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# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Nicholson, William (writer)

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​NICHOLSON, WILLIAM (1753–1815), English 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 Josiah Wedgwood, he lived for some years at Amsterdam as agent for the sale of pottery. On his return to England he was induced by Thomas Holcroft to devote himself to the composition of light literature for periodicals, assisting that writer also with some of his plays and novels. Meanwhile 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. He bestowed much attention upon the construction of various machines for comb-cutting, file-making, cylinder printing, &c.; he also invented an areometer. In 1800 he began 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 Voltaic current. 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 carried on till 1814. During the later years of his life Nicholson’s attention was chiefly directed to Waterworks engineering at Portsmouth, at Gosport and in Southwark. He died in London on the 21st of May 1815.
Besides considerable contributions to the Philosophical Transactions, Nicholson wrote translations of Fourcroy’s Chemistry (1787) and Chaptal’s Chemistry (1788), First Principles of Chemistry (1788) and a Chemical Dictionary (1795); he also edited the British Encyclopaedia, or Dictionary of Arts and Sciences (6 vols., 8vo, London, 1809).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Nicholson, William (painter)

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​NICHOLSON, WILLIAM (1784–1844), Scottish painter, was born at Newcastle-on-Tyne. Having settled in Edinburgh, he painted portraits both in oil and water-colour; and along with Thomas Hamilton the architect he was one of the founders and most vigorous promoters of the Scottish Academy, of which he became the first secretary (1826–1333) In 1818 he published a series of etchings entitled Portraits of Distinguished Living Characters of Scotland, including Sir Walter Scott, Lord Jeffrey, Robert Burns and Professor Wilson.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Nichols, John

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​NICHOLS, JOHN (1745–1826), English printer and author, was born at Islington on the 2nd of February 1745. He edited the Gentleman’s Magazine from 1788 till his death, and in the pages of that periodical, and in his numerous volumes of Anecdotes and Illustrations, he made invaluable contributions to the personal history of English men of letters in the 18th century. He was apprenticed in 1757 to “the learned printer,” William Bowyer, whom he eventually succeeded. On the death of his friend and master in 1777 he published a brief memoir, which afterwards grew into the Anecdotes of William Bowyer and his Literary Friends (1782). As his materials accumulated he compiled a sort of anecdotical literary history of the century, based on a large collection of important letters. The Literary Anecdotes of the 18th Century (1812–1815), into which the original work was expanded, forms only a small part of Nichols’s production. It was followed by the Illustrations of the Literary History of the 18th Century, consisting of Authentic Memoirs and Original Letters of Eminent Persons, which was begun in 1817 and completed by his son John Bowyer Nichols (1779–1863) in 1858. ​The Anecdotes and the Illustrations are mines of valuable information on the authors, printers and booksellers of the time.
Nichols’s other works include: A Collection of Royal and Noble Wills (1780); Select Collection of Miscellaneous Poems (1782), with subsequent additions, in which he was helped by Joseph Warton and by Bishops Percy and Lowth; Bibliotheca Topographica Britannica (1780–1790); with Richard Gough, The Progresses and Public Processions of Queen Elizabeth (1788); and the important History and Antiquities of the Town and County of Leicester (1795–1815). Nichols was a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, a trustee of many city institutions, and in 1804 he was master of the Stationers’ Company. He died on the 26th of November 1826. John Bowyer Nichols continued his father's various undertakings, and wrote, with other works, A Brief Account of the Guildhall of the City of London (1819). His eldest son, John Gough Nichols (1806–1873), was also a printer and a distinguished antiquary, who edited the Gentleman’s Magazine from 1851 to 1856, and the Herald and Genealogist from 1863 to 1874, and was one of the founders of the Camden Society.
A full Memoir of John Nichols by Alexander Chalmers is contained in the Illustrations, and a bibliography in the Anecdotes (vol. vi.) is supplemented in the later work. See also R. C. Nichols, Memoirs of J. G. Nichols (1874).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Nicias (painter)

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​NICIAS, son of Nicomedes, an Attic painter of the 4th century B.C. Pliny (xxxv. 131) gives a list of his works. He was associated with Praxiteles, whose statues he coloured, thus adding to their value.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Nicholas of Guildford

