Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 41.djvu/32

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Nicholson
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Nicholson

months he attended Epsom, Ascot, Hampton, and other racecourses, with a large tent, in which he dispensed refreshments. He was also a caterer at Camberwell and other fairs, where he had dancing booths.

In 1846 he was back at the Garrick's Head, where he added to his usual attractions poses plastiques and tableaux vivants. His wife died at Boulogne, 15 Sept. 1849, and shortly afterwards he rented the Justice Tavern in Bow Street. Again in difficulties, he accepted an annual salary to preside at the Garrick's Head, till July 1851, when he became landlord of the Coal Hole, and held his court three times a night. His last remove was to the Cider Cellar, 20 Maiden Lane, on 16 Jan. 1858, opening his court and his exhibition of poses plastiques on 22 Jan.

He died at the house of his daughter, Miss Eliza Nicholson, proprietress of the Gordon Tavern, 3 Piazza, Covent Garden, on 18 May 1861. He wrote: 1. ‘Boxing, with a Chronology of the Ring, and a Memoir of Owen Swift,’ 1837. 2. ‘Cockney Adventures,’ 1838. 3. ‘Owen Swift's Handbook of Boxing,’ 1840, anon. 4. ‘Miscellaneous Writings of the Lord Chief Justice,’ pt. i. May 1849, with portrait; came out in monthly numbers. 5. ‘Nicholson's Noctes, or Nights and Sights in London,’ 1852, eleven numbers. 6. ‘Dombey and Daughter: a Moral Picture,’ 1858. He was also proprietor and editor of ‘Illustrated London Life,’ 1843, which ran to twenty-five numbers.

[The Lord Chief Baron Nicholson, an Autobiography, 1860; Notes and Queries, 1870 4th ser. vi. 477, 1871 vii. 18, 286, 327, and 7 Jan. 1893, pp. 3–5; Ross's Painted Faces On and Off, 1892, pp. 103–8, with portrait; Miles's Pugilistica, 1880, vol. i. p. xii; Vizetelly's Glances Back, 1893, i. 168–70, &c. In the Bachelor's Guide to Life in London, p. 8, and in the Illustrated Sporting News, 21 May 1864, pp. 129, 133, are views of the Judge and Jury Club. In Illustr. London Life, 28 May 1843, p. 126, is a view of the Garrick's Head booth at Epsom, and in 11 June, p. 161, a view of Nicholson's parlour in the Garrick's Head.]

G. C. B.

NICHOLSON, RICHARD (d. 1639), musician, was the first professor of music at Oxford under the endowment of William Heather [q. v.] He supplicated for the degree of Mus. Bac. at Oxford in February 1595–6 9Wood), and about the same time became organist and chorus-master of Magdalen College. The music lectureship was founded in 1626, when he was appointed professor. He resigned his post of organist in 1639, and died in the same year. He composed several madrigals, one of which, ‘Sing Shepherds all,’ is printed in Morley's ‘Triumphes of Oriana,’ 1601.

[Wood's Athenæ Oxonienses (Bliss), ii. 269; Biog. Dict. of Musicians, 1824; Grove's Dict. of Musicians, i. 735, ii. 455; Bloxam's Register of Magdalen College, Oxford; Williams's Degrees in Music, pp. 36, 74.]

J. C. H.

NICHOLSON, SAMUEL (fl. 1600), poet and divine, was perhaps the Samuel Nicholson of Catharine Hall, Cambridge, who graduated B.A. 1597–8. He took orders, and describes himself in 1602 as M.A. Nicholson has been identified with the author of ‘Acolastus his After-Witte. A Poem by S. N.,’ London, 1600; privately reprinted by J. O. Halliwell, London, 1866, and by Dr. Grosart (1876). The ‘Epistle Dedicatory’ is addressed to ‘his deare Achates Master Richard Warburton.’ The poem consists of 446 stanzas, each containing six decasyllabic or hendecasyllabic lines, and is of much interest on account of the doubtless conscious plagiarisms from Shakespeare (‘Rape of Lucrece’ and ‘Venus and Adonis’), and in a smaller measure from Nash's ‘Pierce Penniless’ and other works (cf. J. P. Collier, Bibl. Account, ii. 46, and Grosart, Introd.) Nicholson, in his dedication to Richard Warburton, describes the work as ‘the first borne of my barren invention, begotten in my anticke age’ [i.e. sportive years]. Nicholson also published: ‘God's New Yeeres Gift sent into England, or the Summe of the Gospell contaynd in these Wordes, “God so loved the world that he hath given his only begotten sonne that whosoever beleaveth in him should not perish, but should have life everlasting,” John iii. 1; the First Part written by Samuel Nicholson, M. of Artes,’ London, 1602, small 8vo. It is a devotional treatise, puritan in tone, but not in sermon form.

[Information from the Rev. R. M. Serjeantson, rector of St. Sepulchre's, Northampton, and from J. W. Clark, the registrar, Cambridge; Cooper's Athenæ Cant. ii. 309; Collier's Bibl. Account of Early English Lit. ii. 46; Hazlitt's Handbook of Early English Lit. p. 420; Reprints of Acolastus by Grosart and Halliwell; Ames's Typogr. Antiq. (Herbert), p. 1385; Ritson's Bibl. Poet, p. 287.]

W. A. S.

NICHOLSON, THOMAS JOSEPH (1645–1718), the first vicar-apostolic of Scotland, son of Sir Thomas Nicholson of Kemnay, Aberdeenshire, by Elizabeth Abercromby of Birkenbog, Banffshire, was born at Birkenbog in 1645. Having devoted himself to literary pursuits, he was chosen one of the regents or professors of the university of Glasgow, and he held that office for nearly