Mountebank-Mutton. 165 parted from the word, as the passive has altogether departed from 'deadly,' which see. Were there a serpent seen with forked tongue It were but necessary you were waked, SHAKESPEARE, 2 Henry VI., act iii. sc. 2. Id., Antony and Cleopatra, act v. sc. 2. MOUNTEBANK. Now any antic fool; but once restrained to the quack-doctor who at fairs and such places of resort having mounted on a bank or bench, from thence proclaimed the virtue of his drugs; being described by Whitlock (Zootomia, p. 436) as 'a fellow above the vulgar more by three planks and two empty hogsheads than by any true skill.' See the quotation from Jackson, s. v. 'Authentic.' Such is the weakness and easy credulity of men, that a mountebank or cunning woman is preferred before an able physician.-WHITLOCK, Zootomia, p. 437. Giving no cause of complaint to any but such as are unwilling to be healed of their shameful and dangerous diseases, who love ignorant and flattering mountebanks more than the most learned and faithful physicians of souls.-GAUDEN, Hieraspistes, p. 427. Above the reach of antidotes, the power OLDHAM, Third Satire upon the Jesuits. MUTTON. It is a refinement in the English language, one wanting in some other languages which count themselves as refined or more, that it has in so 166 Namely-Naturalist. many cases one word to express the living animal, and another its flesh prepared for food; ox and beef, calf and yeal, deer and venison, sheep and mutton. In this last instance the refinement is of somewhat late introduction. At one time they were syno nyms. Peucestas, having feasted them in the kingdom of Persia, and given every soldier a mutton to sacrifice, thought he had won great favour and credit among them.-NORTH, Plutarch's Lives, p. 505. A starved mutton's carcass would better fit their palates.— BEN JONSON, The Sad Shepherd, act i. sc. 2. NAMELY. Now only designates; but, like the German namentlich,' once designated as first and chief, as deserving above all others to be named. For there are many disobedient, and talkers of vanity, and deceivers of minds, namely [μáλTa] they of the circumcision.— Tit. i. 10. TYNDALE. For in the darkness occasioned by the opposition of the earth just in the mids between the sun and the moon, there was nothing for him [Nicias] to fear, and namely at such a time, when there was cause for him to have stood upon his feet, and served valiantly in the field.-HOLLAND, Plutarch's Morals, p. 265. NATURALIST. At present the student of natural history; but in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the name was often given to the deist, as one who denied any but a religion of nature. "Natural religion men' such were sometimes called. See the quotation from Rogers, s. v. Civil.' But that he [the atheist] might not be shy of me, I have conformed myself as near his own garb as I might, without par Needful-Nephew. 167 taking of his folly or wickedness; and have appeared in the plain shape of a mere naturalist myself, that I might, if it were possible, win him off from downright atheism.-H. MORE, Antidote against Atheism, Preface, p. 7. This is the invention of Satan, that whereas all will not be profane, nor naturalists, nor epicures, but will be religious, lo, he hath a bait for every fish, and can insinuate himself as well into religion itself as into lusts and pleasures.-ROGERS, Naaman the Syrian, p. 115. Heathen naturalists hold better consort with the primitive Church concerning the nature of sin original than the Socinians. -JACKSON, Of Christ's Everlasting Priesthood, b. x. c. 8, § 4. NEEDFUL. This was once often equivalent to 'needy.' The words, however, have in more recent times been discriminated in use, and needy' is active, and 'needful' passive. These ferthinges shal be gaderid at everi moneth ende, and delid forth to the needful man in honor of Christ and his moder. -English Gilds, p. 38. Grieve not the heart of him that is helpless, and withdraw not the gift from the needful.-Ecclus. iv. 2. COVERDALE. For Thou art the poor man's help, and strength for the needful in his necessity.-Isai. xxv. 3. Id. Great variety of clothes have been permitted to princes and nobility, and they usually give those clothes as rewards to servants and other persons needful enough.-J. TAYLOR, Holy Living, iv. 8, 13. NEPHEW. Restrained at this present to the son of a brother or a sister; but formerly of much laxer use, a grandson, or even a remoter lineal descendant. In East Anglia it is still so used in the popular language (see Nall, Dialects of the East Coast, s. v.). Nephew' in fact has undergone exactly the same change of meaning that 'nepos' in Latin under went; which in the Augustan age meaning grandson, in the post-Augustan acquired the signification of' nephew' in our present acceptation of that word. See 'Niece.' The warts, black moles, spots and freckles of fathers, not appearing at all upon their own children's skin, begin afterwards to put forth and show themselves in their nephews, to wit, the children of their sons and daughters.—HOLLAND, Plutarch's Morals, p. 555. With what intent they [the apocryphal books] were first published, those words of the nephew of Jesus do plainly enough signify: After that my grandfather Jesus had given himself to the reading of the law and the prophets, he purposed also to write something pertaining to learning and wisdom.-HOOKER, Ecclesiastical Polity, b. v. c. 20. If any widow have children or nephews [ěkyova], let them learn first to show piety at home, and to requite their parents.1 Tim. v. 4. Authorized Version. NICE. The use of 'nice' in the sense of fastidious, difficult to please, still survives, indeed this is now, as in times past, the ruling notion of the word; only this 'niceness' is taken now much oftener in good part than in ill; nor, even when taken in an ill sense, would the word be used exactly as in the passage which follows. A. W. [Anthony Wood] was with him several times, ate and drank with him, and had several discourses with him concerning arms and armory, which he understood well; but he found him nice and supercilious.-ANTHONY WOOD, Athenæ Oxonienses, 1848, vol. i. p. 161. NIECE. This word has undergone the same change and limitation of meaning as 'nephew,' with indeed the further limitation that it is now applied to the female sex alone, to the daughter of a brother or a sister, being once used, as 'neptis' was at the first, for children's children, male and female alike. See 'Nephew.' Laban answeride to hym: My dowytres and sones, and the flockis, and alle that thou beholdist, ben myne, and what may I do to my sones and to my neces?—Gen. xxi. 43 (cf. Exod. xxxiv. 7). WICLIF. The Emperor Augustus, among other singularities that he had by himself during his life, saw, ere he died, the nephew of his niece, that is to say, his progeny to the fourth degree of lineal descent.-HOLLAND, Pliny, vol. i. p. 162. Within the compass of which very same time he [Julius Cæsar] lost by death first his mother, then his daughter Julia, and not long after his niece by the said daughter.—Id., Suetonius, p. II. NOISOME, At present offensive and moving disNOISOMENESS. gust; but once noxious and actually hurtful; thus a skunk would be 'noisome' now; a tiger was 'noisome' then. In all passages of the Authorized Translation of the Bible where the word occurs, as at Ezek. xiv. 15, 21, it is used not in the present meaning, but the past. They that will be rich fall into temptations and snares, and into many foolish and noisome [Braßepás] lusts, which drown men in perdition and destruction.-1 Tim. vi. 9. Geneva. He [the superstitious person] is persuaded that they be gods indeed, but such as be noisome, hurtful, and doing mischief unto men.-HOLLAND, Plutarch's Morals, p. 260. They [the prelates] are so far from hindering dissension, that they have made unprofitable, and even noisome, the chiefest remedy we have to keep Christendom at one, which is, by Councils.-MILTON, Reason of Church Government, b. i. c. 6. Sad in his time was the condition of the Israelites, oppressed by the Midianites, who swarmed like grasshoppers for number |