Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 41.djvu/102

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“Ruins: or, the Revolutions of Empires; by a Reformer,”’ 8vo, London, 1819. In this work the ‘revolutionary and sceptical opinions’ of Volney are refuted. 6. ‘A Harmonical Grammar of the principal ancient and modern Languages; viz. the Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Chaldee, Syriac, and Samaritan, the French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, German, and Modern Greek,’ 2 parts, 12mo, London, 1822 (most of these grammars had been published separately in 1819 and 1821). 7. ‘The Expectations formed by the Assyrians that a Great Deliverer would appear about the time of our Lord's Advent demonstrated,’ 8vo, London [Prittlewell printed], 1826. 8. ‘The Time of the Millennium investigated, and its Nature determined on Scriptural Grounds,’ 8vo, London [Prittlewell, privately printed], 1831. The last two works form part of Nolan's ‘Boyle Lectures.’ After their delivery materials accumulated under his researches for a work of considerable extent, to be entitled ‘A Demonstration of Revelation, from the Sign of the Sabbath,’ but he did not complete it. 9. ‘The Analogy of Revelation and Science established’ (Bampton Lectures), 8vo, Oxford, 1833. 10. ‘The Chronological Prophecies as constituting a Connected System’ (Warburton Lectures), 8vo, London, 1837. 11. ‘The Evangelical Character of Christianity … asserted and vindicated,’ 18mo, London, 1838. 12. ‘The Catholic Character of Christianity as recognised by the Reformed Church, in opposition to the corrupt traditions of the Church of Rome, asserted,’ 18mo, London, 1839; this was the first work published in reply to ‘Tracts for the Times.’ 13. ‘The Egyptian Chronology analysed, its theory developed and practically applied, and confirmed in its dates and details, from its agreement with the Hieroglyphic Monuments and the Scripture Chronology,’ 8vo, London, Oxford [printed], 1848.

[Gent. Mag. 1864, pt. ii. pp. 788–91.]

G. G.

NOLAN, LEWIS EDWARD (1820?–1854), captain 15th hussars and writer on cavalry, born about 1820, was son of Major Babington Nolan, sometime of the 70th foot, and afterwards British vice-consul at Milan. Two brothers, like himself, lost their lives in battle. Obtaining a commission in an Hungarian hussar regiment, he was a pupil of Colonel Haas, the instructor of the Austrian imperial cavalry, and served with the regiment in Hungary and on the Polish frontier. Leaving the imperial he entered the British service by purchase as ensign in the 4th king's own foot 15 March 1839, and on 23 April was transferred to the 15th king's hussars, then ordered to India, as cornet, paying the difference in the value of the commission. He purchased his lieutenancy in the regiment 19 June 1841, and his troop 8 March 1850. He was some time aide-de-camp to Lieutenant-general Sir George Frederick Berkeley, commanding the troops in Madras, and afterwards extra aide-de-camp to the governor, Sir Henry Pottinger. When the regiment was ordered home in 1853, Nolan got leave to travel in Russia, and visited the principal military stations. He was sent to Turkey in advance of the eastern expedition to make arrangements for the reception of the cavalry of the force, and to buy up horses. He landed in the Crimea as aide-de-camp to the quartermaster-general, Colonel Richard (afterwards Lord) Airey [q. v.], and was present at the Alma.

At Balaklava, on 25 Oct. 1854, by express desire of Lord Raglan, the commander-in-chief, Nolan carried a written order to Lord Lucan, the officer commanding the British cavalry, bidding him prevent the Russians from carrying away some English guns which they had just taken from Turkish troops under Liprandi. The guns were on the causeway heights away on the front of the light brigade (Kinglake, v. 218–19). Lucan expressed doubt about the meaning of the order, and subsequently alleged want of respect towards himself on Nolan's part. ‘Where are we to advance?’ he asked; and Nolan replied, ‘There's your enemy, and there are the guns, my lord!’ Lucan, in after years, always asserted that the guns were not visible where he received the order, although they could be plainly seen by Lord Raglan's staff on the higher ground. Lord Cardigan [see Brudenell, James Thomas], in command of the light brigade, received the order direct from Lucan himself, but wrongly understood the instructions to mean a charge straight down the valley, past the guns, against the Russian batteries at the far end. The brigade had just got into motion—Cardigan leading, with the 13th light dragoons (now hussars) and the 17th lancers as his first line—when Nolan was seen riding obliquely across the advance and gesticulating. It was assumed that he was making an excited attempt to hurry on the charge, but in reality he appears to have been endeavouring, as an officer of the quartermaster-general's staff, to divert the brigade from its course down the valley to its nearer and intended objective on the right front. A fragment of Russian shell from the first gun fired struck him on the chest, laying it open to the heart. For a moment his body, with rigid uplifted sword-arm, was borne along the front, and then dropped from the saddle in a squadron interval of the 13th dragoons as the brigade swept onward into the