NILSSON, CHRISTINE, an operatic singer, born in Sweden, daughter of a peasant, and one of the foremost sopranos of her day; distinguished for her dramatic talent no less than by her powers as a vocalist (1843-1882).

NIMEGUEN (34), an interesting old Dutch town in Guelderland, on the Waal, 73 m.  E. of Rotterdam; has a fine 13th-century Gothic church and other notable buildings; its prosperous manufactures include tobacco, perfume, beer, &c.; here, in 1678-79, France effected famous peace treaties with Holland, Spain, and Austria.

NIMES or NISMES (68), capital of the department of Gard, S. of France, lies surrounded by the Cevennes in the fertile valley of the Vistre, 31 m.  E. of Montpellier; has unique Roman remains, including an imposing amphitheatre, now used as a bull-arena, the noble Corinthian “Maison Carree,” a mausoleum, baths, &c.; textiles (silk, cotton, &c.), wines, and brandy are the chief articles of manufacture; it declared for the Reformation in 1559, and suffered cruelly on the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes.

NIMROD, an early king of Assyria or Babylonia, characterised in Scripture (Gen. x. 9) as “a mighty hunter before the Lord”; a name now applied to a distinguished hunter.

NINEVEH, an exceeding great city, capital of ancient Assyria, which stood on the left bank of the Tigris, opposite the modern town of Mosul, said to have been included within a wall 60 m. long, 100 ft. high, the breadth of three chariots in width, and defended by 1500 towers each 200 ft. in height.

NINIAN ST., early apostle of Christianity to the southern Picts of Scotland, born on the shores of the Solway, of noble descent; went to Rome, was consecrated by the Pope, visited St. Martin at Tours on his way back; had founded a church at Whithorn, Wigtownshire, which he dedicated to the latter on his return, where he died, “perfect in life and full of years,” in 432.

NINUS, a legendary king of Assyria, a celebrated conqueror, to whom tradition assigns the founding of Nineveh.

NIOBE, in the Greek mythology the daughter of Tantalus, and wife of Amphion, king of Thebes, to whom she bore six sons and six daughters, in her pride of whom she rated herself above Leto, who had given birth to only two children, Apollo and Artemis, whereupon they, indignant at this insult to their mother, gave themselves for nine days to the slaughter of Niobe’s offspring, and on the tenth the gods buried them; Niobe, in her grief, retired to Mount Sipylos, in Lydia, where her body became cold and rigid as stone, but not her tears, which, ever as the summer months returned, burst forth anew.

NIRVANA, the name given to the consummation of bliss in the Hindu, but especially the Buddhist, religions, synonymous with extinction, which in the Hindu creed means the extinction of individuality by absorption in the Divine Being, and in Buddhism, not, as some presume, the extinction of existence, but the extinction of agitation of mind through the crucifixion of all passion and desire, the attainment of self-centred, self-sufficient quiescence of being, or rest and peace of soul.