NEMESIS, in the Greek imagination, the executioner of divine vengeance on evil-doers, conceived of as incarnated in the fear which precedes and the remorse which accompanies a guilty action.

NENNIUS, the reputed author of a chronicle of early British history, who appears to have lived not later perhaps than the 9th century.

NEOLOGY, the name given to the rationalist theology of Germany or the rationalisation of the Christian religion.

NEO-PLATONISM, a system of philosophy that originated in Alexandria at the beginning of the 3rd century, which resolved the absolute, or God, into the incarnation thereof in the Logos, or reason of man, and which aimed at “demonstrating the graduated transition from the absolute object to the personality of man”; it was a concretion of European thought and Oriental.

NEPAL (about 2,500), an independent native State in North India, occupying a narrow mountainous territory along and including the southern slopes of the Himalayas, which separate it from Thibet; consists mainly of valleys and intervening mountain ridges, among which dwell various hill tribes, the dominant race being the hardy GOORKHAS (q. v.).

NEPENTHE, an imaginary goddess, the allayer of pain and the soother of sorrows, or the impersonation of stern retributive justice.

NEPOS, CORNELIUS, Roman historian, born at Pavia; was a contemporary and friend of Cicero; was the author of several historical works, no longer extant, and the one still extant ascribed to him, entitled “De Viris Illustribus,” is believed to be an abridgment of an earlier work by him.

NEPTUNE, the chief marine deity of the Romans, and identified with the Poseidon of the Greeks, is represented with a trident in his hand as his sceptre.

NEPTUNE, the remotest planet of the solar system at present known; it is twice as far distant from the sun as URANUS (q. v.) is, deemed before its discovery the remotest; its diameter is four times greater than that of the earth, and it takes 60,126 days to revolve round the sun, accompanied by a solitary satellite; it was discovered in 1846 by ADAMS (q. v.) and LEVERRIER (q. v.), who were guided to the spot where they found it from the effect of its neighbourhood on the movements of Uranus.

NERBUDDA, or NARBADA, a sacred river of India; has its source in the Amarkantak plateau of the Deccan, and flows westward, a rapid body of greenish-blue water, through the great valley between the Vindhya and Satpura Mountains, reaching the Gulf of Cambay after a course of 800 m., the last 30 of which are navigable.

NEREIDES, nymphs of the Mediterranean Sea, daughters of Nereus, 60 in number, and attendant on Poseidon.

NEREUS, the god of the Mediterranean Sea, the son of Pontus and Gaia, the husband of Doris, and father of the Nereides, represented as a sage, venerable old man.

NERI, ST. PHILIPPO DI, Italian priest, born at Florence, of noble family; founder of the Congregation of the Oratory; was known from his boyhood as the Good Pippo, and he spent his life in acts of devotion and charity (1515-1592).  Festival, May 26.