found merchants of all European nations, but preferred the society of the English, especially that of Dr. Patrick Russel, the author of a work on the plague, and editor of his uncle's description of Aleppo. Bernstorf now requested Niebuhr to proceed to Cyprus, in order to copy there the Phœnician inscriptions at Citium mentioned by Pococke. Not having found these inscriptions, he crossed from Cyprus to Jafa, and visited Jerusalem at the beginning of August, 1766; and then returned by Jafa, Sidon, the Lebanon, and Damascus to Aleppo. On the 20th of November, 1766, he set out with a caravan for Brusa. Having suffered much from cold and snow on Mount Taurus, he reached Constantinople, February 20, 1767. He studied during three and a half months the military and civil statistics of Turkey; reached the Danube, and went on through Wallachia and Moldavia to Poland, where he was well received by King Stanislaus Poniatowski. From Warsaw he went by Göttingen to his beloved Land Hadeln, where he had now inherited a freehold farm from his maternal uncle. In November the minister of state and the government officials, among whom was Klopstock, received him with distinction at Copenhagen. During his preparations for publishing an account of his travels, and having almost planned a new journey to Central Africa, he became acquainted with the daughter of the late Dr. Blumenberg, physician to the king. He married her in the summer of 1773, and she bore him one daughter and one son at Copenhagen. Having published the first volume of his travels in 1774, and the second in 1778, he accepted the office of landschreiber at Meldorf, the principal town of Ditmarschen. This office may be compared with that of a royal commissioner of land-taxes. Enjoying in this place a comfortable income, and not being overburdened with urgent affairs, he devoted his leisure to the education of his children and to the planting of fruit-trees. At intervals he published portions of his third volume in the Deutsche Museum, a periodical edited by his friend Boje; and also some papers in the Genius der Zeit, the Minerva, the Monatliche Correspondenz des Freiherrn von Zach, Büsching's Wöchentliche Nachrichten, and in Murr's Journal. His description of Arabia and the first two volumes of his travels have been translated into French and other languages. He corresponded with Dr. Russel and Major Rennell about contributions to the projected map of Middle Asia; with Silvestre de Sacy about the Pelvi inscriptions at Nashki-Rustam; and with Barbié du Boccage, who desired to obtain data for a map of Anatolia. In June, 1795, the copper-plates of the third volume of his travels were destroyed by a fire which burnt down the house of a friend at Copenhagen. This discouraged him so much that he abandoned altogether the idea of publishing the volume. It was edited, however, twenty-two years after his death. In 1802 he was elected foreign member of the French Institute. In 1807 he lost his wife, and became blind and finally lame. He died April 26, 1815. His titles were—Danish councillor of state; knight of the Danebrog; member of the Royal Society of Göttingen; member of the societies of naturalists of Sweden and of Norway; associé de l'Institut de France.—F. B—y.
NIEBUHR, Marcus von, son of Barthold Georg Niebuhr, was born in 1817 at Rome. Entering the civil service of Prussia, he published in 1845 a work on banking, and some essays on Prussian finance. Having previously been a zealous advocate of reform, he joined after 1848 the conservative party, and was the most able promoter of the reactionary movement, which enabled him to rise rapidly. From being, in 1850, regierungsrath he became, in 1851, geheimer-regierungsrath and secretary of the cabinet. In 1852 the king sent him on a diplomatic mission to London. He employed his personal influence with the king in favour of Russia and reaction. Compromised by the surreptitious publication of important secret despatches which had been committed to his care, and deeply grieved by the softening of the brain from which the king began to suffer, Marcus von Niebuhr (who had accepted an elevation to nobility, which both his grandfather and father declined) died in August, 1860, a few months before his royal protector.—F. B—y.
