where he died on the 22nd of February 1896. His principal books are Bill Nye and Boomerang (1881); Forty Liars and Other Lies (1882); Nye and Riley’s Railway Guide (1886), with James Whitcomb Riley; and two comic histories, Bill Nye’s History of the United States (1894) and Bill Nye’s History of England from the Druids to the Reign of Henry VIII. (1896).
NYEZHIN or Nezhin, a town of Russia, in the government of Chernigov, 62 m. by rail S.E. of the town of Chernigov and 79 m. N.E. of Kiev, on the railway between Kursk and Kiev. The old town is built on the left bank of the (canalized) river Oster, and its suburbs, Novoye-Myesto and Magerki, on the right. It has an old cathedral, a technical school and a former high school (lyceum of Bezborodko, at which N. V. Gogol, the novelist, was a student), now transformed into a philological institute. The inhabitants (33,000), are mostly Little-Russians and Jews; there are also some Greeks, descendants of those who immigrated in the 17th century at the invitation of the Cossack chieftain Bogdan Chmielnicki.
Unyezh, which is supposed to have been the former name of Nyezhin, is mentioned as early as 1147. At that time it belonged to the principality of Chernigov; afterwards it fell under the rule of Poland. It was ceded to Russia about 1500, but again became a Polish possession after the treaty of Deulina (1619) between Poland and Russia. In 1649, after the revolt of Little Russia and its liberation from the Polish rule, Nyezhin was the chief town of one of the most important Cossack regiments. It was annexed to Russia in 1664.
NYIREGYHÁZA, the capital of the county of Szabolcs, in Hungary, 169 m. E.N.E. of Budapest by rail. Pop. (1900) 31,875. It is a busy railway junction, and its inhabitants are engaged in agriculture, wine-growing and the manufacture of soda, matches and saltpetre. About 20 m. to the N.W. lies the famous wine-producing district of Tokaj (Tokay).
NYKJÖBING, a seaport of Denmark, in the amt (county) of Maribo, on the west shore of the island of Falster, 94 m. S.S.W. of Copenhagen by rail. Pop. (1901) 7345. Its church contains a genealogical tree of the Mecklenburg ducal family, with portraits, dating from 1627 or earlier. Here is the house occupied by Peter the Great of Russia in 1716, restored in 1898. A railway runs south to Gjedser (14 m.), from which the sea-passage (29 m.) to Warnemünde links the fastest route between Copenhagen and Berlin.
Other towns of the name of Nykjöbing in Denmark are (1) on Limfjord in Thisted amt (pop. 4492); and (2) in Zealand, Holbaek amt (pop. 2000).
NYKÖPING, a seaport of Sweden, chief town of the district (län) of Södermanland, 98 m. S.W. of Stockholm by a branch from the Stockholm-Malmö railway. Pop. (1900) 7375. It lies at the head of the Byfjord, an inlet of the Baltic. The ruins of its once famous castle, the town hall (1662), and the district governor’s residence, are notable buildings. The port, together with that of Oxelösund (10 m. S.E.) at the mouth of the bay, which is seldom closed in winter, exports iron and zinc ore, timber, wood-pulp and oats.
Nyköping (i.e. New-Market, Latinized as Nicopia) begins to appear as a town early in the 13th century. Its castle was the seat of the kings of Södermanland, and after those of Stockholm and Kalmar was the strongest in Sweden. The death of Waldemar in 1293, the starving to death of Dukes Waldemar and Eric in 1318, the marriage and the deaths both of Charles IX. and his consort Christina of Holstein, the birth of their daughter Princess Catherine and in 1622 the birth of her son Charles X. are the main incidents of which it was the scene. Burned down in 1665 and again damaged by fire in 1719, it still remained the seat of the provincial authorities till 1760. The town was burned by Albert of Mecklenburg’s party in 1389, by an accidental conflagration in 1665, and by the Russians in 1719.
