Roman catholic religion. Deprived of his fellowship (5 Jan. 1673), he retired to his estate at Newent, where he devoted himself to study and the pleasures of a country life. During an illness in London in October 1677 he sent for Dr. Simon Patrick, minister of St. Paul's, Covent Garden, and, acknowledging his error in embracing the Roman catholic faith, desired to receive the sacrament in accordance with the protestant form. Patrick thereupon told him ‘that if his disease was not desperate he would do well to consider of what he would do, and he would come to him the next day.’ On Patrick's second visit he found Nourse in the same mind, and accordingly administered the sacrament to him. But, recovering from his illness, Nourse repented of what he had done, and returned to his former opinions. He suffered much on the outbreak of the popish plot, and died on 21 July 1699 at Newent, where he was buried, and where there is a monument to his memory. He married Lucy, daughter of Richard Harwood, prebendary of Gloucester.
Nourse was a man, says Hearne, ‘of excellent parts … of great probity and eminent virtues,’ but ‘conceited’ (Wood). He had a good collection of coins, consisting of 532 separate pieces, which he bequeathed to the Bodleian Library, ‘in thankful remembrance of the obligations’ he had to the university (Macray, Annals of the Bodleian, p. 168). He left to University College such of his books as were wanting in the college library, and 120l. in charitable bequests. Nourse published: 1. ‘A Discourse upon the Nature and Faculties of Man, in several Essays, with some Considerations upon the Occurrences of Humane Life,’ London, 8vo, 1686, 1689, and 1697. 2. ‘A Discourse of Natural and Reveal'd Religion, in several Essays; or the Light of Nature a Guide to Divine Truth,’ London, 8vo, 1691. 3. ‘Campania Fœlix, or a Discourse of the Benefits and Improvements of Husbandry … with some Considerations upon (1) Justices of the Peace and inferior Officers; (2) on Inns and Ale-houses; (3) on Servants and Labourers; (4) on the Poor, to which are added two Essays of a Country House, and of the Fuel of London,’ London, 8vo, 1700; 2nd edit. 1706. Republished in 1708 with ‘The Compleat Collier, by J. C.’ He is also said to have written a book, which does not appear to have been published, in answer to Daniel Whitby's ‘Discourse concerning the Idolatry of the Church of Rome,’ London, 8vo, 1674.
[Letters of Humphry Prideaux to John Ellis (Camd. Soc.), p. 31; Wood's Athenæ Oxon. ed. Bliss, pp. lxii, lxix, lxxv, lxxviii, iv. 448; Wood's History and Antiquities of the Univ. of Oxford, II. ii. 980; Works of the Learned for March 1700, pp. 179–84; Wood's Life and Times, ed. Clark, ii. 39, 143, 226, 276, 389, 390, Hearne's Collections, ed. Doble (both in Oxford Hist. Soc.), i. 3, 40, 198, 287; Fosbrooke's History of Gloucestershire, ii. 227, 228; Rudder's Gloucestershire, pp. 564, 565; Kennet's Register and Chronicle, p. 598; Donaldson's Agricultural Biography, p. 40; Loudon's Encycl. of Agriculture, p. 1207; Foster's Alumni Oxon.; Notes and Queries, 5th ser. iii. 228, 353, 354, 377.]
NOVELLO, VINCENT (1781–1861), organist, musical composer, editor, and arranger, was born at 240 Oxford Road (now Oxford Street), London, on 6 Sept. 1781. His father, Giuseppe Novello, was an Italian domiciled in England, and his mother was an Englishwoman. He received his first, if not his only, tuition in music from a friend and fellow countryman of his father named Quellici, the composer of a set of ‘Chansons Italiennes.’ When quite young he was sent with his elder brother Francis to a school at Huitmille near Boulogne, which he left just as France was on the point of declaring war against England in February 1793. On his return he became a chorister at the chapel of the Sardinian embassy in Duke Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields, where Samuel Webbe was organist. During this period, and after his voice broke, he frequently acted as deputy at the organ for Webbe, and also for Danby, then organist of the Spanish embassy chapel; and in 1797, when barely sixteen years of age, he was elected organist of the Portuguese embassy chapel in South Street, Grosvenor Square, in the choir of which his brother Francis was principal bass for twenty-five years. This post he retained until 1822, and was only once absent from the organ bench during the period. While Novello was organist at the Portuguese chapel, George IV, attracted by his skill, offered him a similar post at the Brighton Pavilion, an offer which was declined on the score of numerous engagements which necessitated his constant presence in London. For twenty-seven years he held classes for pianoforte playing at Campbell's school in Brunswick Square, and for twenty-five years at Hibbert's at Clapton, in addition to teaching numerous private pupils, one of whom was Edward Holmes [q. v.]
In 1811 Novello produced his first attempt in that branch of art in which he made for himself a considerable reputation. It consisted of an arrangement of two folio
