". . . . as a poet, he stands by the side of Burns, of whom, however, he was deemed not a rival, nor indeed and equal; but when Nicoll died, he had written what Burns up to that time had not equalled.  Tracing his career through various vicissitudes, at last we find him become editor of the Leeds Times . . . . on the small salary of £100 per year, he made the fortune of that paper, as well as the proprietors . . . . there is no question that his editorial articles were remarkable for extraordinary talent, and there can be no doubt that his writings at this period may be classed among the most brilliant effusions of the provincial newspaper press.  But, alas! his unwearied labours broke down his talented and energetic mind.  His health became impaired, and sickness overtook him.  He returned to his native Scotland and died of consumption at the early age of 23.  His poetry is noble and brilliant; his poetical pictures of Scottish scenery are very fine, and his sympathy was readily accorded to all . . ."

'Poets of the Humble Life': a lecture by the Rev. T. Hinks, April, 1850.

“I have written my heart in my poems; and rude, unfinished, and hasty as they are, it can be read there.”

ROBERT NICOLL.

――――♦――――

ROBERT NICOLL: A BRIEF BIOGRAPHY

BY
SAMUEL SMILES.

THE name of ROBERT NICOLL (1814-37) will always take high rank among the poets of Scotland.  He was one of the many illustrious Scotchmen who have risen up to adorn the lot of toil, and reflect honour on the class from which they have sprung,—the laborious and hard-working peasantry of their land.  Nicoll, like Burns, was a man of whom those who live in poor men's huts may well be proud.  They declare, from day to day, that intellect is of no class, but that even in abodes of the deepest poverty there are warm hearts and noble minds, wanting but the opportunity and the circumstances to enable them to take their place as honourable and zealous labourers in the work of human improvement and Christian progress.

    The life of Robert Nicoll was not one of much variety of incident.  It was, alas! brought to an early close; for he died almost ere he had reached manhood.  But in his short allotted span, it is not too much to say, that he lived more than most men have done who reach their threescore years and ten.  He was born of hard-working, God-fearing parents, in the year 1814, at the little village of Tulliebelton, situated near the foot of the Grampian Hills, in Perthshire.  At an early period of his life, his father had rented the small farm of Ordie-braes; but having been unsuccessful in his farming, and falling behind with his rent, his home was broken up by the laird; the farm-stocking was sold off by public roup; and the poor man was reduced to the rank of a common day-labourer.
 

    Robert was the second of a family of seven children, six sons and one daughter, the "sister Margaret" of whom the poet afterwards spoke and wrote so affectionately.  Out of the bare weekly income of a day-labourer, there was not, as might be inferred, much to spare for schooling.  But the mother was an intelligent, active woman, and assiduously devoted herself to the culture of her children.  She taught them to read, and gave them daily lessons in the Assembly's Catechism; so that before being sent to school, which they all were in due course, this good and prudent mother had laid the foundations in them of a sound moral and religious education.

    "My mother," says Nicoll, in one of his letters, "in her early years, was an ardent book-woman.  When she became poor, her time was too precious to admit of its being spent in reading, and I generally read to her while she was working; for she took care that the children should not want education."

    Robert's subsequent instruction at school included the common branches of reading, writing, and accounts; the remainder of his education was his own work.  He became a voracious reader, laying half the parish under contribution for books.  A circulating library was got up in the neighboring village of Auchtergaven, which the lad managed to connect himself with, and his mind became stored apace.

    Robert, like the rest of the children, when he became big enough and old enough, was sent out to field-work, to contribute by the aid of his slender gains towards the common store.  At seven he was sent to the herding of cattle, an occupation, by the way, in which many distinguished Scotchmen—Burns, James Ferguson, Mungo Park, Dr. Murray (the Orientalist), and James Hogg—spent their early years.  In winter, Nicoll attended the school with his "fee."  When occupied in herding, the boy had always a book for his companion; and he read going to his work and returning from it.  While engaged in this humble vocation he read most of the Waverley novels.  At a future period of his life, he says, "I can yet look back with no common feelings on the wood in which, while herding, I read Kenilworth."  Probably the perusal of that beautiful fiction never gave a purer pleasure, even in the stately halls of rank and fashion, than it gave to the poor herd-boy in the wood at Tulliebelton.

    When twelve years of age, Robert was taken from the herding, and went to work in the garden of a neighbouring proprietor.  Shortly after, when about thirteen, he began to scribble his thoughts, and to string rhymes together.  About this time also, as one of his intimate friends has told us, he passed through a strange phasis of being.  He was in the practice of relating to his companions the most wonderful and incredible stories as facts,—stories that matched the wonders of the Arabian Tales,—and evidencing the inordinate ascendancy at that time of his imagination over the other faculties of his mind.  The tales and novel literature, which, in common with all other kinds of books, he devoured with avidity, probably tended to the development of this disease (for such it really seemed to be) in his young and excitable nature.  As for the verses which he then wrote, they were not at all such as satisfied himself; for, despairing of ever being able to write the English language correctly, he gathered all his papers together and made a bonfire of them, resolving to write no more "poetry" for the present.  He became, however, the local correspondent of a provincial newspaper circulating in the district, furnishing it with weekly paragraphs and scraps of news, on the state of the weather, crops, &c.  His return for this service was an occasional copy of the paper, and the consequence attendant on being the "correspondent" of the village.  But another person was afterwards found more to the liking of the editor of the paper, and Robert, to his chagrin, lost his profitless post.
 

