OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Nicholas, Abraham

​NICHOLAS, ABRAHAM (1692–1744?), was son of Abraham Nicholas, who wrote ‘The Young Accomptant's Debitor and Creditor: or an Introduction to Merchants' Accounts, after the Italian Manner’ (1711; 2nd edit. 1713), and kept a school, according to his prospectus, ‘in Cusheon-Court, near Austin Friars, Broad Street,’ where youths were boarded and given a sound commercial education. Another Abraham Nicholas (d. 1692), probably father of the last-named, was the writer of ‘Thoographia, or a New Art of Shorthand,’ 1692. This was edited by Thomas Slater, who states that the author had not completed his work at the time of his death. He was a schoolmaster near St. Mary Magdalen's in Southwark.
Abraham Nicholas the third was a private schoolmaster, first at the sign of the Hand and Pen in Broad Street, London, and afterwards at Clapham, where he established a boarding school. He was favourably known as a specialist in writing. George Bickham, the engraver of copybooks, says, in a letter to John Bowles, printseller at Mercers' Hall, that he ‘never saw any pieces that were wrote with greater command of hand than the originals’ of one of the copybooks of Nicholas (Massey). About 1722 Nicholas left England, but it is uncertain to what country he went. Massey says: ‘I am informed [he went] to Virginia, but in what employ I have not been informed; that I remember only that he died about the year 1744.’
He published three copybooks: (1) In 1715 ‘A Small Copy-Book’ (mentioned, without name, by Massey), with fifteen plates engraved by George Bickham; (2) in 1719 ‘The Penman's Assistant and Youth's Instructor, containing Examples of round, small, and large Hands, in Letters, Words, and Sentences;’ (3) ‘The Compleat Writing Master,’ ​containing thirty-one long folio plates of useful and ornamental examples of penmanship ‘in all the hands.’ There is an elaborately ornamented portrait of the author, by George Bickham, as frontispiece. The work is dedicated to his successful pupil, John Page, esq. It contains one piece of writing by his brother, James Nicholas, who succeeded him at Clapham, and ‘supported’ the school ‘with reputation.’ Besides these three books Abraham Nicholas wrote two copies for George Bickham's ‘Penman's Companion,’ 1722.
F. W.-n.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Nicholas, Thomas (1820-1879)

​NICHOLAS, THOMAS (1820–1879), Welsh antiquary, born in 1820 in a small thatched house near Trefgarn chapel, not far from Solva, Pembrokeshire, was educated in Lancashire College, Manchester, and in Germany, where he took the degree of Ph.D. He became a presbyterian minister, and in 1856 he was appointed professor of biblical literature and mental and moral science at the Presbyterian College, Carmarthen. In 1863 he settled in London, resigning his professorship, and thenceforth, with the aid of Sir Hugh Owen, Lord Aberdare, Archdeacon Griffiths, Rev. David Thomas, the editor of the ‘Homilist,’ and others, he promoted a scheme for the furtherance of higher education in Wales on unsectarian principles. As a result of this effort the University College of Wales was founded in 1867, when a building at Aberystwith was purchased. Nicholas is said to have secured promises of subscriptions amounting to 14,000l. He was one of the governors, and drew out a scheme of education. He had made a special study of the educational institutions of France and Germany. In the autumn of 1878 he revised the English edition of Baedeker's ‘London’ as it passed through the press. He also projected a ‘History of Wales,’ which he did not live to complete. He died unmarried at 156 Cromwell Road, London, on 14 May 1879.
Besides pamphlets and other publications, Nicholas was the author of: 1. ‘Middle and High Class Schools, and University Education for Wales,’ 1863, a work which exerted great influence on educated Welshmen. 2. ‘Pedigree of the English People,’ 1868; 5th edit. 1878. 3. ‘Annals and Antiquities of the Counties and County Families of Wales,’ 1872, in 2 vols. 4. ‘History and Antiquities of the County of Glamorgan and its Families,’ 1874. He also edited, with notes and a biographical sketch, Matthias Maurice's ‘Social Religion Exemplify'd,’ 1860, 8vo.
J. A. J.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Nicholas, David

