NOLLE PROSEQUI (sometimes shortened into nol. pros.) is a technical term of English law, the meaning of which varies as it is used with reference to civil or criminal cases. In civil cases it applies only to actions in the Queen’s Bench Division, and there signifies a formal undertaking by the plaintiff that he will proceed no further with the action (.se ulterius nolle prosequi). The more modern practice in such cases is to proceed by way of discontinuance. In proceedings either by indictment or by information, a nolle prosequi or stay of proceedings may be entered by the attorney-general. The nolle prosequi is a matter purely for his discretion, and will not be granted unless very good ground be shown for his interference. The object of it generally is to obtain a stay of proceedings against an accomplice in order to procure his evidence. This object is, however, more usually effected by the prosecution offering no evidence and the judge directing an acquittal.

In America the term bears the same meaning as in England, with one exception. The attorney-general has not the same discretion with which English law invests him. Although in some States the prosecuting officer may enter a nolle prosequi at his discretion, in others the leave of the court must be obtained.

NOLLEKENS, Joseph (1737-1823), sculptor, was born 11th August 1737 in London, where his father, a native of Antwerp, the “old Nollekens” of Horace Walpole, was a painter of some repute. In his thirteenth year he entered the studio of the sculptor Scheemakers, and practised drawing and modelling with great assiduity, ultimately gaining various prizes offered by the Society of Arts. In 1760 he went to Rome, and he executed a marble bas-relief, Timoclea before Alexander, which obtained a prize of fifty guineas from that society in 1762. Remunerative commissions began to come in, Garrick and Sterne being among the first English visitors who sat to him for busts; among his larger pieces belonging to this early period perhaps the most important is the Mercury and Venus chiding Cupid. Having returned to England in 1770, he was admitted an associate of the Royal Academy in 1771, and elected a member in the following year. By this time he had become known to George III., whose bust he shortly afterwards executed, and henceforward, until about 1816, he was continually and very profitably employed as the most fashionable portrait sculptor of his day. His busts were on all hands acknowledged to be excellent likenesses, and there was generally a softness in the expression and a gracefulness in the handling which never failed to please. He himself thought highly of his early portrait of Sterne. Among many others may be specially named those of Pitt, Fox, the prince of Wales (afterwards George IV.), Canning, Perceval, Benjamin West, and Lords Castlereagh, Aberdeen, Erskine, Egremont, and Liverpool. He also found leisure to elaborate a number of marble groups and statues, amongst which may be mentioned those of Bacchus, Venus taking off her Sandal, Hope leaning on an Urn, Juno, ...

NOLLET, Jean Antoine, French physicist, was born at Pimprèz (now in Oise) on 19th November 1700, and died at Paris in 1770. He was of peasant origin, and was educated for the church, entering holy orders and ultimately attaining the rank of abbé; but his tastes all lay in the direction of experimental research, especially on the subject of electricity (see vol. viii. p. 6). In 1734 he was admitted a member of the London Royal Society, four years later he entered the Academy of Sciences at Paris, and in 1753 he was appointed to the newly-instituted chair of experimental physics in the Collège de Navarre. Nollet’s strength lay in popular exposition rather than in profound investigation, but he cannot be denied the credit of having greatly helped by his influence and example the cause of electrical science.