MYTHOL'OGY, the history of the fabulous gods and heroes of antiquity, with the explanations of the fables or al legories couched therein. According to the opinion of most writers, among whom is that profound thinker, Lord Bacon, a great deal of concealed instruction and allegory was originally intended in most part of the ancient mythology : he ob serves, that some fables discover a great and evident similitude, relation, and con nection with the thing they signify, as well in the structure of the fable, as in the meaning of the names whereby the persons or actors are characterized. lie also takes a inure enlarged and higher view of the subject, and looks on them not as the product of the age, nor the inven tion of the poets, but as sacred relies, or, as he terms them, "gentle whispers, and the breath of better times, that from the tradition of more ancient nations, came at length into the flutes and trum pets of the Greeks." N, the fourteenth letter and eleventh consonant of the English alphabet, is an imperfect mute or semi-vowel, because part of its articulation May be continued for any length of tune; it is also a liquid, and a nasal letter, the sound being formed by forcing the voice strongly through the mouth and nostrils, which, at the same time, is intercepted by applying the tip of the tongue to the fore part of the pal ate. with the lips open. It has one sound
only, and after in is silent, or nearly so, as in hymn, condemn. Among the nn eients, N stood as at numeral far NO; and, with a dash over for 9000. N. or No. stands as an abbreviation for no mero. number ; also for north.
NA'13011, an Indian word for a deputy ; a title of dignity and power applied to those who net under the sunbelts or vice roys. Tho term, however, has become proverbial, of late years, to signify a person who has acquired great wealth, and lives in great splendor.