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NAIVETE—NAMUR.
mation of that of James. Near the’centre of the mainstreet is a building of handsome appearance andmodern erection, containing the town and countygaol, and a court and county room; the latter isexceedingly spacious and elegant, and is occasionallyused as a ball-room; the structure is surmounted bya spire. The port of Nairn has been greatly improvedby an excellent new pier, built partly by subscriptionand partly by aid from government. Though undis-tinguished by manufacture, Nairn is understood to beimproving in its trade. The importations arc lime,coal, and foreign goods, and, besides fish, a vastquantity of fir wood is exported. The fishing andcuring of herrings is carried on here w ith success.
The burgh of Nairn, in conjunction with Fortrose,Inverness, and Forres, sends one member to theBritish parliament. By the last census, the popula-tion amounted to 3266 persons, and the annual valueof the real property, as assessed in 1815, amounts to1762/. Nairn is fifteen miles east by north of Inver-ness, and 102 north-west of Aberdeen.
Naivete. A French word, which has becomenaturalised in several other languages. The word isof Batin origin, derived from nativus. The FrenchDictionnaire de l’Academie gives the following defini-tion of naif: —“ naturel, sans fard, sans artifice, alsoqui represente bien la verite, and of a person, qui ditsa pensee ingenument et sans detour. Sometimes it isused in dispraise, and then means, qui est trop ingiinudans sa simplicite.” It might easily be imagined,that a word of such a general description, received intoa foreign language, would be used in no very distinctand precise meaning. The essential meaning of theword is a natural, unreserved expression of senti-ments and thoughts, without regard to conventionalrules, and without weighing the construction whichmay be put upon the language or conduct.
Naivete generally implies inexperience of theworld; hence it is not unfrequently taken for want ofjudgment. It implies simplicity of heart, unimpairedby the chilling experiences of life, and unfettered bythe capricious regulations of society, trusting withchild-like confidence, as it has no disposition to cun-ning or guile. The term is sometimes applied toworks of literature or the fine arts ; for instance, topoetry, which expresses natural feeling in a simplemanner; particularly to that of the earlier ages orlower orders of society ; or to music, which, withoutstudied correctness, speaks directly to the heart.
Names. The Greeks, with the exception of a fewfamilies at Athens and Sparta, had no family names.Among the Romans, each person had commonlythree names—a proper name (prctnomen, the distinc-tion of the individual), the name of the clan (nomen),and the family name (cognomen). Sometimes, also,a surname was added, which was borrowed from somedistinguished exploit or remarkable event. Thepnenomcn was placed first, and commonly writtenwith one or two letters ; for example, A., Aldus ;C., Cains ; L., Lucius ; M., Marcus ; P., Publius;Q., Quintus ; T., Titus ; Ap., Appius ; Cn., Cncius ;Sex., Sextus, &c. Then followed the nomen ; forexample, Cornelius, Fabius, Julius, Julian. Lastlycame the cognomen; for example, Cicero, Ctnsar,Scipio, and others. In the name M. Tullius Cicero,M. is the pramomen, which distinguishes him fromhis brother, Quintus; Tullius, the nomen, which dis-tinguishes the clan; and Cicero, the cognomen, whichshows his family.
In Germany, and other kindred nations, familynames were little used by commoners before thefourteenth century. Every one had a baptismal nameonlv. The most ancient method of distinguishingdifferent individuals of the same name consisted inadding their father’s name to their own ; hence origi-nated many English, Danish, and German names,which end in son, sohn, sen ; for example, Johnson,Williamson, Thorwaldson, Wilmsen (that is, William-son). To this class belong, without doubt, also, thoseproper names ending in i (the termination of the Latingenitive), which frequently occurs as names of a clan,such as Augusti (Augusti filius). In a similar manneroriginated the Spanish names ending in ez, such asFernandez, Rodriguez ; that is to say, Ferdinand’s, orRodrigo’s son. The Arabians call no one by his ownor proper name. Suppose some one w hose father isnamed Hali, and whose own name is Zoar ; he wouldbe called Ebn Hali (Hali’s son), and his son EbnZoar.
With feudalism, new names were introduced,derived from the districts conferred on the nobles, orfrom the feudal relations. The nobility had, everywhere, family names long before the commoners.Another class of family names among commonerswas derived from their occupations or the places oftheir birth ; for example, Smith, Miller, Fisher,French, Welsh, Dutch, &c., or from the signs whichtradesmen put up before their shops, such as King,Duke, &c. Sometimes striking external peculiaritieshave given origin to names, w hich have descended tothe posterity of those on whom they were bestowed,such as Brown, Long, Broadhead, &c.
Namur. A large district which, previous to 1831,was a province of the kingdom of the Netherlands, butsince included in the new kingdom of Belgium. Itis composed of the greatest part of the county ofNamur, of a part of the principality of Liege, andsome parts of the duchy of Brabant and FrenchHainault : within these limits, constituted in 1814, itcontains 156,400 inhabitants, on a superficial area of1380 square miles. The soil is remarkably rich; theface of the country is a plain, interrupted by lowhills, which are covered with woods. Besides theproducts of tillage and grazing, which is extensivelycarried on, iron, copper, lead, marble, and coal arefound. The county of Namur was sold by the lastcount to Philip the Good, duke of Burgundy, in1421. By the marriage of Maximilian with Mary ofBurgundy, in 1477, it passed, with the other Belgicprovinces, to the house of Austria; by the peace ofLuneville, it was ceded to France, and formed a partof the French empire till 1814, when it was annexedto the new kingdom of the Netherlands.
Namur. The capital of the Belgic province ofthe same name, and an episcopal see, situated at theconfluence of the Sambre w ith the Maese. The for-tifications, which were destroyed by Joseph II., in1784, have been restored, and, since 1817, consider-ably enlarged ; it has also a citadel on a steep rock.The cathedral is the principal public edifice ; butthere are sixteen churches, several hospitals, Ac. Cut-lery and other iron wares, glass, leather, and tobacco,are the principal articles of manufacture. Namur hasbeen often taken in the wars between France, Holland,and Austria, and has been several times inundated.The inhabitants amount to about 17,000 persons, andit is twenty-eight miles from Brussels, and 116 fromAmsterdam.