Dafydd Nicolas in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
​NICHOLAS, DAVID (1705?–1769), Welsh ballad-writer, born about 1705 at Llangynwyd, Glamorganshire, was son of Robert Nicholas and Ann Rees his wife, who, according to the register of Llangynwyd Church, were married 12 Feb. 1699. David was baptised 1 July 1705. In ‘Cambrian Biography’ (p. 82), followed by Taliesin ab Iolo in his ‘History of Glyn Neath’ (p. 29), his birthplace is erroneously stated to be Ystradyfodwg, and the inscription on his tombstone wrongly gives the date of his birth as 1693. He became a schoolmaster, and kept day-schools at Llangynwyd, Ystradyfodwg, and Glyncorrwg successively, but spent the latter years of his life at Aberpergwm, in the Vale of Neath, as the ‘bardd teulu’ or family bard of that house, being probably the last in Wales to hold such a position. He acquired a great local reputation for his surgical skill in the treatment of both man and beast; but he was, like many of the Welsh poets of his day, addicted to drink.
Nicholas was admitted as member of the Glamorgan ‘Gorsedd’ or congress of bards in 1730, and a letter written by him in 1754 to Edward Evans (1716–1798), and printed in Taliesin (ed. by Ab Ithel), i. 94, is considered a masterly exposition of the rules of Welsh prosody. He is said to have translated portions of Homer; but these, if executed, are lost (Tal. ab Iolo, op. cit.) His reputation mainly rests on his ballads, which are among the most popular in Welsh. The best known of them are ‘Y Deryn Pur’ and ‘Fanny Blodau'r Ffair’ (see a translation, ‘Fanny Blooming Fair’ in Dr. Jones's History of Wales, pp. 260–2), which, with others, are preserved in the collection of Welsh national airs by Jane Williams of Aberpergwm. English translations of some of them by Mrs. Pendril Llewelyn of Llangynwyd (1811–1874) have been published in local papers and in ‘Archæologia Cambrensis.’ Nicholas died in 1769 (wrongly given as 1777 in ‘Cambrian Biography’), and was buried at Aberpergwm.
D. Ll. T.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hogan, John

​HOGAN, JOHN (1800–1858), sculptor, born in 1800 at Tallow, co. Waterford, was the son of a builder, a member of the Irish family of Ui h-Ogain. Hogan's father settled in Cork, and in 1814 placed him in a solicitor's office, which he left on obtaining an engagement from an architect as a draughtsman and carver of models. Hogan carefully studied a collection of casts formed under the direction of Canova from antique statues at Rome, which had been presented to a Cork institution. After working at an anatomy school and executing several wood carvings, Hogan was in 1824 sent at the expense of friends to Rome to complete his art education. William Paulet Carey [q. v.], when on a visit to Cork, interested himself in the collection of funds, and through him Hogan came to know John Fleming Leicester, Lord de Tabley [q. v.], a munificent patron of the arts. At Rome Hogan's first work in marble was an Italian shepherd-boy. This was followed by ‘Eve, after expulsion from Paradise,’ founded on passages in Gesner's ‘Death of Abel.’ The originality and ​merits of Hogan's ‘Drunken Faun’ were much admired by Thorwaldsen and other eminent sculptors. Subscriptions, renewed in 1825, enabled Hogan to continue his work at Rome. He was elected an honorary member of the academy of the ‘virtuosi del Pantheon,’ and, with the exception of visits to Ireland in 1829 and 1840, he remained in Rome till 1849. The Italian revolutionary movements in that year led him to return to Ireland. He died at Dublin on 27 March 1858. Among his works, besides those already mentioned, was the ‘Dead Christ,’ which was engraved and commended in Italian artistic journals. This and other pieces of Hogan's sculpture were placed in churches at Dublin and Cork. Hogan also executed an allegorical figure of ‘Hibernia’ for Lord Cloncurry. The most important of his public statues were those of Bishop James Doyle, at Carlow; Bishop Brinkley at Cloyne and Dublin; Thomas Drummond, under-secretary for Ireland, and Daniel O'Connell in the city hall, Dublin; Thomas Osborne Davis, now in Mount Jerome cemetery near that city. A portrait of Hogan appeared in the ‘Dublin University Magazine’ in 1850.
[Carey's Memoirs of the Fine Arts, 1826; Irish Penny Journal, 1841; Dublin University Magazine, vol. xxxv.; Irish Quarterly Review, vol. viii.; Irish Monthly, 1874.]
J. T. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hogarth, William (1786-1866)