NYLSTROOM, a town of the Transvaal, South Africa, capital of the Waterberg district, and 81 m. N. of Pretoria by rail; altitude 4250 ft. Pop. (1904) 599. It was founded about 1860 and owes its name to the belief of the early Boer trekkers that the river which they had discovered was the head stream of the Nile. The Waterberg gold-fields are 20 m. N.N.E. of the town.
NYMPHAEUM (Gr. νύμφαιον, νυμφαῖον), in Greek and Roman antiquities, a monument consecrated to the nymphs (q.v.), especially those of springs. These monuments were originally natural grottoes, which tradition assigned as habitations to the local nymphs. They were sometimes so arranged as to furnish a supply of water. Subsequently, artificial took the place of natural grottoes. The nymphaea of the Roman period were borrowed from the constructions of the Hellenistic east. The majority of them were rotundas, and were adorned with statues and paintings. They served the threefold purpose of sanctuaries, reservoirs and assembly-rooms. A special feature was their use for the celebration of marriages. Such nymphaea existed at Corinth, Antioch and Constantinople; the remains of some twenty have been found at Rome and of many in Africa. The so-called exedra of Herodes Atticus (which answers in all respects to a nymphaeum in the Roman style), the nymphaeum in the palace of Domitian and those in the villa of Hadrian at Tibur (five in number) may be specially mentioned. The term nymphaeum was also applied to the fountains of water in the atrium of the Christian basilica, which according to Eusebius (x. 4) were symbols of purification.
NYMPHENBURG, formerly a village, but since 1899 an incorporated suburb of Munich, in the kingdom of Bavaria. It has a palace, built about the middle of the 17th century, on the model of that at Versailles, and long a favourite residence of the Bavarian elector, Maximilian Joseph. The famous china manufactory of Nymphenburg, founded in 1754 at Neudeck by a potter named Niedermeyer, was shortly afterwards removed hither and, after being long under royal patronage, is now a private undertaking. The elector Charles Albert of Bavaria was reputed to have made a treaty with Louis XV. of France in May 1741 at the beginning of the War of the Austrian Succession for the division of Austria, and this was called the treaty of Nymphenburg. It has, however, been conclusively proved a forgery. But a treaty was concluded here on the 28th of May 1741, between Bavaria and Spain, and another between Bavaria and the Rhenish Palatinate in 1766.
NYMPHS, in Greek mythology, the generic name of a large number of female divinities of inferior rank, personifications of the creative and fostering activities of nature. The word is possibly connected with the root of νέφος, nubes (“cloud”), and originally meant “veiled,” referring to the custom of a bride being led veiled from her home to that of the husband: hence, a married woman, and, in general, one of marriageable age. Others refer the word (and also Lat. nubere and the Ger. Knospe) to a root expressing the idea of “swelling” (according to Hesychius, one of the meanings of νύμφη is “rose-bud”). The home of the nymphs is on mountains and in groves, by springs and rivers, in valleys and cool grottoes. They are frequently associated with the superior divinities, the huntress Artemis, the prophetic Apollo, the reveller and god of trees Dionysus, and with rustic gods such as Pan and Hermes (as the god of shepherds).
The nymphs were distinguished according to the different spheres of nature with which they were connected. Sea nymphs were Oceanids or Nereïds, daughters of Oceanus or Nereus. Naiades (from Gr. νάειν, flow, cf. νᾶμα, “stream ”) presided over springs, rivers and lakes. Oreades (ὄρος, mountain) were nymphs of mountains and grottoes, one of the most famous of whom was Echo. Napaeae (νάπη, dell) and Alseïdes (ἄλσος, grove) were nymphs of glens and groves. Dryades (q.v.) or Hamadryades were nymphs of forests and trees.
The Greek nymphs, after the introduction of their cult into Latium, gradually absorbed into their ranks the indigenous Italian divinities of springs and streams (Juturna, Egeria, Carmentis, Fons), while the Lymphae (originally Lumpae), Italian water-goddesses, owing to the accidental similarity of name, were identified with the Greek Nymphae. Among the Romans their sphere of influence was restricted, and they appear almost exclusively as divinities of the watery element.
F. G. Ballentine, “Some Phases of the Cult of the Nymphs” in Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, xv. (1904).
