“Prince,” and conducted himself with such conspicuous valour at the battle of Solebay (Southwold Bay) in May 1672 that he won special approbation, and shortly afterwards was made rear-admiral and knighted. In 1675 he was sent to suppress the Tripoline piracies, and by the bold expedient of despatching gun-boats into the harbour of Tripoli at midnight and burning the ships he induced the dey to agree to a treaty. Shortly after his return he undertook a similar expedition against the Algerines. In 1680 he was appointed commissioner of the navy, an office he held till his death in 1688. He was buried at Knowlton church, Kent, where a monument has been erected to his memory.
See Charnock, Biog. Nav. i.; Hist. MSS. Comm. 12th Rept.
NARCISSUS, in Greek mythology, son of the river god Cephissus and the nymph Leiriope, distinguished for his beauty. The seer Teiresias told his mother that he would have a long life, provided he never looked upon his own features. His rejection of the love of the nymph Echo (q.v.) drew upon him the vengeance of the gods. Having fallen in love with his own reflection in the waters of a spring, he pined away (or killed himself) and the flower that bears his name sprang up on the spot where he died. According to Pausanias, Narcissus, to console himself for the death of a favourite twin-sister, his exact counterpart, sat gazing into the spring to recall her features by his own. Narcissus, representing the early spring-flower, which for a brief space beholds itself mirrored in the water and then fades, is one of the many youths whose premature death is recorded in Greek mythology (cf. Adonis, Linus, Hyacinthus); the flower itself was regarded as a symbol of such death. It was the last flower gathered by Persephone before she was carried off by Hades, and was sacred to Demeter and Core (the cult name of Persephone), the great goddesses of the underworld. From its associations Wieseler takes Narcissus himself to be a spirit of the underworld, of death and rest. It is possible that the story may have originated in the superstition (alluded to by Artemidorus, Oneirocritica, ii. 7) that it was an omen of death to dream of seeing one’s reflection in water.
See Ovid, Metam. iii. 341–510; Pausanias ix. 31; Conon, Narrationes, 24; F. Wieseler, Narkissos (1856); Greve in Roscher’s Lexikon der Mythologie; J. G. Frazer, The Golden Bough (1900), i. 293.
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| Fig. 1.—Flowers of Narcissus (Narcissus Tazetta) bursting from the sheathing bract or spathe. 𝑏. |
NARCISSUS, a genus of bulbous plants belonging to the family Amaryllidaceae, natives of central Europe and the Mediterranean region; one species N. Tazetta, extends through Asia to Japan. From these, or rather from some of these, by cultivation and hybridization, have arisen the very numerous modern varieties. The plants have long narrow leaves springing from the bulb and a central scape bearing one or more generally large, white or yellow, drooping or inclined flowers, which are enveloped before opening in a membranous spathe. The flowers are regular, with a perianth springing from above the ovary, tubular below, with spreading segments and a central corona; the six stamens are inserted within the tube. The most interesting feature botanically is the “corona” or “cup,” which springs from the base of the flower-segments. This gives the special character to the flower, and the members of the genus are classified according to the length of this organ as compared with that of the segments. The most probable supposition is that the cup is simply an excrescence or “enation” from the mouth of the flower-tube, and is connected with the fertilization of the flowers by insect agency.
There are five well-marked sections.
1. The hoop-petticoat narcissi, sometimes separated as the genus Corbularia, are not more than from 3 to 6 in. in height, and have grassy foliage and yellow or white flowers. These have the coronet in the centre of the flower very large in proportion to the other parts, and much expanded, like the old hooped petticoats. They are now all regarded as varieties or forms of the common hoop-petticoat, N. Bulbocodium, which has comparatively large bright yellow flowers; N. tenuifolius is smaller and somewhat paler and with slender erect leaves; N. citrinus is pale lemon yellow and larger; while N. monophyllus is white. The small bulbs should be taken up in summer and replanted in autumn and early winter, according to the state of the season. They bloom about March or April in the open air. The soil should be free and open, so that water may pass off readily.
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| Fig. 2.—Daffodil—(Narcissus Pseudonarcissus). 1, Flower cut open; 2, pistil; 3, horizontal plan of flower. |