​HOGARTH, WILLIAM,, D.D. (1786–1866), the first Roman catholic bishop of Hexham and Newcastle, was born on 25 March 1786 at Dodding Green in the valley of Kendal, Westmoreland, where his family had for centuries possessed landed property. He received his education in the college at Crook Hall, Durham, which was subsequently removed to Ushaw, where he became a professor and general prefect. In 1816 he was appointed chaplain at Cliffe Hall, and in 1821 he was transferred to Darlington, where he passed the rest of his life. He was vicar-general to Bishops Briggs, Mostyn, and Riddell. In 1848 he was appointed vicar-apostolic of the northern district, in succession to Dr. Riddell, and was consecrated bishop of Samosata, in partibus, at Ushaw on 24 Aug. When the hierarchy was restored by Pius IX, he was translated on 29 Sept. 1850 to the newly erected see of Hexham (afterwards ‘Hexham and Newcastle’), comprising the counties of Northumberland, Cumberland, Durham, and Westmoreland. He died at Darlington on 29 Jan. 1866, and was buried at St. Cuthbert's College, Ushaw.
T. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hogg, James (1806-1888)

​HOGG, JAMES (1806–1888), publisher, son of James Hogg, was born near Edinburgh on 26 March 1806, and educated under the Rev. Thomas Sheriff, who became minister of Fala, in the presbytery of Dalkeith, in 1828, and died in 1836. On 24 Aug. 1818 Hogg was bound apprentice to James Muirhead, printer, Edinburgh. He subsequently entered the book house attached to the ‘Caledonian Mercury,’ where the printing of the seventh edition of the ‘Encyclopædia Britannica’ had been commenced in 1827, and became reader on the ‘Caledonian Mercury.’ In 1837 he commenced business on his own account as a printer and publisher in Edinburgh. The first publication which bears his imprint is ‘The Honest Waterman,’ a small tract brought out in 1837. On 1 March 1845 appeared the first number of ‘Hogg's Weekly Instructor,’ an unsectarian periodical of promise. In 1849 the title was changed to the ‘Instructor;’ later on it was known as ‘Titan.’ The last number is dated December 1859, and the entire work is comprised in twenty-nine volumes. Hogg was his own editor, being in the later part assisted by his eldest son, James. He also published the principal works of George Gilfillan [q. v.] In 1849 he made the acquaintance of Thomas de Quincey. To the ‘Weekly Instructor’ De Quincey contributed his ‘Autobiographic Sketches’ and other papers, and then agreed with Hogg to bring out his ‘Collected Works’ [see under De Quincey, Thomas]. In 1858 Hogg's printing office was discontinued, and in the autumn of that year his sons John and James, who had been taken into partnership, established a branch publishing office in London, whither Hogg afterwards removed the whole business. Besides other works, including the ‘Churchman's Family Magazine,’ the firm now published several series of successful juvenile books, and the periodical entitled ‘London Society,’ which was projected by James Hogg, jun., in February 1862, and attained at one time a circulation of twenty-five thousand monthly. The firm of James Hogg & Sons was dissolved in July 1867. Hogg died at the residence of his son John, The Acacia, Crescent Road, St. John's, Kent, on 14 March 1888. He married, 13 Nov. 1832, Helen Hutchison (1803–1890) of Hutchiestown Farm, near Dunblane.
[Bookseller, 7 April 1888, p. 363; Nicoll's Landmarks of English Literature, 1883, pp. 454–5; H. A. Page's (i.e. A. H. Japp's) Thomas de Quincey's Life, 1877, i. 396, ii. 1–33, 339; information from John Hogg, esq.]
G. C. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hog, Roger

