Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 41.djvu/11

Nichols Schools. Among his numerous friends, not already mentioned, were Sir John Banks, Dr. Hurd, Sir John Fenn, Sir Herbert Croft, and Edward Gibbon. His old friend Gough, of whom Nichols wrote, ‘The loss of Mr. Gough was the loss of more than a brother—it was losing part of myself’ (Lit. Anecd. vi. 315, 331), left him 1,000l., with 100l. to each of his six daughters (see list in Lit. Illustr. viii. 74). Nichols was a great collector of manuscripts and antiquities left by other antiquaries; and his own library, with some books from another library, were sold by Mr. Sotheby on 16 April 1828 and the three following days, and realised 952l.

There are several portraits: (1) painted by Towne, 1782, engraved by Cook, and published in ‘Collections for Leicestershire,’ and ‘Brief Memoirs of John Nichols;’ (2) painted by V. D. Puyl, 1787; (3) drawn by Edridge, published in Cadell's ‘Contemporary Portraits;’ (4) drawn by J. Jackson, R.A., æt. 62, published by Britton, and given in ‘Literary Anecdotes, vol. iii.; (5) painted by Jackson, mezzotint by Meyer, published in ‘History of Leicestershire;’ (6) painted by Jackson, 1811, engraved by Basire, published in Timperley's ‘Encyclopædia of Literary and Topographical Anecdotes;’ (7) painted and engraved by Meyer, 1825, published in ‘Gentleman's Magazine’ for December 1826. There is also (8) a bust by Giannelli.

The following are the principal works, not already mentioned: 1. ‘Islington; a Poem,’ 1763. 2. ‘The Birds of Parnassus,’ 1763 and 1764. 3. ‘Some Account of the Alien Priories’ (from manuscripts of John Warburton, revised by Gough and Ducarel), 1779. 4. ‘Biographical Memoirs of William Ged, including a particular Account of his Progress in the Art of Block-printing,’ 1781. 5. ‘The History and Antiquities of Hinckley in Leicestershire,’ 1782 and 1813. 6. ‘The History and Antiquities of Lambeth Parish’ (with Ducarel and Lort's aid), 1786. 7. ‘The History and Antiquities of Aston, Flamvile, and Burbach in Leicestershire,’ 1787. 8. ‘The History and Antiquities of Canonbury, with some Account of the Parish of Islington,’ 1788. 9. ‘The Lover and Reader, to which are prefixed the Whig Examiner,’ &c., 1789. 10. ‘The Lover, written in imitation of the Tatler, by Marmaduke Myrtle, gent., to which is added the Reader,’ 1789. 11. ‘Collections towards the History and Antiquities of the Town and County of Leicester,’ 2 vols. 1790. 12. ‘Chronological List of the Society of Antiquaries of London’ (in conjunction with Gough), 1798. 13. Jacob Schnebbelie's ‘The Antiquaries' Museum’ (completed by Gough and Nichols), 1800. 14. ‘Brief Memoirs of John Nichols,’ 1804. 15. ‘Some Account of the Abbey Church of St. Albans’ (by Gough and Nichols), 1813. Nichols was a constant contributor to the ‘Gentleman's Magazine,’ and some of his verses are in his ‘Select Collection of Poems;’ and he edited numerous works by Steele, Pegge, George Hardinge, White Kennett, Kennett Gibson, and many others.

[Nichols's Lit. Anecd. (especially vi. 626–37) and Lit. Illustrations, passim; Brief Memoirs of John Nichols (twelve copies printed by himself in 1804); Memoir by Alexander Chalmers in Gent. Mag. for December 1826 (reprinted as a pamphlet for private circulation); Lowndes's Bibl. Manual; Timperley's Encyclopædia of Literary and Typographical Anecdotes, 1842; Bigmore and Wyman's Bibliography of Printing, 1880; Nelson's History of the Parish of St. Mary, Islington, 1811, p. 343; Lewis's History and Topography of the Parish of St. Mary, Islington, 1842, pp. 130, 162, 176–80, 238, 239, 252, 383; Notes and Queries, 2nd ser. i. 223, 4th ser. i. 97; Add. MSS. 5145 B f. 347, 5159, 5831 f. 128 b, 5993 f. 71, 6391 f. 103, 6401 ff. 149, 151, 24446 ff. 2–21, 27578 f. 118, 27996, 29747 f. 74, 33978 f. 98, 33979 ff. 120, 123.] 

NICHOLS, JOHN BOWYER (1779–1863), printer and antiquary, the eldest son of John Nichols (1745–1826) [q. v.], by his second wife, Martha Green (1756–1788), was born at Red Lion Passage, Fleet Street, London, 15 July 1779. Young Nichols spent his early years with his maternal grandfather at Hinckley, Leicestershire, and was educated at St. Paul's School, London, which he left in September 1796 to enter his father's printing office. He had a part in the editorship of the ‘Gentleman's Magazine,’ and contributed under the initials J. B. N., or N. R. S., the final letters of his name. He became the sole proprietor of the magazine in 1833, and in the following year transferred a share to William Pickering [q. v.] of Piccadilly. This share he subsequently repurchased, and in 1856 conveyed the whole property to John Henry Parker [q. v.] of Oxford. W. Bray refers to ‘the indefatigable attention and very great accuracy’ of Nichols in revising the proof-sheets of the second volume of his edition of Manning's ‘History of Surrey’ (1809, p. v). Nichols circulated proposals in 1811 for printing the third and fourth volumes of Hutchins's ‘Dorset,’ of which the stock of the first three volumes had perished at the fire on his father's premises in 1808 (see Gent. Mag. 1811, i. 99–100). The fourth volume appeared in 1815, with his name on the title-page jointly with that of Richard Gough. In 1818 he published, in two octavo volumes, the autobiography of the bookseller John