* NIEDERMEYER, Louis, composer and professor of the piano, was born at Geneva in 1803. He received the first elements of his art from his father, and completed his studies at Naples. In 1826 he visited Paris, where he made himself known by several excellent pieces for the piano. He was received and encouraged by Rossini, who introduced his works to the notice of the Italian opera. In July, 1828, his comic opera entitled "Une unit dans le forêt," was produced, but it was not well received by the critics. In 1833 he accepted the post of professor of the piano in an educational establishment at Brussels, founded by M. Gaggia. But this not suiting his views or his disposition, after eighteen months he returned to Paris, and devoted his time to writing and publishing songs and pieces for the piano. In 1836 his grand opera, "Stradella," was represented at the Academie, but it was not so well received as it deserved to be. His subsequent opera, "Marie Stuart," met with a better fate; but still the graceful writing of this composer has not been fully acknowledged by the public or the critics.—E. F. R.
NIEL, Adolphe, Marshal of France, born at Muret, Haute Garonne, 4th October, 1802, was educated at the école polytechnique. He became a lieutenant in 1827, captain in 1831, and in reward for his services at the taking of Constantine in 1837, chef de bataillon. For his services in the expedition to Rome he was promoted to be general of brigade in 1849. On his return to France he became chief of the engineering department in the war-office, in 1853 was named general of division, and the following year was despatched in command of the artillery to the Baltic under Baraguey d'Hilliers. At the siege of Bomarsund he gained the cross of a grand officer of the legion and the rank of aid-de-camp to the emperor. In 1855 he was despatched to the Crimea to report upon the situation of the French army. A closer siege of Sebastopol and an assault on the side of the Malakoff were the principal points in his report. He succeeded Bizot in command of the French artillery before Sebastopol, 5th May, 1855. At the conclusion of the siege he was nominated a grand cross of the legion of honour, and a knight commander of the order of the bath. He was made a senator in 1857, and had the honour conferred upon him of asking the hand of the Princess Clotilde of Savoy for Prince Napoleon. He accompanied the prince to Italy, and in view of a not very doubtful contingency, employed himself in investigating the military topography of Piedmont. As commander of the fourth division of the French army, he entered Italy in April, 1859, and was present at Magenta and Solferino. He was created a marshal of France, 25th June, 1859. On his return to France he was appointed commander of the sixth arrondissement militaire, and published "Siege de Sébastopol, journal des opérations du génie," Paris, 1858. He died on the 13th of August, 1869.
NIEMCEVICZ, Julian Ursin, a Polish poet, historian, and politician, was born in 1767, and became a member of the constitutional diet before he was twenty years of age. In that assembly he defended the cause of the liberty of the citizens against the encroachments of the noblesse. He advocated the same cause in the National and Foreign Gazette, which appeared for the first time on New Year's day, 1791. He addressed his countrymen also in spirited verses, celebrating the great deeds of Polish heroes. He wrote several dramas—"Casimir the Great," "Vladislaus," "John Sobieski's pages," &c.—which, as well as various historical novels that he produced, enjoyed considerable reputation. In the war with Russia of 1794 he took an active part as aid-de-camp to Kosciusko, with whom he was taken prisoner at the battle of Macieiöwice. He beguiled his long imprisonment in St. Petersburg by translating Pope's Rape of the Lock. Set free in 1797, he accompanied Kosciusko to America. He returned to Poland in 1802, and subsequently became secretary to the senate of the kingdom of Poland under Alexander I. Driven from his native land by the events of 1831, he died at Montmorency, near Paris, in 1841.—R. H.
NIEMEYER, August Hermann, a celebrated German educator and scholastic writer, was born at Halle, September 2nd, 1754, and most carefully educated. In 1777 he began lecturing in his native town, and was rapidly promoted to high academical dignities. His career was interrupted by the French, who in 1807 transported him as a hostage into France. After his return he was again instituted in his former offices, and appointed chancellor and perpetual rector of the university. He died at Magdeburg, July 7th, 1828. His numerous works were highly popular in their time, and exercised a widely spread and most beneficent influence on education. They advocated religious opinions, some of which were afterwards prohibited in Prussia.—(See Life, by Jacobs and Gruber; Halle, 1831.)—K. E.
* NIEPCE DE SAINT-VICTOR, Claude-Marie-François, a distinguished French photographic chemist, was born, July 26, 1805, at Saint-Cyr, near Chalons-sur-Saone. He was educated in the military academy of Saumur, entered the army, and by
