Page:Imperialdictiona03eadi Brandeis Vol3a.pdf/591

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
NOE
541
NOL

tion which is known in France by the name of Romanticism. Scattering his genius on all things and in all directions, he enriched and stimulated, without being either himself profound or leading to what was profound. Nodier was a frequent contributor to periodicals, and carefully edited several French works. The drama he attempted without success. One of his amusements was collecting rare books; but either from necessity or whim he twice parted with his library during his lifetime. His researches on the French language, and on languages generally, were eminent, but not solid or comprehensive. Therein he sought mainly to satisfy his poetic curiosity: he could not, or would not, build up a grand edifice of philosophical erudition.—W. M—l.

NOEHDEN, Georg Heinrich, was born in 1770, the son of a tradesman of Göttingen, at the gymnasium and university of which town he was educated. There he studied under Heyne, in whose edition of Homer he slightly aided. Heyne recommended him as tutor to a wealthy Englishman, whose sons were being educated at Göttingen, and thus Noehden gained a footing as tutor in several families of position in England, where he made influential friends. In 1818 he was summoned to Germany to educate the princesses of Saxe-Weimar, but returned to England and was appointed one of the librarians of the British museum. In that establishment he afterwards became head of the medal department, and he wrote the letterpress accompanying the engravings of Lord Northwick's select coins. Noehden translated into English Schiller's Fiesco, and Göthe's fine essay on the Last Supper of Leonardo da Vinci, and also contributed to English and German periodicals. He is chiefly remembered, however, as the re-editor of Rabenhorst's German Dictionary, and as the author of a German grammar for the use of Englishmen, which has gone through many editions. Noehden died in 1826.—F. B—y.

NOEL, François Joseph Michel, an industrious French writer, born in 1755 at St. Germain-en-Laye, was educated at the college des Grassins and at that of Louis le Grand, and after taking the inferior orders with a view to the priesthood, was employed as a tutor in the latter college. He had attracted some attention as a litterateur before the commencement of the Revolution. He then discarded his ecclesiastical dress and obtained a clerkship in the department of foreign affairs. After the 10th August, 1792, he was sent on diplomatic business to London, and afterwards to the Hague. Incarcerated on his return from Holland, he owed his release to Robespierre, who had been his fellow-student at college. Minister-plenipotentiary at Venice from 1793 till 1795, and again at the Hague from October, 1795, till October, 1797, he was charged on his return with the department in the ministry of the interior of prisons, hospitals, &c. Under the tribunate he was commissary-general of police at Lyons. He afterwards successively filled the offices of prefect of the Haut Rhin, 1801; one of the three inspectors-general of education, 1802; and inspector-general of the university, 1808. He died at Paris in 1841. Of his numerous works not a few are highly esteemed. His grammars, dictionaries, and "Leçons" in various languages, in the composition of which he had the assistance of such writers as Chapsal, obtained a prodigious circulation in France.

NOETUS, an early antitrinitarian, flourished in the early half of the third century, and was, according to some, a native of Smyrna, but according to others, of Ephesus. It is certain that he was an Asiatic, and a presbyter of the Eastern church. He adopted the views of Praxeas on the subject of the divine nature—viz., that there is no distinction of persons in the Godhead, but that Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, are only different manifestations or relations of one and the same divine personality. This personality was described as the μονη ἀρχη; hence the name Monarchians assumed by those who held this opinion, to which Tertullian who wrote against Praxeas added another, which was used as a term of reproach—that of Patripassians—because it followed from such an opinion, as Tertullian alleged, that the Father must have suffered in the person of Christ. Noetus, on being accused of holding the views of the Monarchians, at first denied the charge; but afterwards becoming bolder, from some success in the diffusion of his opinions, he openly acknowledged and defended them, whereupon he was excommunicated and banished. His heresy, spreading westward, obtained some footing in the Church of Rome, and was favoured by Callistus, who subsequently became bishop of that see. Hence the zeal of Hippolytus against the Noetians, in his celebrated treatise against the heresies of the early church.—P. L.

