by contriving the decree of November 7, by which the ministry might not be chosen from the assembly. Financially he proved equally incapable for a time of crisis, and could not understand the need of such extreme measures as the establishment of assignats in order to keep the country quiet. His popularity vanished when his only idea was to ask the assembly for new loans, and in September 1790 he resigned his office, unregretted by a single Frenchman. Not without difficulty he reached Coppet, near Geneva, an estate he had bought in 1784. Here he occupied himself with literature, but Madame Necker pined for her Paris salon and died in 1794. He continued to live on at Coppet, under the care of his daughter, Madame de Staël, and his niece, Madame Necker de Saussure, but his time was past, and his books had no political influence. A momentary excitement was caused by the advance of the French armies in 1798, when he burnt most of his political papers. He died at Coppet in April 1804.
Authorities.—Mémoires sur la vie privée de M. Necker (Paris and London, 1818), by his daughter, Madame de Staël-Holstein, and the Notice sur la vie de M. Necker (Paris, 1820), by Auguste de Staël-Holstein, his grandson, published in the collection of his works edited by the latter in 1820–1821 (Paris, 15 vols.). The bibliography of his works is as follows:—Réponse au mémoire de M. l’Abbé Morellet (1769); Éloge de J. B. Colbert (1773); Essai sur la législation et le commerce des grains (1775) ; Compte rendu au roi (1781); De l’administration des finances de la France (3 vols., 1784); Mémoire en réponse au discours prononcé par M. de Calonne (1787); De l’importance des opinions religieuses (1788); Sur l’administration de M. Necker, par lui-même (1791); Du pouvoir exécutif dans les grands états (2 vols., 1792); Réflexions sur le procès de Louis XVI. (1792); De la révolution française, several editions, the last in 4 vols. (1797); Cours de la morale religieuse (1800) ; Dernières vues de politique et de finance (1802); Manuscrits de M. Necker, published by his daughter (1804); Suites funestes d’une seule faute, published after his death. See also Le Salon de Madame Necker, by the Vicomte d’Haussonville (2 vols., 1882), compiled from the papers at Coppet; Ch. Gomel, Les Causes financières de la révolution française (Paris, 1892); and for contemporary tracts and pamphlets M. Tourneux, Bibl. de l’histoire de Paris pendant la révolution (vol. iv., 1906); also (for the earlier ones) Collection complète de tous les ouvrages pour et contre M. Necker, avec des notes critiques . . . (3 vols., Utrecht, 1781). (H. M. S.; J. T. S.*)
NECROLOGY (from Med. Lat. necrologium, Gr. νεκρός, corpse, the termination being formed from λόγιος, λέγειν to
read, in the sense of list, register; cf. “martyrology”), a register
in a monastery or other ecclesiastical establishment of the names of the deceased members of the society, or of those for whom
the prayers of the foundation were offered as benefactors;
hence any roll or list of deceased persons or collection of obituaries.
NECROMANCY (Gr. νεκρομαντεία, or νεκυομαντεία, from νεκρός or νέκυς, corpse, and μαντεία, divination, properly divination by communicating with the dead. The latinized form of the Greek word was corrupted into nigromantia, connecting the word with niger, black, and so was applied to the “black art,” “black magic,” in the sense of witchcraft, sorcery. This corrupted form is common in English to the 17th century (see Magic and Witchcraft).
NECROPOLIS, a cemetery (q.v.) or burying-place, literally a “city of the dead” (Gr. νεκρός, corpse, and πόλις, city). Apart from the occasional application of the word to modern cemeteries outside large towns, the term is chiefly used of burial-grounds
near the sites of the centres of ancient civilizations.
NECROSIS (Gr. νεκρός, corpse), a term restricted in surgery to death of bone. A severe inflammation, caused by a violent blow, by cold, or by the absorption of various poisons, as mercury
and phosphorus, is the general precursor of necrosis. The dead
part, analogous to the slough in the soft tissues, is called a
sequestrum or exfoliation. At first it is firmly attached to the
living bone around; gradually, however, the dead portion is
separated from the living tissue. The process of separation is
a slow one. New bone is formed around the sequestrum, which
often renders its removal difficult. As a rule the surgeon waits
until the dead part is loose, and then cuts down through the
new case and removes the sequestrum. The cavity in which
it lay gradually closes, and a useful limb is the result.
