Contemplatio de vita S. Francisci, a book of devotions. Nicolaus was above all a commentator. His exegesis, which was dominated by his polemics against the Jews, is characterized by a fidelity to the literal sense, the comparison with the Hebrew text, the direct use of Jewish commentators, a very independent attitude towards traditional interpretations, and a remarkable historical and critical sense. In all this he resembled Roger Bacon. His works, especially the Postilla litteralis, were very popular in the 14th and 15th centuries, but produced few imitators.
In addition to the notices in Wadding, du Moustier, Sbaraglia and Fabricius, see C. Siegfried, in Archiv. f. wissenschaftliche Erforschung des A.T., vols. i., ii.; A. Merx, Die Prophetie des Joel und ihre Ausleger (1879, pp. 305-366); M. Fischer in Jahrbücher f. protestantische Theologie, xv.; F. Maschkowski, in Zeitschrift f. alttestamentliche Wissenschaft, xv.; Neumann in Revue des études juives, vols. 26 and 27; H. Labrosse in Positions des thèses de l’École des Charles (1906).
NICOLAY, the name of a French family of Vivarais which
came rapidly into legal prominence at the end of the 15th century.
Jean Nicolay (d. 1527), son of a bailli of Bourg Saint-Andéol,
became councillor at the parlement of Toulouse and afterwards
at the Grand Council, chancellor of the kingdom of Naples,
Maître des Requêtes, and, finally, first president of the Chambre
des Comptes of Paris (1506). This last post was filled continuously
up to the Revolution by his descendants. Antoine Chrétien
de Nicolay (1712–1777) became marshal of France in 1775.
His brother, Aymar Chrétien François Michel (1721–1769),
bishop of Verdun, was first almoner of Marie Josephe of Saxony,
wife of the dauphin Louis (d. 1765), and her influential counsellor.
See A. de Boislisle, Pièces justificatives pour servir à l’histoire des premiers présidents de la Chambre des Comptes (1873), and Histoire de la maison de Nicolay (1875).
NICOLE, PIERRE (1625–1695), one of the most distinguished
of the French Jansenists, was the son of a provincial barrister,
and was born at Chartres. Sent to Paris in 1642 to study
theology, he soon entered into relations with the Jansenist
community at Port Royal (q.v.) through his aunt, Marie des
Anges Suireau, who was for a short time abbess of the convent.
Some scruple of conscience forbade him to proceed to the priesthood,
and he remained throughout life a “clerk in minor orders,”
although a profound theological scholar. For some years he
was a master in the “little school” for boys established at
Port Royal, and had the honour of teaching Greek to young
Jean Racine, the future poet. But his chief duty was to act,
in collaboration with Antoine Arnauld, as general editor of the
controversial literature put forth by the Jansenists. He had a
large share in collecting the materials for Pascal’s Provincial
Letters (1656); in 1658 he translated the Letters into Latin, under
the pseudonym of Nicholas Wendrock. In 1664 he himself
began a series of letters, Les Imaginaires, intended to show
that the heretical opinions commonly ascribed to the Jansenists
really existed only in the imagination of the Jesuits. His
letters being violently attacked by Desmaretz de Saint-Sorlin,
an erratic minor poet who professed great devotion to the
Jesuits, Nicole replied to him in another series of letters, Les
Visionnaires (1666). In the course of these he observed that
poets and dramatists were no better than “public poisoners.”
This remark stung Racine to the quick; he turned not only
on his old master, but on all Port Royal, in a scathing reply,
which—as Boileau told him—did more honour to his head
than to his heart. About the same time Nicole became involved
in a controversy about transubstantiation with the Huguenot
Claude; out of this grew a massive work, La Perpétuité de la
foi de l’église catholique touchant l’eucharistie (1669), the joint
effort of Nicole and Antoine Arnauld. But Nicole’s most
popular production was his Essais de morale, a series of short
discussions on practical Christianity. The first volume was
published in 1671, and was followed at irregular intervals by
others; altogether the series numbers fourteen volumes. In
1679, on the renewal of the persecution of the Jansenists, Nicole
was forced to fly to Belgium in company with Arnauld. But
the two soon parted. Nicole was elderly and in poor health;
the life of a fugitive was not to his taste, and he complained that
he wanted rest. “Rest,” answered Arnauld, “when you have
eternity to rest in!” In 1683 Nicole made a rather ambiguous
peace with the authorities, and was allowed to come back to
Paris. There he continued his literary labours up to the last;
he was writing a refutation of the new heresy of the Quietists,
when death overtook him on the 16th of November 1695.
