
general terms, are only names, empty conceptions without reality, that
there was no such thing as pure thought, only conception and sensuous
perception, whereas realists, after Plato, held by the objective reality
of universals. And, indeed, it is not as modern philosophy affirms, in
the particular or the individual, in which alone, according to the
Nominalists, reality resides, but in the universal, in regard to which
the particular is nothing if it does not refer.

NONCONFORMISTS, a name originally applied to the clergy of the
Established Church of England, some two thousand, who in 1662 resigned
their livings rather than submit to the terms of the Act of Uniformity
passed on the 24th of August that year, and now applied to the whole
Dissenting body in England.

NONES, in the Roman calendar the ninth day before the IDES
(q. v.), being the 7th of March, May, July, and October, and the 5th of
the rest.

NONJURORS, a name given to that section of the Episcopal party in
England who, having sworn fealty to James II., refused to take the oath
of allegiance to William III., six of whom among the bishops for their
obstinacy were deprived of their sees.

NO-POPERY RIOTS, name given principally to riots in Londo