NICHOLAS, St, of Myra, according to the Roman breviary (December 6) was a native of Patara in Lycia, and was given to his parents in answer to their prayers. From his earliest infancy he signally displayed the piety for which his whole life was remarkable, on Wednesdays and Fridays regularly refusing to receive nourishment from his nurse except once only, and that after sunset. While still a youth he was deprived of his parents, and the wealth that he thus early inherited he forthwith distributed to the poor. To this périod belongs what may be called the characteristic deed of his life,—his secret bestowal of dowries upon the three daughters of a citizen fallen into poverty, who, unable to procure fit marriages for them, was minded to give them up to a life of shame. Having given himself wholly to God, Nicholas made a pilgrimage to Palestine, and in his voyaging miraculously stilled a storm by his prayers. On his return to his native province he visited Myra, the capital, where, as it fell out, the bishop had just died, and the chapter had been divinely advised to select as his successor a man named Nicholas who should be the first to enter the church next morning. Nicholas, thus plainly indicated, was duly consecrated, and displayed throughout his whole term of office every episcopal virtue. Under Maximian and Diocletian he was seized for his constancy, removed far from his diocese, and thrown into prison, where he lay until the days of Constantine, when he returned to Myra. He afterwards attended the council of Nice, and died a natural death not long after his return. His remains were subsequently removed to Bari (Barium) in Apulia. So far the authoritative Roman legend, the documentary evidence for which, however, does not take us farther back than to the 9th ...

NICHOLAS I., sometimes called The Great, and certainly the most commanding figure in the series of popes between Gregory I. and Gregory VII., succeeded Benedict III. in April 858. According to the annalist “he owed his election less to the choice of the clergy than to the presence and favour of the emperor Louis II. and his nobles,”—who can hardly have foreseen with what ability and persistency the rights of the holy see as supreme arbiter of Christendom were to be asserted even against themselves by the man of their choice. Of the previous history of Nicholas nothing is recorded. His pontificate of nine years and a half was marked by at least three memorable contests which have left their mark in history. The first was that in which he supported the claims of the unjustly degraded patriarch of. Constantinople, Ignatius; the history of the conflict cannot be related here, but two of its incidents, the excommunication of Photius, the rival of Ignatius, by the pope in 863, and the counter-deposition of Nicholas by Photius in 867, were steps of serious moment towards the permanent separation between the Eastern and the Western Church. The second great struggle was that with Lothaire, the king of Lorraine (second son of the emperor Lothaire I., and brother of the emperor Louis II. ), about the divorce of his wife Theutberga or Thietberga. The king, who desired to marry his mistress Waldrada, had brought a grave charge against the life of his queen before her marriage; with the help of Archbishops Gunther of Cologne and Thietgand of Treves, a confession of guilt had been extorted from Thietberga, and, after the matter had been discussed at more than one synod, that of Aix-la-C’hapelle finally authorized Lothaire, on the strength of this confession, to marry again. ...

NICHOLAS II., a Burgundian, whose Christian name was Gerard, was archbishop of Florence when he was chosen (December 28, 1058) at that place to succeed Stephen IX. in the papal chair. Some time previously the old Roman feudatory barons had caused to be consecrated, under the name of Benedict X., John, cardinal bishop of Velletri, who, however, was speedily deposed. The election of Nicholas had been brought about by Hildebrand (afterwards Gregory VII.), and his whole pontificate derived its character from that master-spirit. Its first act of historical importance was the framing by the second Lateran council (April 1059) of the decree which vested the election of popes in the cardinal bishops in the first instance, the assent of the cardinal priests and deacons being next required, then that of the laity, and finally that of the emperor. It was at the same council that Berengarius of Tours was temporarily induced to admit the doctrine of the corporeal presence in the sacrament. In the following June Nicholas visited Apulia, accepted the submission of the Normans, and removed the ban of excommunication, investing Richard in the principality of Capua and Robert Guiscard in the dukedom of Apulia, Calabria, and Sicily. He died at Florence in June 1061, and was succeeded by Alexander II.

NICHOLAS III. (Giovanni Gaetano), a member of the noble house of Orsini, succeeded John XXL as pope on November 25, 1277. Though his election was doubtless largely due to family influence, he was also personally a man of good endowments, and the record of his brief pontificate has more than one touch fitted to recall the grander manner of some of the greatest popes. In 1278 he extorted from the newly-elected and insecurely seated Rudolph of Hapsburg an absolute cession of the Romagna and of the exarchate of Ravenna, and in the same year he deprived Charles of Anjou of his vicariate of Tuscany; in the following year he compelled Charles to renounce his dignity of senator of Rome also, declaring himself perpetual senator, and his nephew Orso his vicar. He was understood to be planning with Rudolph an entirely new distribution of the thrones of the empire, by which the royal dignity was to be conferred on more than one member of the house of Orsini, when a stroke of apoplexy brought his career to a sudden close on August 22, 1280. Towards the beginning of his reign he repaired and strengthened the Lateran palace, and greatly enlarged the Vatican. For his simoniacal nepotism he has been placed by Dante in the third “bolgia” of the eighth circle of hell (Inf., xix. 31 sqf. The successor of Nicholas III. was Martin IV.