​HOG, Sir ROGER, Lord Harcarse (1635?–1700), Scottish judge, son of William Hog, advocate, of Bogend, was born in Berwickshire about 1635. He was admitted an advocate on 25 June 1661, and was appointed a lord of session and knighted in November 1677. He took the title of Lord Harcarse. He represented Berwick in the convention of the estates of Scotland held at Edinburgh in June and July 1678 (Members of Parl. Official Return, ii. 582). On 18 Nov. 1678 he suc- ​ceeded Sir John Lockhart of Castlehill as a lord of justiciary. In February 1686 he was chosen arbitrator by the Duchess of Lauderdale in an arbitration ordered by the king between her and Lord Maitland (Fountainhall, Chronol. Notes, p. 161). In 1688 he was removed from the bench by James for non-compliance with the wishes of the government in his decision of a cause regarding the tutors of the young Marquis of Montrose. One Robert Pitilloch, an advocate, published a pamphlet against him in 1689, accusing him of ‘oppression under colour of law,’ which was reprinted in 1827. He was specifically charged with partiality to his son-in-law, Aytoun of Inchdairnie, Fifeshire. He lived the remainder of his life in retirement, and died in 1700. A ‘Dictionary of Decisions from 1681 to 1692,’ compiled by him, was published in 1757.
[Anderson's Scottish Nation, ii. 477; Brunton and Haig's Senators of the College of Justice; Books of Sederunt; Acts Scots Parl. viii. 214; Fountainhall's Decisions, i. 495, 505.]
J. A. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hog, Thomas

​HOG, THOMAS (1628–1692), Scottish divine, was born at Tain, Ross-shire, in the beginning of 1628, ‘of honest parents, native Highlanders, somewhat above the vulgar rank’ (Stevenson, Memoirs of the Life of Mr. Thomas Hog). He was educated at Tain grammar school, and Marischal College, Aberdeen, where he proceeded to the degree of M.A. In 1654 he received license, and became chaplain to John, earl of Sutherland. On 24 Oct. 1654 he was ordained minister of Kiltearn, a parish six miles from Dingwall, on the shore of Cromarty Firth, and entered on the discharge of his duties with great ardour. In the controversy between the resolutionists and protesters, then at its height, he sided warmly with the protesters, and was in consequence deposed in 1661 by the synod of Ross. Hog then retired to Knockgandy in Auldearn, Nairn, where he continued to minister in private. In July 1668 he was delated by the Bishop of Moray for preaching in his own house and ‘keeping conventicles.’ For these offences he was imprisoned for some time in Forres, but was at length liberated at the intercession of the Earl of Tweeddale, upon giving bail to appear when called on. Not having, however, desisted from preaching, ‘letters of intercommuning’ were in August 1675 issued against him, forbidding all persons to harbour or help him in any way. He was arrested in January 1677, and next month was committed to the Tolbooth of Edinburgh, whence he was taken to the Bass Rock. It is said that, at the instigation of Archbishop Sharp, he was confined in the lowest and worst dungeon in the place. In October 1677, owing to some influence exerted on his behalf, he was brought back to the Tolbooth, and in a short time liberated altogether, but forbidden to go beyond ‘the bounds of Kintyre’ ‘under the pain of one thousand merks.’ In 1679 he was again imprisoned in Edinburgh, but was soon liberated. From this time he seems to have laboured without molestation until November 1683, when he was charged before the Scottish privy council with keeping ‘house conventicles.’ As he refused to answer the charge, it was held as confessed, and he was fined in five thousand merks, and banished from Scotland in January 1684. He went to London, and was arrested on suspicion of complicity in Monmouth's plot, but was released in 1685, and fled to Holland, where the Prince of Orange made him one of his chaplains. He returned to Scotland in 1688, and in 1691 was appointed chaplain to the king, and restored to the parish of Kiltearn, as he is said to have predicted thirty years before would be the case. On 4 Jan. 1692 he died, and at his own request was buried underneath the threshold of his church door, with this inscription over the remains: ‘This stone shall bear witness against the parishioners of Kiltearn if they bring an ungodly minister in here.’
[Memoirs of the Life of Mr. Thomas Hog, by Andrew Stevenson, Edinburgh, 1756; Wodrow Correspondence; Scott's Fasti Eccl. Scot. i. 395, v. 299–301.]
T. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hogg, Henry