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​NICHOLAS OF GUILDFORD (fl. 1250), English poet, the supposed author of The Owl and the Nightingale, an English poem of the 13th century. This work, which displays genuine poetical and imaginative qualities, is written in the south-western dialect, and is one of the few 13th-century English poems not devoted entirely to religious topics. The nightingale sitting on a branch covered with blossom sees the owl perched on a bough overgrown with ivy, and proceeds to abuse him for his general habits and appearance. The birds decide to refer the consequent dispute to Master Nicholas de Guildford, who is skilled in such questions, but they first of all engage in a regular débat in the French fashion. The owl is the best logician, but the nightingale has a fund of abuse that equalizes matters. Finally, when the argument threatens to become a fight, the wren ​interferes, and the two go to the house of Master Nicholas at Portisham in Dorset. He judges, they say, many right judgments, and composes and writes much wisdom, and it is lamentable that so learned and worthy a man should gain no preferment from his bishop. The poet, whoever he was, wrote the octosyllabic couplet with ease and smoothness. He borrows something from Alexander of Neckham’s De naturis rerum, and was certainly familiar with contemporary French poetry. The piece is a general allegory of the contest between asceticism and a more cheerful view of religion, and is capable of a particular application to the differences between the regular orders and the secular clergy. The nightingale defends her singing on the ground that heaven is a place of song and mirth, while the owl maintains that much weeping for his many sins is man’s best preparation for the future.
There are two MSS. of the Hule and the Nightingale, MS. Cotton Caligula A ix. (British Museum), dating from the first half of the 13th century, and MS. Arch. I. 29, Jesus College, Oxford, written about half a century later. In the Jesus College MS. the poem is immediately preceded by a religious poem entitled La Passyun Jhu Christ, which, according to a note on it, once possessed an additional quatrain implying that it was written by John of Guildford, perhaps a relation of Nicholas.
The Owl and the Nightingale has been edited from the Cotton MS. chiefly for the Roxburghe Club (1838) by Joseph Stevenson, and for the Percy Society (1843) by T. Wright; the best edition is by F. H. Stratmann (Krefeld, 1868), who collated the two MSS. See also B. Ten Brink, Early English Literature (trans. H. M. Kennedy, pp. 214-218); Courthope, History of English Poetry; and J. W. H. Atkins in the Cambridge History of Literature, vol. i. For some textual criticism see A. E. Egge in Modern Language Notes (Baltimore, January, 1887).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Glatigny, Joseph Albert Alexandre

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​GLATIGNY, JOSEPH ALBERT ALEXANDRE (1830–1873), French poet, was born at Lillebonne (Seine Inférieure) on the 21st of May 1839. His father, who was a carpenter and afterwards a gendarme, removed in 1844 to Bernay, where Albert received an elementary education. Soon after leaving school he was apprenticed to a printer at Pont Audemer, where he produced a three-act play at the local theatre. He then joined a travelling company of actors to whom he acted as prompter. Inspired primarily by the study of Théodore de Banville, he published his Vignes folles in 1857; his best collection of lyrics, Les Flèches d’or, appeared in 1864; and a third volume, Gilles et pasquins, in 1872. After Glatigny settled in Paris he improvised at café concerts and wrote several one-act plays. On an expedition to Corsica with a travelling company he was on one occasion arrested and put in irons for a week through being mistaken by the police for a notorious criminal. His marriage with Emma Dennie brought him great happiness, but the hardships of his life weakened his health and he died at Sèvres on the 16th of April 1873.
See Catulle Mendès, Légende du Parnasse contemporain (1884), and Glatigny, drame funambulesque (1906).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Glaucus

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​GLAUCUS (“bright”), the name of several figures in Greek mythology, the most important of which are the following:
* Glaucus (Pontius) (see Glaucus 1.)
* Glaucus (son of Sisyphus) (see Glaucus 2.)
* Glaucus (son of Minos) (see Glaucus 3.)
* Glaucus (son of Hippolochus) (see Glaucus 4.).
All the above are exhaustively treated by R. Gaedechens in Ersch and Gruber’s Allgemeine Encyclopädie.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Glatz

