Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 41.djvu/49

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of Arms of Peers and Knights in Reign of Edward II,’ 1828. 18. ‘Statutes of Order of the Guelphs,’ 1828; only one hundred copies printed, and not for sale. 19. ‘Statutes of Order of the Thistle,’ 1828; limited to fifty copies, not for sale. 20. ‘Memoirs of Lady Fanshawe,’ 1829. 21. ‘Roll of Arms of Reigns of Henry III and Edward III,’ 1829; fifty copies printed. 22. ‘Report of Proceedings on Claims to the Barony of L'Isle,’ 1829. 23. ‘Letter to the Duke of Wellington on creating Peers for Life’ (anon.), 1830, for private circulation only; 2nd edit. (anon.), 1830; 3rd edit., by Sir Harris Nicolas, 1834. 24. ‘Privy Purse Expenses of Elizabeth of York, with Memoir of her,’ 1830. 25. ‘Report of Proceedings on Claims to Earldom of Devon,’ 1832. 26. ‘The Scrope and Grosvenor Controversy,’ 1832; a magnificent work of 150 copies only, privately printed at the expense of an association of noblemen and gentlemen. The first volume contained the controversy between Ricardus le Scrope and Robertus Grosvenor, milites, and the second included a history of the Scropes and of the deponents in their favour; the third volume, to contain notices of the Grosvenor deponents, was never published. 27. ‘Letters of Joseph Ritson,’ 1833, 2 vols. 28. ‘Proceedings and Ordinances of the Privy Council of England, 1386–1542,’ 1834–7, 7 vols. His remuneration for this work was 150l. per volume. It contained a mass of valuable matter, and after an interval of more than fifty years the labour has been resumed by Mr. J. R. Dasent. 29. ‘Treatise on Law of Adulterine Bastardy,’ discussing the claim of William Knollys [q. v.] to be Earl of Banbury, 1836; 2nd edit. 1838. 30. ‘The Complete Angler of Izaak Walton and Charles Cotton,’ with drawings by Stothard and Inskipp, 1836, 2 vols.; a magnificent work. The lives were issued separately in 1837, and the whole work was reprinted in 1875. 31. ‘History of Orders of Knighthood of the British Empire and of the Guelphs of Hanover,’ 1841–2, 4 vols. 32. ‘History of Earldoms of Strathern, Monteith, and Airth, with Report of Proceedings of Claim of R. B. Allardice to Earldom of Airth,’ 1842. 33. ‘Statement on Mr. Babbage's Calculating Engines,’ 1843; reprinted in Babbage's ‘Life of a Philosopher,’ pp. 68–96. 34. ‘Despatches and Letters of Lord Nelson,’ 1844–6, 7 vols.; another issue began in 1845, but only one volume came out. 35. ‘Court of Queen Victoria, or Portraits of British Ladies,’ 1845; only three parts were published. 36. ‘History of Royal Navy,’ 1847, 2 vols.; incomplete, extending only to reign of Henry V. 37. ‘Memoirs of Sir Christopher Hatton,’ 1847.

Nicolas brought out the ‘Carcanet’ (1828 and 1839) and the ‘Cynosure’ (1837), both containing select passages from the most distinguished English writers; and, in conjunction with Henry Southern, he edited the two volumes (1827 and 1828) of the second series of the ‘Retrospective Review.’ He drew up an elaborate analysis of the writings of Junius, some part of which appeared in Wade's edition of ‘Junius’ (Bohn's Standard Library, vols. 119 and 120), and the whole manuscript was ultimately sold to Joseph Parkes [q. v.] For Pickering's Aldine edition of the poets Nicolas contributed lives of Thomson, Collins, the Earl of Surrey and Sir Thomas Wyatt, Henry Kirke White, Burns, Cowper, and Chaucer, the last being especially valuable through his investigations in contemporary documents. These memoirs have been inserted in the subsequent issues of that series. It was his intention to have superintended an edition of Thomson's poems, and Lord Lyttelton furnished him with considerable information on the subject. To the ‘Archæologia’ and the ‘Gentleman's Magazine’ he contributed numerous antiquarian papers, most of them in the latter periodical being signed ‘Clionas,’ and relating to the Cornish families with which he was connected. He also wrote the long preface to its hundredth volume. The ‘Westminster Review,’ ‘Quarterly Review,’ ‘Spectator,’ ‘Athenæum,’ and ‘Naval and Military Magazine’ were among the other periodicals to which he occasionally contributed.

Nicolas gave assistance to Dallaway and Cartwright's ‘History of Sussex,’ Cotman's ‘Sepulchral Brasses in Norfolk and Suffolk,’ Samuel Bentley's ‘Excerpta Historica,’ and Emma Roberts's ‘Rival Houses of York and Lancaster.’ The voluminous papers of Sir Hudson Lowe on Napoleon's captivity at St. Helena were sorted and arranged by him, and at the time of his death a mass of documents to September 1817 had been set up in type. They were reduced in matter by William Forsyth, Q.C., and published in three volumes in 1853. Nicolas edited in 1836 the poetical remains of his friend Sir T. E. Croft, and compiled in 1842 a history of ‘The Cornish Club,’ with a list of its members, which was reprinted and supplemented by Mr. Henry Paull in 1877. Letters by him are in Nichols's ‘Illustrations of Literary History,’ vol. viii. pp. xlvi–xlvii, and the ‘Memoir of Augustus de Morgan,’ pp. 70–3. Several of his manuscripts and letters are in the British Museum (Addit. MSS. 6525, 19704–8, 28847, 24872, and 28894, and Eger-