John 1815-1899 Nixon

NIXON, JOHN (1815-1899), English mining engineer and colliery proprietor, was born at Barlow, Durham, on May io, 1815, the son of a farmer. He was a mine-surveyor on the South Wales coalfield, and he then became engineer to a French coal and iron company. Returning to England, he noticed while travelling on a Thames steamer that the Welsh coal in use gave off no smoke, and was preferred to north country coal both on this grbund and because of its greater power-producing efficiency. His experi ence in France suggested that a profitable market for this coal might be established among the French iron-founders and manu facturers generally who had hitherto imported English north country coal. Eventually he freighted a small craft, and sent it across to Nantes, where he persuaded the local manufacturers to try it on the understanding that he bore the expense of the experiments. These tests, under his direction, proved successful, and his visit to Nantes laid the foundations of the Welsh steam-coal trade, English manufacturers and shipowners imitat ing the example of their French rivals. Nixon eventually acquired a colliery, known as Nixon's Navigation collieries in the Aberdare valley, and later acquired or developed other South Wales steam collieries. He invented many mechanical improvements in colliery working. He died in London on June 3, 1899.

See J. E. Vincent, John Nixon, Pioneer of the Steam Coal Trade in South W ales (1900).

NIZAMi

(114o–I-12o2-3). Nizam-uddin Abil Mohammed Ilyas bin Yusuf, Persian poet, was born A.H. 535 (A.D. 114o-1). His native place, or at any rate the abode of his father, was in the hills of Kum, but as he spent almost all his days in Ganja in Arran (the present Elizavetpol) he is generally known as Nizami of Ganja or Ganjawi. Nizami abandoned himself at an early age to a stern ascetic life, as full of intolerance to others as dry and unprofitable to himself. The first poetical work in which Nizami embodied his thoughts on God and man, and all the experiences he had gained, was akhzanul Asrar (c. 1165-6) or "Storehouse of Mysteries," and bears the unmistakable stamp of Sufic specu lations. His claim to the title of the earliest Persian romanticist he fully established only a year or two after the Makhzan by the publication of his first epic masterpiece Khosrau and Shirin (c. 1175-6), reciting the ancient tale of the loves of Chosroes and Shirin. It was composed, according to the oldest copies, in A.H. 576 (A.D. 118o), and inscribed to the reigning atabeg of Azer baijan, Abu Jalar Mohammed Pahlav5.n, and his brother Kizil Ars15,n, who, soon after his accession to the throne in A.H. 582, showed his gratitude to the poet by summoning him to his court, loading him with honours, and bestowing upon him the revenue of two villages, Hamd and Nijan. In 1188 Nizami completed his Diwan, or collection of kasidas and ghazals (mostly of an ethical and parenetic character), which are said to have numbered 20,000 distichs, although the few copies which have come to us contain only a very small number of verses. About the same time

he commenced, at the desire of the ruler of the neighbouring Shirvan, his second romantic poem, the famous Bedouin love story of Laila and Majnfin (c. 1188-9). His Iskandarnama (1190 or "Book of Alexander," also called Sharafnama or I qbeilnama i-Iskandari ("The Fortunes of Alexander"), is split into two divi sions, the first based on the historical career of Alexander, which is embroidered by many magical tales, among others the voyage of Alexander to the fountain of life in the land of darkness ; the second describing him as prophet and philosopher. Nizami's last romance Haft Paikar (1198-9), or the "Seven Beauties," corn prises seven tales in verses related by the seven favourite wives of the Sassanian king Bahrarngur. Among these is the tale of the Russian princess used by Gozzi and Schiller, "Turandot." The five mathnawis, from the Makhzan to the Haft Paikar, form Nizami's so-called "Quintuple" (Khamsa) or "Five Treasures" (Panj Ganj), and have been taken as pattern by all the later epic poets in the Persian, Turkish, Chaghatai and Hindustani languages. Nizami died at Ganja in his sixty-fourth year, A.H. 599 (A.D. 1202-3).

BIBLIOGRAPHY.

The fullest account of Nizami is given in Dr. W. Bacher's Nizami's Leben und Werke (Leipzig, 1871 ; English transla tion by S. Robinson, London, 1873 ; reprinted in the same author's Persian Poetry for English Readers, 1883, pp. All the errors of detail in Bacher's work have been corrected by Dr. Rieu in his Cata logue of the Persian MSS. in the British Museum (1881), ii. 563 sqq.

Principal Editions.—The whole Khamsa (lithographed, Bombay, 1834 and 1838, Teheran, 5845) ; Asrcir (edit. by N. Bland, London, 1844, lithographed, Cawnpore, 1869, English transla tion in ms. by Hatton Hindley, in the British Museum Add. 6961) ; Khosrau and Shirin (lithographed, Lahore, 1871, German translation by Hammer in Shirin, ein persisches romantisches Gedicht, Leipzig, 1809) ; Laila and Majniin (lithographed, Lucknow, 1879 ; English translation by J. Atkinson, London, 1836) ; Haft Paikar (lithographed, Bombay, 1849, Lucknow, 1873 ; the fourth tale in German by F. von Erdmann, Behramgur und die russische Fiirstentochter, Kasan, 1844) Iskandarmima, first part, with commentary (Calcutta, 1812 and 1825, text alone, Calcutta, 5853., lithographed with marginal notes, Lucknow, 1865, Bombay, 1861 and 1875, English translation by H. Wilberforce Clarke, London, 1881 ; compare also Erdmann, De expeditions Rus sorum Berdaam versus, Kasan, 1826, and Charmoy, Expedition d' Alex andre contre les Russes, St. Petersburg, 1829) ; Iskandarnama-i-Bahri, second part, edited by Dr. Sprenger (Calcutta, 1852 and 1869).