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​GLATZ (Slav. Kladsko), a fortified town of Germany, in the Prussian province of Silesia, in a narrow valley on the left bank of the Neisse, not far from the Austrian frontier, 58 m. S.W. from Breslau by rail. Pop. (1905) 16,051. The town with its narrow streets winds up the fortified hill which is crowned by the old citadel. Across the river, on the Schäferberg, lies a more modern fortress built by the Prussians about 1750. Before the town on both banks of the river there is a fortified camp by which bombardment from the neighbouring heights can be hindered and which affords accommodation for 10,000 men. The inner ceinture of walls was razed in 1891 and their site is now occupied by new streets. There are a Lutheran and two Roman Catholic churches, one of which, the parish church, contains the monuments of seven Silesian dukes. Among the other buildings the principal are the Royal Catholic gymnasium and the military hospital. The industries include machine shops, breweries, and the manufacture of spirits, linen, damask, cloth, hosiery, beads and leather.
Glatz existed as early as the 10th century, and received German settlers about 1250. It was besieged several times during the Thirty Years’ War and during the Seven Years’ War and came into the possession of Prussia in 1742. In 1821 and 1883 great devastation was caused here by floods. The county of Glatz was long contended for by the kingdoms of Poland and of Bohemia. Eventually it became part of the latter country, and in 1534 was sold to the house of Habsburg, from whom it was taken by Frederick the Great during his attack on Silesia.
See Ludwig, Die Grafschaft Glatz in Wort und Bild (Breslau, 1897); Kutzen, Die Grafschaft Glatz (Glogau, 1873); and Geschichtsquellen der Grafschaft Glatz, edited by F. Volkmer and Hohaus (1883–1891).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Glauber's Salt

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​GLAUBER’S SALT, decahydrated sodium sulphate, Na$_2$SO$_4$, 10H$_2$O. It is said by J. Kunkel to have been known as an arcanum or secret medicine to the electoral house of Saxony in the middle of the 16th century, but it was first described by J. R. Glauber (De natura salium, 1658), who prepared it by the action of oil of vitriol or sulphuric acid on common salt, and, ascribing to it many medicinal virtues, termed it sal mirabile Glauberi. As the mineral thenardite or mirabilite, which crystallizes in the rhombic system, it occurs in many parts of the world, as in Spain, the western states of North America and the Russian Caucasus; in the last-named region, about 25 m. E. of Tiflis, there is a thick bed of the pure salt about 5 ft. below the surface, and at Balalpashinsk there are lakes or ponds the waters of which are an almost pure solution. The substance is the active principle of many mineral waters, e.g. Frederickshall; it occurs in sea-water and it is a constant constituent of the blood. In combination with calcium sulphate, it constitutes the mineral glauberite or brongniartite, Na$_2$SO$_4$·CaSO$_4$, which assumes forms belonging to the monoclinic system and occurs in Spain and Austria. It has a bitter, saline, but not acrid taste. At ordinary temperatures it crystallizes from aqueous solutions in large colourless monoclinic prisms, which effloresce in dry air, and at 35°C. melt in their water of crystallization. At 100° they lose all their water, and on further heating fuse at 843°. Its maximum solubility in water is at 34°; above that temperature it ceases to exist in the solution as a decahydrate, but changes to the anhydrous salt, the solubility of which decreases with rise of temperature. Glauber’s salt readily forms supersaturated solutions, in which crystallization takes place suddenly when a crystal of the salt is thrown in; the same effect is obtained by exposure to the air or by touching the solution with a glass rod. In medicine it is employed as an aperient, and is one of the safest and most innocuous known. For children it may be mixed with common salt and the two be used with the food without the child being conscious of any difference. Its simulation of the taste of common salt also renders it suitable for administration to insane patients and others who refuse to take any drug. If, however, its presence is recognized sodium phosphate may be substituted.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Glauber, Johann Rudolf

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​GLAUBER, JOHANN RUDOLF (1604–1668), German chemist, was born at Karlstadt, Bavaria, in 1604 and died at Amsterdam in 1668. Little more is known of his life than that he resided successively in Vienna, Salzburg, Frankfurt and Cologne before settling in Holland, where he made his living chiefly by the sale of secret chemical and medicinal preparations. Though his writings abound in universal solvents and other devices of the alchemists, he made some real contributions to chemical knowledge. Thus he clearly described the preparation of hydrochloric acid by the action of oil of vitriol on common salt, the manifold virtues of sodium sulphate—sal mirabile, Glauber’s salt—formed in the process being one of the chief themes of his Miraculum mundi; and he noticed that nitric acid was formed when nitre was substituted for the common salt. Further he prepared a large number of substances, including the chlorides and other salts of lead, tin, iron, zinc, copper, antimony and arsenic, and he even noted some of the phenomena of double decomposition. He was always anxious to turn his knowledge to practical account, whether in preparing medicines, or in furthering industrial arts such as dyeing, or in increasing the fertility of the soil by artificial manures. One of his most notable works was his Teutschlands Wohlfarth in which he urged that the natural resources of Germany should be developed for the profit of the country and gave various instances of how this might be done.
His treatises, about 30 in number, were collected and published at Frankfort in 1658–1659, at Amsterdam in 1661, and, in an English translation by Packe, at London in 1689.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Glaucous