NICHOLAS IV. (Girolamo de Ascoli), pope from February 22, 1288, to April 4, 1292, was born at Ascoli, of humble parentage. At an early age he entered the Franciscan order, of which he rose to be general in 1274, after the death of Bonaventura. It was in this capacity that in 1278 he condemned Roger Bacon to imprisonment on account of his writings. He subsequently became bishop of Praeneste; and he was created cardinal by Nicholas III. Repeated meetings of the conclave upon the death of Honorius IV. resulted, ten months after the vacancy had occurred, in the election of Ascoli, whose first and almost only historical act was to annul the solemn treaty by which Charles the Lame (of Anjou) had obtained from Alphonso III. of Aragon his release from prison,— “the most monstrous exercise of the absolving power which had ever been advanced in the face of Christendom” (Milman). The revival of the old and expiring enthusiasm of the crusading epoch was a cause he had much at heart; and it was partly at least with the object of stirring up the Mongols against the hated Saracens that he gave John of Monte Corvino and other members of his order their missions to China. The fall of Ptolemais, the last remnant of the Christian dominion in Palestine (1291), greatly affected him, and combined with other disappointments to hasten his death. Celestine V. succeeded.

NICHOLAS V. (Tommaso Parentucelli), the pope whose name is most intimately associated with the revival of learning, was the son of a physician, and was born at Sarzana, near Spezzia, in 1389. He received a good education at Bologna, became tutor in the Albizzi and Strozzi families at Florence, and ultimately entered into the service of Albergata, bishop of Bologna. He accompanied his patron on several embassies, and gained so high a reputation, for diplomatic ability and for learning that shortly after Albergata’s death he himself obtained the see of Bologna, was sent by Eugenius IV. on an embassy into Germany, and in December 1446 was made a cardinal. In less than three months he was pope in succession to Eugenius,—a. small majority of the electors, indisposed to the strongest candidate, Cardinal Prospero Colonna, having united upon Parentucelli as a man who had made no enemies. His policy as pope seemed clearly marked out for him. The church was reaching the end of a period of strife and schism. The. firmness of Eugenius IV. had at length almost beaten down the emperor, the antipope, and the council of Basel; the wisdom and moderation of Nicholas V. completed the work. Within two years the emperor made peace, the antipope abdicated, and the council dissolved itself. Nicholas hoped for a period of tranquillity, and determined, to exhibit the papacy to the world as the protector of art and learning. “To the demand of Germany for reformation,” says Mr Creighton, “he answered by offering culture.” He aimed especially at making Rome architecturally a worthy capital of the Christian world: he repaired its fortifications, began the rebuilding of its cathedral, enlarged and adorned its thoroughfares, and. traced much of the plan of restoration executed by his ...

NICHOLS, John (1745-1826), a printer, ranks among the most industrious and voluminous of English antiquaries and collectors. He was editor of the Gentleman's Magazine for nearly half a century, from 1778 till his death, and, partly in his magazine and. partly in his numerous volumes of Anecdotes and Illustrations, made invaluable contributions to the personal history of English men of letters in the 18th century. The project of compiling these volumes grew gradually out of his business as a printer. Born in London in 1745, he had been the apprentice and successor of Bowyer, a learned and accomplished printer, a graduate of Cambridge, who had printed for many distinguished men; and on the death of this revered master, in 1778, he issued a brief memoir. This he afterwards expanded into biographical and literary anecdotes of Mr Bowyer and his friends; and, materials accumulating upon him, he expanded his design into a sort of anecdotical literary history of the century, many important letters being placed at his disposal. Large as this work is, it formed but a small part of the indefatigable collector’s activity, of which a full account is given in a memoir by Chalmers accompanying the extension of the Illustrations by Mr J. B. Nichols. One of his favourite works was an antiquarian history of the town and county of Leicester; and another, on which he himself set great value, a collection of documents illustrating the manners and expenses of ancient times in England. He produced six volumes concerning the progresses, processions, and festivities of Elizabeth and James. In the days of his apprenticeship he wrote and published two volumes of poetry, but had the good sense to throw his genial energies afterwards into other channels. Vol. xcvi. of the Gentleman's Magazine ...

NICHOLSON, William (1753-1815), a writer on natural philosophy, was born in London in 1753, and after leaving school made two voyages as midshipman in the East India service. He subsequently entered an attorney’s office, but, having become acquainted, in 1775, with Wedgwood, he resided for some years at Amsterdam as agent for the sale of pottery. On his return to England he was induced by Holcroft to devote himself to the composition of light literature for periodicals, assisting that writer also with some of his plays and novels. Such work was little in accordance, however, with his scientific tastes, and he employed himself on the preparation of An Introduction to Natural Philosophy, which was published in 1781, and was at once successful. A translation of Voltaire’s Elements of the Newtonian Philosophy soon followed, and he now entirely devoted himself to scientific pursuits and philosophical journalism. In 1784 he was appointed secretary to the general chamber of manufacturers of Great Britain, and he was also connected with the society for the encouragement of naval architecture, established in 1791. Besides his literary labours, he bestowed much attention upon the construction of various machines for comb-cutting, file-making, cylinder printing, &c.; he also invented an aerometer. In 1800 he commenced in London a course of public lectures on natural philosophy and chemistry, and about this period he made the discovery of the decomposition of water by the agency of galvanism, which was said to be the foundation of Sir Humphrey Davy’s discoveries in the decomposition of the alkalins. In 1797 the Journal of Natural Philosophy, Chemistry, and the Arts, generally known as Nicholson's Journal, the earliest work of the kind in Great Britain, was begun; it was ...