ment of editor of the ‘Leeds Times.’ The salary was only 100l. a year; nevertheless, before leaving Dundee Nicoll married Alice Suter, niece of a newspaper proprietor in the town, who is described as beautiful and interesting, and in every respect suited to him. Nicoll had always been a strong, even a violent, radical politician. The vigour which he introduced into the ‘Leeds Times’ greatly stimulated the sale of the paper, but wore out his delicate constitution, which completely broke down after the general election in the summer of 1837, in consequence of his arduous and successful exertions in the cause of Sir William Molesworth. He returned to Scotland to die. Everything possible was done for him. Mr. and Mrs. Johnstone received him into their house. Andrew Combe and Robert Cox attended him gratuitously. Sir William Molesworth sent him 50l., ‘accompanied,’ says Mrs. Johnstone, ‘by a letter remarkable for delicacy and kindness.’ But his health continued to decline, and he died at Laverock Bank, near Edinburgh, on 7 Dec. 1837. Two days before his death his father and mother left their home, and, walking fifty miles through frost and snow, arrived just in time to see him alive. He was buried in North Leith churchyard. The inappropriateness of the situation to the last resting-place of a poet is the subject of some touching lines by his brother William, who a few years afterwards was himself buried in the same grave.
It is probably to the credit of Nicoll's lyrical faculty that his songs in the Scottish dialect should be so greatly superior to his poems in literary English. The latter, with some well-known exceptions, are of small account, but as a Scottish minstrel he stands very high. The characteristics of the native poetry of Scotland are always the same: melody, simplicity, truth to nature, ardent feeling, pathos, and humour. All these excellences Nicoll possesses in a very high degree, and deserves the distinction of having been a most genuine poet of the people. He certainly falls far short of Burns; but Burns produced nothing so good as Nicoll's best until after attaining the age at which Nicoll ceased to write; and it is not likely that the young man of twenty-three had arrived at the limits of his genius. His mind grew rapidly, and he might have produced prose work of abiding value when his political passion had been moderated and his powers disciplined by experience of the world. Personally he was amiable, honourable, enthusiastic, and warmly attached to his friends.
[Nicoll's poems were republished in 1844 with copious additions, principally of pieces written subsequently to the original publication in 1835, and an anonymous memoir by Mrs. Johnstone, which has continued to be prefixed to more recent editions, and is the best authority for his life. An independent biography, by P. R. Drummond, 1884, adds some interesting letters and anecdotes, but does not materially modify the impression left by Mrs. Johnstone's memoir. See also Chambers's Biogr. Dict. of Eminent Scotsmen, 1856, v. 487; Walker's Bards of Bon-Accord, p. 438; Charles Kingsley, in the North British Review, vol. xvi.; and Samuel Smiles, in Good Words, vol. xvi.]
NICOLL, WHITLOCK (1786–1838), physician, son of the Rev. Iltyd Nicoll, was born at Treddington, Worcestershire, in 1786. His father was rector of the parish, and died before Nicoll was two years old; his mother was Ann, daughter of George Hatch of Windsor. He was educated by the Rev. John Nicoll, his uncle, and placed in 1802 to live with Mr. Bevan, a medical practitioner at Cowbridge, Glamorganshire. In 1806 he became a student at St. George's Hospital, and in 1809 received the diploma of membership of the College of Surgeons of England. He then became partner of his former teacher at Cowbridge, and engaged in general practice. He went to live in Ludlow, Shropshire, took an M.D. degree 17 May 1816 at Marischal College, Aberdeen, and was admitted an extra-licentiate of the College of Physicians of London 8 June 1816. He commenced physician, received in 1817 the degree of M.D. from the Archbishop of Canterbury, and began to write as an authority on medicine in the ‘London Medical Repository’ in 1819. His first separate publication, ‘Tentamen Nosologicum,’ had appeared in vol. vii. No. 39 of the ‘Repository.’ It is a general classification of diseases based upon their symptoms. His three main divisions are febres, of which he describes three orders; neuroses, with seven orders; and cachexiæ, with eleven orders, and the arrangement shows nothing more than the ingenuity of a student. ‘The History of the Human Œconomy’ appeared in 1819, and suggests a general physiological method of inquiry in clinical medicine. ‘Primary Elements of Disordered Circulation of the Blood’ was also published in 1819, and contains one hundred obvious remarks on the circulation. ‘General Elements of Pathology’ appeared in 1820, and in 1821 ‘Practical Remarks on the Disordered States of the Cerebral Structures in Infants.’ This was first read before an association of physicians in Ireland on 6 Dec. 1819, and is the