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​GLAUCOUS (Gr. γλαυκός, bright, gleaming), a word meaning of a sea-green colour, in botany covered with bloom, like a plum or a cabbage-leaf.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Glauchau

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​GLAUCHAU, a town of Germany, in the kingdom of Saxony, on the right bank of the Mulde, 7 m. N. of Zwickau and 17 W. of Chemnitz by rail. Pop. (1875) 21,743; (1905) 24,556. It has important manufactures of woollen and half-woollen goods, in regard to which it occupies a high position in Germany. There are also dye-works, print-works, and manufactories of paper, linen, thread and machinery. Glauchau possesses a high grade school, elementary schools, a weaving school, an orphanage and an infirmary. Some portions of the extensive old castle date from the 12th century, and the Gottesacker church contains interesting antiquarian relics. Glauchau was founded by a colony of Sorbs and Wends, and belonged to the lords of Schönburg as early as the 12th century.
See R. Hofmann, Rückblick über die Geschichte der Stadt Glauchau (1897).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Glaucus 1.

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​1. Glaucus, surnamed Pontius, a sea divinity. Originally a fisherman and diver of Anthedon in Boeotia, having eaten of a certain magical herb sown by Cronus, he leapt into the sea, where he was changed into a god, and endowed with the gift of unerring prophecy. According to others he sprang into the sea for love of the sea-god Melicertes, with whom he was often identified (Athenaeus vii. 296). He was worshipped not only at Anthedon, but on the coasts of Greece, Sicily and Spain, where fishermen and sailors at certain seasons watched for his arrival during the night in order to consult him (Pausanias ix. 22). In art he is depicted as a vigorous old man with long hair and beard, his body terminating in a scaly tail, his breast covered with shells and seaweed. He was said to have been the builder and pilot of the Argo, and to have been changed into a god after the fight between the Argonauts and Tyrrhenians. He assisted the expedition in various ways (Athenaeus, loc. cit.; see also Ovid, Metam. xiii. 904). Glaucus was the subject of a satyric drama by Aeschylus. He was famous for his amours, especially those with Scylla and Circe.
See the exhaustive monograph by R. Gaedechens, Glaukos der Meergott (1860), and article by the same in Roscher’s Lexikon der Mythologie; and for Glaucus and Scylla, E. Vinet in Annali dell’ Instituto di Correspondenza archeologica, xv. (1843).
All the above are exhaustively treated by R. Gaedechens in Ersch and Gruber’s Allgemeine Encyclopädie.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Holztrompete

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* Harmonic Series.
HOLZTROMPETE (Wooden Trumpet), an instrument somewhat resembling the Alpenhorn (q.v.) in tone-quality, designed by Richard Wagner for representing the natural pipe of the peasant in Tristan and Isolde. This instrument is not unlike the cor anglais in rough outline, being a conical tube of approximately the same length, terminating in a small globular bell, but having neither holes nor keys; it is blown through a cup-shaped mouthpiece made of horn. The Holztrompete is in the key of C; the scale is produced by overblowing, whereby the upper partials from the 2nd to the 6th are produced. A single piston placed at a third of the distance from the mouthpiece to the bell gives the notes D and F. Wagner inserted a note in the score concerning the cor anglais for which the part was originally scored, and advised the use of oboe or clarinet to reinforce the latter, the effect intended being that of a powerful natural instrument, unless a wooden instrument with a natural scale be specially made for the part, which would be preferable. The Holztrompete was used at Munich for the first performance of Tristan and Isolde, and was still in use there in 1897. At Bayreuth it was also used for the Tristan performances at the festivals of 1886 and 1889, but in 1891 W. Heckel’s clarina, an instrument partaking of the nature of both oboe and clarinet, was substituted for the Holztrompete and has been retained ever since, having been found more effective.  (K. S.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Holzminden

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​HOLZMINDEN, a town of Germany, in the duchy of Brunswick, on the right bank of the Weser, at the foot of the Sollinger Mountains, at the junction of the railways Scherfede-Holzminden and Soest-Börssum, 56 m. S.W. of Brunswick. Pop. (1905) 9938. It has an Evangelical and a Roman Catholic church, a gymnasium, an architectural school and a school of engineering. The prosperity of the town depends chiefly on agriculture and the manufacture of iron and steel wares, and of chemicals, but weaving and the making of pottery are also carried on, and there are baryta mills and polishing-mills for sandstone. By means of the Weser it carries on a lively trade. Holzminden obtained municipal rights from Count Otto of Eberstein in 1245, and in 1410 it came into the possession of Brunswick.