Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 14.djvu/641

* NICOLA. 547 ensifni in tlic ISritisli aiiiiy in 1740, and after- wards major. He resigned and came to Pliila- delpliia about 1700, and was employed in civil engiueerinj;. In 1770 he was made barracks- muster of the city and aided in preparing for de- fense. In December, 1770, he was made town major with 8tatc rank, and he held this place un- til 1782. He presented to Congress a plan for an invalid regiment, which should serve both as a home giiard and a training school, was made the colonel in .June, 1777, and was brevetted brigadier- general in 1783. He was an original memlier of the Penns^-lvania branch of the Society of the Cin- cinnati and wrote to Washington for the army oflicers the famous letter suggesting that the latter become King of the country. He published A Treatise of Military Exercise Calculated for the Use of Americans (1770). NICOLAI, nik'o-ll, Christopii Fkiedrich (1733-1811). A well-known German litterateur, born ill Berlin. From 1752 he directed a pub- lishing and bookselling establishment, which he made one of the largest in Berlin. He became (1754) a member of a literary circle which in- cluded Lessing and Moses Mendelssohn, with the latter of whom he established at Berlin in 1757 the Bibliothck (lev sclMiien Wisscnschaften (con- ducted from vol. v., 1700, bj' C. F. Weisse at Leipzig), designed as an independent critical journal. He also collaborated with Mendelssohn and Lessing (whose place was later taken by Thomas Abbt) in the Briefe die neueste Littera- tur hctreffend (1701-07), a literary review pre- sented as letters addressed to a supposititious of- ficer, wounded in the Seven Years' War. Another periodical, the Allgemeine Deutsche Bibliothek (100 vols., 1705-91; with a continuation, in all 102 vols., 1805), he made known ehielly for its harshness and insipidit}-. A rationalist in phi- losophy, he wrote 8el)it!dus Not hanker (1773), rather a heterodox monograph than the work of fiction it purported to be, and bitterly attacked Kant, Fichte, and the critical school in general. He attempted to cast ridicule upon most of what wa.s significant in the German literature of the time, for example, the work of Goethe and Schiller, who made spirited reply in the Xenien, and that of G. A. Biirger, against whose re- vival of the ballad form he directed his Feyner kleyiier AliiiaiKirh vol sclionerr, eclitrrr, libliclterr Volckslieder (1777-78; new ed. 1887). Yet in earlier critiques he worked eti'ectively toward the improvement of taste; and his Anekdoten von t'riedriek II. (1788-02) is of permanent histori- cal value. Con.sult Goekingk, Mcolais Leben und litterarischer achlass (Berlin, 1820). See also Germa.n Literature. NICOLAI, Otto (1810-40). A German musi- cal composer, born at Kiinigsberg in 1810. His early life was a struggle with poverty and dif- ficulties, and although his first lessons in music were given to him by his father, the lack of sympathy between them, and the oft repeated brutality of the elder, caused the boy to run away from home (1820), and find a patron in Adler of Stargard. bv whose aid he was enabled to complete his studies. He studied for three years in Berlin under Klein: and in 1835 went to Rome, where he went through three more years of study under Baini. After traveling for t(?n or twelve years over Europe, he became in 1847 kapellmeister at Berlin, a post which he soon re- NICOLAUS OF DAMASCUS. signed. He appeared as a composer of dramatic music as early as 1831; but bis first work of importance was II Templario, founded on Scott's mmance of Ivaiihoe, which, produced at Turin in 1841, attained a higli and permanent reputation. In 1848 he wrote at Berlin Die lusdiyen Weiber von Windsor, on which bis renown as a musician is founded, a work charming for its clear design and lively, vigorous tone. Two months after the I)roduction of this, his chef-d'oeuvre, its composer died, in Berlin. NIC'OLA'ITANS(Gk. NiKoXaiYoI, NikolaUai). licinc^eiitatives of a form of fal.se teaching and loose moral practice, mentioned only in Revela- tion ii. 0, 15, and in early Christian literature bearing on these passages. Among the early references is the following by Irena'US [Against Ilcresies, i. 20) : "The Nicolaitans are the fol- lowers of that Nicolas who was one of the seven first ordained to the diaconate by the Apostles. They lead lives of unrestrained indulgence. The character of these men is very plainly pointed out in the Apocalypse of John, [where they are represented] as teaching that it is a matter of inditl'erence to practice adultery and to eat things sacrificed to idols." They evidently carried to an illogical and immoral extreme the principles of religious freedom from legal requirements taught by Saint Paul. Certain critics have seen in these references of the Apocalypse an allegorical portrayal of Paul's teachings by those to wdiom they were repugnant. Most scholars, however, find no warrant for this. The Nicolaitans were among the obscure early Gnostic heretics who ofl'ended chiefly in violating the decree of the Council at .Jerusalem (Acts xv. 29), which for- bade participation by Christians in the heathen feasts and in the licentiousness by which these celebrations were commonly attended. That they were personal followers of Nicolas or Nicolaus of Antioch (Acts vi. 5) has not been proved. Their name (in Greek, 'conqueror of the people') close- ly I'esembles the name Balaam (in Hebrew, 'de- stroyer of the people' ), whence it has been argued that no such sect really existed, but the close association of the terms in the Apocalypse is a part of its allegorical method. There is no rea- sonable warrant for the conjecture. The sect was insignificant and disappeared. Other sects called Nicolaitans are met with in the Middle Ages; one flourished in the fifteenth century in Bohemia ; these have no connection with the party mentioned in the Apocalypse. Consult the commentaries on Revelation, and McGiffert, .4. IJistorii of Christianity in the Apostolic Age (New York, 1897). NICOLAS, Sir Nicholas Harris (1799- 1848). An English antiquary, born at Dart- mouth. In 1823 he published his Index to the flcralds' Visitations in the Britis}i Museum. His labors also resulted in the reform of abuses which had crept into the administration of the record commission, the Society of Antiquaries, and the British Museum. Among his publica- tions are: Observations on the State of Hisiorical Literature and on the ftocicty of Antiquaries, trilh Remarks on the Record Com Hn'.9.Si"on (1830) ; Synopsis of the Peerage of England (1825; new ed. revised bv William Courthope. 1857) ; and History of the Battle of Agincourt (.3d ed. 1833). NIC'OLA'US (Lat.. from Gk. Nt/(6aos, 'Xiko- laos ) OF DAMASCUS. A Greek historian of the