NOLAN, Lewis Edward, who carried the order for the famous charge of the light brigade at Balaclava, was the son of an officer in the British army. After serving in the Austrian army he entered that of England, and was employed for several years in India. He returned home and published in 1853 a professional work of some reputation, "Cavalry, its history and tactics." Before the breaking out of the war with Russia he was sent to Turkey, to arrange for a supply of horses for the British cavalry regiments. In the army before Sebastopol he was appointed to the staff of Sir Richard Airey; and on the fatal but glorious day of the battle of Balaclava (25th October, 1854), he carried to Lord Lucan the order from Lord Raglan "to advance" his cavalry nearer to the enemy. According to Dr. Russell of the Times, when Lord Lucan asked, "Where are we to advance to?" Nolan replied, "There are the enemy and there are the guns, sir, before them; it is your duty to take them." The gallant charge was made, and Nolan was killed by the first shot fired as he rode in advance of the hussars cheering them on. "A braver soldier than Captain Nolan," says Dr. Russell, "the army did not possess."—F. E.

NOLLEKENS, Joseph, R.A., born in Soho, London, August 11, 1737. He was the son of John Francis Nollekens, better known as Old Nollekens, a landscape painter of some ability, who was born at Antwerp in 1702, but settled in London, where he died in 1747. The education of young Nollekens was entirely neglected. When his father died he was only ten years old; his mother married a second husband, and went to live in Wales, and the boy was in his thirteenth year placed with the sculptor Scheemakers. With him he worked hard, and made great progress. He obtained in 1759 and 1760 three prizes from the Society of Arts for clay models of a dancing fawn, a bas-relief, &c. He had now been ten years with Scheemakers, and having saved enough to pay the necessary expenses, he in 1760 went to Rome. Here he studied the antique, and executed a bas-relief in marble for which the Society of Arts awarded him (1762) a premium of fifty guineas. From his countrymen he obtained employment in carving busts, executing among others those of Garrick and Sterne. But his most profitable employment at Rome was in the so-called "restoration" of ancient sculpture, in which he showed great skill: several of the examples in the Townley collection, now in the British Museum, had arms, hands, noses, &c., supplied by Nollekens. He seems likewise to have dealt in the ancient sculptural remains found in Rome, turning his restorative talent to shrewd account. These various occupations had introduced Nollekens to the notice of most of the English dilettanti who visited Rome during the ten years he stayed there, and who proved of great service to him on his return to England. In London he met with rapid success. He was patronized by the king, and found abundant and lucrative employment in the higher circles. In 1771 he was elected A.R.A., in the following year R.A. Henceforward his career was one of unchequered, adventureless prosperity. He was always ready to accept a commission in any department of sculpture, but he stuck closest to that which was most profitable. He carved various statues from the classic mythology; but his time was chiefly spent on ornamental effigies and portrait busts. There are five or six Venuses from his chisel, a Diana, a Juno, and the like, which were regarded with admiration in their day. He executed many monuments, but they are mostly of a very common-place character; perhaps the best is that to the memory of Mrs. Howard and her infant, in Corby church, Cumberland. His great strength lay in his portrait-busts, which are exceedingly numerous, almost always characteristic likenesses, and as works of art unaffected and manly, though perhaps wanting in refinement. The popularity of some of those of distinguished personages was almost unexampled. Of his bust of Pitt he made no less than seventy-four repetitions in marble, and sold, at three guineas each, six hundred plaster casts. That of Fox had scarcely inferior success. Among other well known busts by him are those of Johnson, Goldsmith, Canning and Wellington. One of his best memorial statues is that of Pitt in the Senate House, Cambridge. His best known public monument is that to the three captains in Westminster abbey. He died April 23, 1823, aged eighty-six. Nollekens was a man of great industry, and of close, penurious habits; he consequently amassed considerable wealth, and in his old age was surrounded by hungry legacy-hunters. One of these, Mr. J. F. Smith, who had been his pupil, and whom he made his executor, but to whom, though he died worth more than £200,000.