Pope, _Epitaph, intended for Newton’s Monument in Westminster Abbey_ (1727). Newton is called by Campbell “The Priest of Nature.”--_Pleasures of Hope_, i. (1799). =Newton and the Apple.= It is said that Newton was standing in the garden of Mrs. Conduitt, of Woolsthorpe, in the year 1665, when an apple fell from a tree and set him thinking. From this incident he ultimately developed his theory of gravitation. =Nibelung=, a mythical king of Nibelungeland (_Norway_). He had twelve paladins, all giants. Siegfried [_Sege.freed_], prince of the Netherlands, slew the giants, and made Nibelungeland tributary.--_Nibelungen Lied_, iii. (1210). =Nibelungen Hoard=, a mythical mass of gold and precious stones which Siegfried [_Sege.freed_], prince of the Netherlands, took from Nibelungeland and gave to his wife as a dowry. The hoard filled thirty-six wagons. After the murder of Siegfried, Hagan seized the hoard, and, for concealment, sank it in the “Rhine at Lockham,” intending to recover it at a future period, but Hagan was assassinated, and the hoard was lost for ever.--_Nibelungen Lied_, xix. =Nibelungen Lied= [_Ne.by-lung.’nleed_], the German _Iliad_ (1210). It is divided into two parts, and thirty-two lieds or cantos. The first part ends with the death of Siegfried, and the second part with the death of Kriemhild. Siegfried, the youngest of the kings of the Netherlands, went to Worms, to crave the hand of Kriemhild in marriage. While he was staying with Günther, king of Burgundy (the lady’s brother), he assisted him to obtain in marriage Brunhild, queen of Issland, who announced publicly that he only should be her husband who could beat her in hurling a spear, throwing a huge stone, and in leaping. Siegfried, who possessed a cloak of invisibility, aided Günther in these three contests, and Brunhild became his wife. In return for these services, Günther gave Siegfried his sister Kriemhild, in marriage. After a time, the bride and bridegroom went to visit Günther, when the two ladies disputed about the relative merits of their respective husbands, and Kriemhild, to exalt Siegfried, boasted that Günther owed to him his victories and his wife. Brunhild, in great anger, now employed Hagan to murder Siegfried, and this he did by stabbing him in the back while he was drinking from a brook. Thirteen years elapsed, and the widow married Etzel, king of the Huns. After a time, she invited Brunhild and Hagan to a visit. Hagan, in this visit, killed Etzel’s young son, and Kriemhild was like a fury. A battle ensued, in which Günther and Hagan were made prisoners, and Kriemhild cut off both their heads with her own hand. Hildebrand, horrified at this act of blood, slew Kriemhild; and so the poem ends.--Authors unknown (but the story pieced together by the minnesingers). ⁂ The _Völsunga Saga_ is the Icelandic version of the _Nibelungen Lied_. This saga has been translated into English by William Morris.