​HOGG, HENRY (1831–1874), poet, was born in Nottingham, where he practised as a solicitor until his death in 1874. He devoted himself to writing poetry from youth. His first poem, entitled ‘Mournful Recollections,’ was in blank verse, and appeared in 1849. In 1852 he published a volume of collected poems, and was classed among the worthies of Nottingham as ‘a young poet of genius’ in Wylie's ‘Old and New Nottingham’ (1853). He contributed a number of short poems to the ‘Christian Miscellany,’ and also wrote hymns and carols, which were very popular in the district. He set some of them to music. A later volume of poems was issued, but was subsequently withdrawn from circulation. His poems, though chiefly echoes of Tennyson, show taste and artistic skill.
[Personal information; Wylie's Old and New Nottingham; local records.]
W. E. D.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Norton, Christian

Christopher Norton in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
​NORTON, CHRISTIAN (fl. 1740–1760), engraver, studied painting in Paris under François Boucher, and on turning his hand to engraving, which he studied under Pierre Charles Canot [q. v.], he engraved some of Boucher's paintings. He would appear to have accompanied Canot to England, where he engraved some landscapes after Jean Pillement, ‘The Tempest’ after W. van de Velde, ‘A Calm’ after J. van Goyen, &c. He does not appear to have been connected with George Norton, a student at the academy in St. Martin's Lane, who in 1760 gained a premium from the Society of Arts.
[Dodd's manuscript Hist. of British Engravers (Brit. Mus. Addit. MS. 33403); Redgrave's Dict. of Artists.]
L. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Norton, Frances

​NORTON, FRANCES, Lady (1640–1731), authoress, born in 1640, was the third daughter of Ralph Freke of Hannington, Wiltshire, by Cecilia, daughter of Sir Thomas Colepepper or Culpepper, of Hollingbourne, Kent. About 1672 she married Sir George Norton, knight, of Abbots Leigh, Somerset. He had concealed Charles I in his house after the battle of Worcester. There were three children of the marriage, George and Elizabeth, who died young, and Grace, afterwards Lady Gethin [q. v.], a girl of uncommon accomplishments. Lady Norton soon ceased to live with her husband, who died on 26 April 1715. On 23 April 1718 she married, at the Chapel Royal, Whitehall, Colonel Ambrose Norton, cousin german of her first husband. She was his third wife. He died on 10 Sept. 1723. On 24 Sept. 1724 she married at Somerset House Chapel, William Jones, esq. According to the ‘Funeral Book of Westminster Abbey,’ she died on 20 Feb. 1730–1 at the advanced age of 90. On 9 March she was buried in the abbey in the family tomb in the south aisle of the choir.
In 1705 appeared two works by Lady Norton, bound together in a small quarto volume, entitled respectively ‘The Applause of Virtue, in four parts,’ and ‘Memento Mori, or Meditations on Death.’ The book was evidently inspired by the death of her daughter Grace in 1697. It mainly consists of quotations on ethical subjects from ancient and modern writers. In the preface Lady Norton declares that she intended the essays for her ‘melancholy divertisement,’ without any idea of publication. The volume contains three title-pages and several quaint engravings.
[Chester's Registers of Westminster Abbey, p. 331; Collinson's Somerset, iii. 153; Crisp's Somersetshire Wills, 5th ser. p. 76; Hutchins's Dorset, iv. 86.]
E. L.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Norton, John (fl.1485)