NECTAR, in ancient mythology generally coupled with ambrosia, the nourishment of the gods in Homer and in Greek literature generally. Probably the two terms were not originally distinguished; but usually both in Homer and in later writers nectar is the drink and ambrosia the food. On the other hand, in Alcman nectar is the food, and in Sappho and Anaxandrides ambrosia the drink. Each is used in Homer as an unguent
(Iliad, xiv. 170; xix. 38). Both are fragrant, and may be used
as perfume. According to W. H. Roscher (Nektar und Ambrosia,
1883; see also his article in Roscher's Lexikon der Mythologie)
nectar and ambrosia were originally only different forms
of the same substance—honey, regarded as a dew, like manna,
fallen from heaven, which was used both as food and drink.
(See also Ambrosia.)
NEED-FIRE, or Wild-Fire (Ger. Notfeuer, O. Ger. nodfyr),
a term used in folklore to denote a curious superstition which
survived in the Highlands of Scotland until a recent date. Like
the fire-churning still customary in India for kindling the sacrificial
fire, the needor wild-fire is made by the friction of one
piece of wood on another, or of a rope upon a stake. Need-fire
is a practice of shepherd peoples to ward off disease from their
herds and flocks. It is kindled on occasions of special distress,
particularly at the outbreak of a murrain, and the cattle are
driven through it. Its efficacy is believed to depend on all
other fires being extinguished. The kindling of the need-fire
in a village near Quedlinburg was impeded by a night light
burning in the parsonage (Pröhle, Harz-Bilder, Leipzig, 1855).
According to one account, in the Highlands of Scotland the rule
that all common fires must be previously extinguished applied
only to the houses situated between the two nearest running
streams (Kelly, Curiosities of Indo-European Tradition and
Folklore, p. 53 seq.). In Bulgaria even smoking during
need-fire is forbidden. Two naked men produce the fire by
rubbing dry branches together in the forest, and with the flame
they light two fires, one on each side of a cross-road haunted
by wolves. The cattle are then driven between the two fires,
from which glowing embers are taken to rekindle the cold hearths
in the houses (A. Strausz, Die Bulgaren, p. 198). In Caithness
the men who kindled the need-fire had previously to divest
themselves of all metal. In some of the Hebrides the men who
made the fire had to be eighty-one in number and all married.
In the Halberstadt district in Germany, the rope which was
wound round the stake, must be pulled by two chaste boys;
while at Wolfenbüttel, contrary to usual custom, it is said that
the need-fire had to be struck out of the cold anvil by the smith.
In England the need-fire is said to have been lit at Birtley
within the last half-century. The superstition had its origin in
the early ideas of the purifying nature of flame.
See also Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie, i. 501 sqq.; Kelly, Curiosities of Indo-European Tradition and Folklore, p. 48 sqq.; Elton, Origins of English History, p. 293 sqq.; J. G. Frazer, The Golden Bough, iii. 301.
NEEDLE (O. Eng. nædl; the word appears in various forms in Teutonic languages, Ger. Nadel, Dutch naal, the root being ne-, to sew, cf. Ger. nähen, and probably Lat. nere, to spin, Gr. νῆσις, spinning), an instrument adapted for passing a thread through fabrics in sewing, consisting of a thin rod of steel, having a pointed end and pierced with a hole or “eye” to carry the thread. The term is also applied to various other objects that more or less resemble a sewing needle in form, though differing in function, such as the magnetized piece of steel that points north and south in the mariner's compass, the pointer or indicator of certain forms of electric telegraph instruments, the slender tube by which the contents of a hypodermic syringe are injected beneath the skin, a sharp-pointed mountain peak or isolated mass of rock, &c.
Sewing needles have been in use from prehistoric times. Originally they were made of fishbone, bone or ivory, and their first form was probably a rude bodkin having a hook instead of an eye, though bone needles with an eye, sometimes at the end and sometimes in the middle, have been found in cave deposits in Great Britain and France and in the Swiss lakes. Bone
