the excellent portrait of Burns, now in the Scottish National Gallery, well known through Walker’s engraving. Political feeling at that time ran high in Edinburgh, and Nasmyth’s pronounced Liberal opinions, which he was too outspoken and sincere to disguise, gave offence to many of his aristocratic patrons, and led to the diminution of his practice as a portraitist. In his later years, accordingly, he devoted himself mainly to landscape work, and did not disdain on occasion to set his hand to scene-painting for the theatres. He has been styled, not unjustly, the “father of Scottish landscape art.” His subjects are carefully finished and coloured, but are Wanting in boldness and freedom. Nasmyth was also largely employed by noblemen throughout the country in the improving and beautifying of their estates, in which his fine taste rendered him especially skilful; and he was known as an architect, having designed the Dean Bridge, Edinburgh, and the graceful circular temple covering St Bernard’s Well. Nasmyth died in his native city on the 10th of April 1840. His youngest son, James, was the well-known inventor of the steam-hammer. His six daughters all attained a certain local reputation as artists, but it was in his eldest son, Patrick (1787–1831), that the artistic skill of his family was most powerfully developed. Having studied under his father, Patrick went to London at the age of twenty, and soon attracted attention as a clever landscapist. He was a diligent student of the works of Claude and Richard Wilson, and of Ruysdael and Hobbema, upon whom his own practice was mainly founded. His most characteristic paintings are of English domestic scenery, full of quiet tone and colour, and detailed and minute expression of foliage, and with considerable brilliancy of sky effect. They were executed with his left hand, his right having in early life been injured by an accident.
For an account of the Nasmyth family see James Nasmyth’s Autobiography (1883).
NASMYTH, JAMES (1808–1890), Scottish engineer, was born in Edinburgh on the 19th of August 1808, and was the youngest son of Alexander Nasmyth, the “father of Scottish landscape art.” He was sent to school in his native city, and then attended classes in chemistry, mathematics and natural philosophy at the university. From an early age he showed great fondness for mechanical pursuits, and the skill he attained in the practical use of tools enabled him to make models of engines, &c., which found a ready sale. In 1829 he obtained a position in Henry Maudslay’s works in London, where he stayed two years, and then, in 1834, started business on his own account in Manchester. The beginnings were small, but they quickly developed, and in a few years he was at the head of the prosperous Bridgewater foundry at Patricroft, from which he was able to retire in 1856 with a fortune. The invention of the steam-hammer, with which his name is associated, was actually made in 1839, a drawing of the device appearing in his note-book, or “scheme-book;” as he called it, with the date 24th November of that year. It was designed to meet the difficulty experienced by the builders of the Great Britain steamship in finding a firm that would undertake to forge the large paddle-wheel shaft required for that vessel, but no machine of the kind was constructed till 1842. In that year Nasmyth discovered one in Schneiders’ Creuzot works, and he found that the design was his own and had been copied from his “scheme-book.” His title, therefore, to be called the inventor of the steam-hammer holds good against the claims sometimes advanced in favour of the Schneiders, though apparently he was anticipated in the idea by James Watt. Nasmyth did much for the improvement of machine-tools, and his inventive genius devised many new appliances—a planing machine (“Nasmyth steam-arm”), a nut-shaping machine, steam pile-driver, hydraulic machinery for various purposes, &c. In his retirement he lived at Penshurst in Kent, and amused himself with the study of astronomy, and especially of the moon, on which he published a work, The Moon considered as a Planet, a World and a Satellite, in conjunction with James Carpenter in 1874. He died in London on the 7th of May 1890.
His Autobiography, edited by Dr Samuel Smiles, was published in 1883.
NASR-ED-DIN [Náṣiru’d-Din] (1829–1896), shah of Persia,
was born on the 4th of April 1829. His mother, a capable princess
of the Kajar family, persuaded Shah Mahommed, his father, to
appoint him heir apparent, in preference to his elder brothers;
and he was accordingly made governor of Azerbaijan. His
succession to the throne, 13th October 1848, was vigorously
disputed, especially by the followers of the reformer El Bab,
upon whom he wreaked terrible vengeance. In 1855 he re-established
friendly relations with France, and coming under the
influence of Russia, signed a treaty of amity on the 17th of
December with that power, but remained neutral during the
Crimean war. In 1856 he seized Herat, but a British army under
Outram landed in the Persian Gulf, defeated his forces and
compelled him to evacuate the territory. The treaty of peace
was signed at Paris, on the 4th of March 1857, and to the end of
his reign he treated Great Britain and Russia with equal friendship.
In 1866 the shah authorized the passage of the telegraph
to India through his dominions and reminted his currency in the
European fashion. In 1873, and again in 1889, he visited
England in the course of his three sumptuous journeys to Europe,
1873, 1878, 1889. The only results of his contact with Western.
civilization appear to have been the proclamation of religious
toleration, the institution of a postal service, accession to the
postal union and the establishment of a bank. He gave the
monopoly of tobacco to a private company, but was soon compelled
to withdraw it in deference to the resistance of his subjects.
Abstemious in habits, and devoted to music and poetry, he was
a cultured, able and well-meaning ruler, and his reign, already
unusually long for an Eastern potentate, might have lasted still
longer had it not been for the unpopular sale of the tobacco
monopoly, which was probably a factor in his assassination at
Teheran on the 1st of May 1896 by a member of the Babi faction.
He was succeeded by his son Muzaffar-ed-din.
NASRIDES, THE, of Granada, were the last of the Mahommedan
dynasties in Spain. They ruled from 1232 to 1492. They
arose at the time when the king of Castile, Fernando the Saint,
was conquering Andalusia. The dynasty was of remote Arabic
origin, but its immediate source was the mountain range of the
Alpujarra, and the founder was Yusuf (or Yahīa) l’Nasr, a chief
who was engaged in perpetual conflict with rival chiefs and in
particular with the family of Beni-Hud, once kings at Saragossa,
who held the fortress of Granada. Yusuf’s nephew (or son)
Mahommed completed the defeat of the Beni-Hud largely by the
help of the king of Castile, to whom he did homage and paid
tribute. Mahommed I., called el Ghalib, i.e. the Conqueror (1238–1273),
served the Christian king against his own co-religionists
at the siege of Seville and contrived to escape in the general
wreck of the Mahommedan power. The internal history of the
dynasty is largely made up of civil dissensions, personal rivalries,
palace and harem intrigues. The direct male line of Mahommed
el Ghalib ended with the fourth sultan, Nasr, in 1314. Nasr was
succeeded by his cousin Imail (1314–1325), who is said to have been connected with the original stock only through women.
From Mahommed el-Ghalib to Mahommed XI., called Boabdil,
and also the little king “El Rey Chico” by the Christians, who lost
Granada in 1492, there are counted twenty-nine reigns of the
Nasrides, giving an average of nine years. But there was not the
same number of Sultans, for several of them were expelled and
restored two or three times. Nor did all the members of the
house who were allowed to have been sultans reign over all the
territory still in Mahommedan hands. There were contemporary
reigns in different parts, and tribal or local rivalries between
plain and hill, and the chief towns, Granada, Malaga and Guadix.
The dissensions of the Nasrides reached their greatest pitch of
fury during the very years in which the Catholic sovereigns were
conquering their territory piecemeal, 1482–1492. Their position
imposed a certain consistency of policy on these sultans. They
submitted and paid tribute to the kings of Castile when they
could not help doing so, but they endeavoured to use the support
of Mahommedan rulers of northern Africa whenever it was to be
obtained. Granada became the recognized place of refuge for
rebellious subjects of the kings of Castile, and on occasion