Nicole was one of the most attractive figures of Port Royal. Many stories are told of his quaint absent-mindedness and unreadiness in conversation. His books are distinguished by exactly opposite qualities; they are neat and orderly to excess. Hence they were exceedingly popular with Mme de Sévigné and readers of her class. No other Jansenist writer, not even Pascal, was so successful in putting the position of Port Royal before the world. And although a modern appetite quails before fourteen volumes on morality, there is much solid sense and practical knowledge of human nature to be found in the Essais de morale. Several abridgments of the work exist, notably a Choix des essais de morale de Nicole, ed. Silvestre de Saci (Paris, 1857).
Nicole’s life is told at length in the 4th volume of Sainte Beuve’s Port-Royal. (St. C.)
NICOLL, ROBERT (1814–1837), Scottish poet, was born
on the 7th of January, 1814, at the farm of Little Tullybeltane,
in the parish of Auchtergaven, Perthshire. When Robert was
five years old his father was reduced to poverty. He became
a day-labourer, and was only able to give his son a very slight
education. At sixteen the boy was apprenticed to a grocer and
wine-merchant at Perth. In 1833 he began to contribute to
Johnstone’s Magazine (afterwards Tait’s Magazine), and in
the next year his apprenticeship was cancelled. He visited
Edinburgh, and was kindly received there, but obtained no
employment. He opened a circulating library at Dundee,
but in 1836 he became editor of the Leeds Times. He held
pronounced Radical opinions, and overtaxed his slender physical
resources in electioneering work for Sir William Molesworth
in the summer of 1837. He was obliged to resign his editorship,
and died at the house of his friend William Tait, at Trinity, near
Edinburgh, on the 7th of December 1837, in his twenty-fourth
year. He had published a volume of Poems in 1835; and in
1844 appeared a further volume, Poems and Lyrics, with an
anonymous memoir of the author by Mrs C. I. Johnstone.
The best of his lyrics are those written in the Scottish dialect.
They are simple in feeling and expression, genuine folk-songs.
An eloquent appreciation of his character and his poetry was included in Charles Kingsley’s article on “Burns and his School” in the North British Review for November 1851. See also P. R. Drummond, Life of Robert Nicoll, Poet (1884).
NICOLL, SIR WILLIAM ROBERTSON (1851–), Scottish
Nonconformist divine and man of letters, was born at Auchindoir,
Aberdeenshire, on the 10th of October 1851, the son of a Free
Church minister. He graduated M.A. at Aberdeen in 1870,
and studied for the ministry at the Free Church College there
until 1874, when he was ordained minister of the Free Church
at Dufftown. Three years later he moved to Kelso, and in
1884 became editor of the Expositor. In 1886 he founded
the British Weekly, a Nonconformist organ which obtained
great influence over opinion in the free churches. Robertson
Nicoll secured many writers of exceptional talent for his paper,
to which he was himself a considerable contributor, the papers
signed “Claudius Clear” being among those from his hand.
He also founded and edited the Bookman (1891, &c.), and acted
as chief literary adviser to the publishing firm of Hodder &
Stoughton. Among his other enterprises were The Expositor’s
Bible and The Theological Educator. He edited The Expositor’s
Greek Testament (1897, &c.), and a series of Contemporary Writers
(1894, &c.), and of Literary Lives (1904, &c.). He wrote a history
of The Victorian Era in English Literature, and edited, with
T. J. Wise, Literary Anecdotes of the Nineteenth Century. The
knighthood bestowed on him among the birthday honours in
1909 was an apt recognition of his long and able devotion to
the “journeyman work” of literature.
A list of his publications is included in a monograph on Dr Nicoll by Jane T. Stoddart (“New Century Leaders,” 1903).
NICOLLS, RICHARD (1624–1672), American colonial governor, was born probably at Ampthill, Bedfordshire, England, in 1624. He commanded a royalist troop of horse during the Civil War, and on the defeat of the king went into exile. Soon after the Restoration he became groom of the bedchamber to the duke of