​NORTON, JOHN (fl. 1485), sixth prior of the Carthusian monastery of Mountgrace, was the author of three works now extant in the Lincoln Cathedral MS. (A. 6. 8). The first work is in seven chapters, ‘De Musica Monachorum;’ the second in nine, ‘Thesaurus cordium amantium,’ of which part is lacking (f. 47 a); the third in eight, ‘Devota Lamentacio,’ ‘caret finis’ (f. 76 b).
The volume begins with a letter from William Melton (d. 1528) [q. v.] to Flecher, who copied out the work after Norton's death. Flecher's Christian name seems to have been Robert (f. 30 a), and he is probably identical with the Robert Flecher, priest, who appears in the pension book of 31 Henry VIII (Mon. Angl. vi. 24). Melton says he has read the first work—Norton's ‘De Musica Monachorum,’ a book which he thinks fitted for Carthusians to read. Its seven chapters are occupied with discourses on idle words, prayer, and obedience. Flecher adds that this work was written while Norton was proctor of the Mountgrace monastery.
At the same time Norton wrote his second work, ‘Thesaurus cordium amantium.’ The introductory letter, of which the beginning is lost, was written after Norton's death, and addressed to Flecher by a doctor, no doubt Melton; it is in two parts, beginning f. 28 a, ‘de refectione eterna,’ and ending f. 30 b. A request for information about the ‘Liber Magnæ Consolacionis’ follows. The writer remembers to have seen it, and recommends it for frequent reading.
Norton's third work, ‘Devota Lamentacio,’ is also introduced by a letter from William Melton. The prologue records that on Tuesday before Whitsunday in the third year of John Norton's entry into religion (1485) he had a vision immediately after mass while sitting in his cell. The Virgin Mary appeared to him, clothed in the dress of a Carthusian nun and surrounded by virgins in the same habit, and through her he saw in the spirit ​the realms of bliss. Then follows (f. 80 b) the ‘opusculum sive revelacio gloriosa’ of the soul of a Carthusian monk who had attained to glory by his devotion to the Virgin and by his regular observance of the rule of his order. The tract ends f. 95 b.
[Manuscripts cited; Tanner's Bibliotheca, s.v.]
M. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Norton, John (fl.1674)

​NORTON, JOHN (fl. 1674), a youthful prodigy, born in London in 1662, made, at the age of twelve, a paraphrase translation of the poems of Marcus Antonius Flaminius. This was published as ‘The Scholar's Vade Mecum, or the Serious Student's Solid and ​Silent Tutor,’ 1674. Norton especially prided himself on the ‘idiomatologic and philologic annotations,’ which were extraordinary for so young a boy. In an appendix he supplies instances of the different figures of speech from the hymns of Flaminius, and writes about them in Latin. He then devotes 163 pages to a very ingenious and painstaking collection of idioms, introducing some part of the Latin verb ‘facere’ and the English verb ‘to make.’ The ‘Scholar's Vade Mecum’ is dedicated to John Arnold, esq., high sheriff of Monmouth, and to his wife. Congratulatory verses are offered by four writers, in one of which Norton's book is spoken of as ‘meet for Milton's pen and curious Stillingfleet.’ There is a portrait engraved by William Sherwin. There is in the British Museum a broadside, written in the same year (1674), by John Norton, entitled ‘The King's [Charles II] Entertainment at Guild-hall, or London's Option in Fruition’ [in verse].
[Scholar's Vade Mecum, 1674; Granger's Biogr. Hist. iv. 98.]
F. W.-n.