    Nicoll's next change was an important one to him.  He left his native hamlet and went into the world of active life.  At the age of seventeen he was bound apprentice to a grocer and wine-merchant in Perth.  There he came in contact with business, and activity, and opinion.  The time was stirring with agitation.  The Reform movement had passed over the face of the country like a tornado, raising millions of minds to action.  The exciting effects of the agitation on the intellects and sympathies of the youth of that day are still remembered; and few there were who did not feel more or less influenced by them.  The excitable mind of Nicoll was one of the first to be influenced; he burned to distinguish himself as a warrior on the people's side; he had longings infinite after popular enlargement, enfranchisement, and happiness.  His thoughts shortly found vent in verse, and he became a poet.  He joined a debating-society, and made speeches.  Every spare moment of his time was devoted to self-improvement,—to the study of grammar, to the reading of works on political economy, and to politics in all their forms. In the course of one summer, he several times read through with attention Smith's Wealth of Nations, not improbably with an eye to some future employment on the newspaper press.  He also read Milton, Locke, and Bentham, and devoured with avidity all other books that he could lay hands on.  The debating-society with which he was connected proposed to start a periodical, and Nicoll undertook to write a tale for the first number.  The periodical did not appear, and the tale was sent to Johnstone's Edinburgh Magazine, where it was published under the title of "Jessie Ogilvy," to the no small joy of the writer.  It decided Nicoll's vocation,—it determined him to be an author.  He proclaimed his Radicalism,—his resolution to "stand by his order," that of "the many."  His letters to his relatives, about this time, are full of political allusions.  He was working very hard, too,— attending in his mistress's shop, from seven in the morning till nine at night, and afterwards sitting up to read and write; rising early in the morning, and going forth to the North Inch by five o'clock, to write or to read until the hour of shop-opening.  At the same time he was living on the poorest possible diet,—literally on bread and cheese, and water,—that he might devote every possible farthing of his small gains to the purposes of mental improvement.

    Few constitutions can stand such intense labour and privation with impunity; and there is little doubt but Nicoll was even then undermining his health, and sowing the seeds of the malady which in so short a time after was to bring him to his grave.  But he was eager to distinguish himself in the field of letters, though but a poor shop-lad; and, more than all, he was ambitious to be independent, and have the means of aiding his mother in her humble exertions for a living; never losing sight of the comfort and welfare of that first and fastest of his friends.  At length, however, his health became seriously impaired, so much so that his Perth apprenticeship was abruptly brought to a close, and he was sent home by his mistress to be nursed by his mother at Ordie Braes,—not, however, before he had contributed another Radical story, entitled "The Zingaro," a poem on "Bessy Bell and Mary Gray," and an article on "The Life and Times of John Milton," to Johnstone's Edinburgh Magazine.  An old friend and schoolfellow, who saw him in the course of this visit to his mother's house, thus speaks of him at the time: "Robert's city life had not spoiled him.  His acquaintance with men and books had improved his mind without chilling his heart.  At this time he was full of joy and hope.  A bright literary life stretched before him.  His conversation was gay, and sparkling, and rushed forth like a stream that flows through flowery summer vales."
 

    His health soon became re-established, and he then paid a visit to Edinburgh, (Turing the period of the Grey Festival,—and there met his kind friend Mrs. Johnstone, William Tait, Robert Chambers, Robert Gilfillan, and others known in the literary world, by all of whom he was treated with much kindness and hospitality.  His search for literary employment, however, which was the main cause of his visit to Edinburgh, was in vain, and he returned home disappointed, though not hopeless.

    He was about twenty when he went to Dundee, there to start a small circulating library.  The project was not very successful; but while be kept it going, he worked harder than ever at literary improvement.  He now wrote his Lyrics and Poems, which, on their publication, were extremely well received by the press.  He also wrote for the liberal newspapers of the town, delivered lectures, made speeches, and extended his knowledge of men and society.  In a letter to a friend, written in February, 1836, he says: "No wonder I am busy.  I am at this moment writing poetry: I have almost half a volume of a novel written; I have to attend the meetings of the Kinloch Monument Committee; attend my shop; write some half-dozen articles a week for the Advertiser; and, to crown all, I have fallen in love."  At last, however, finding the library to be a losing concern, he made it entirely over to the partner who had joined him, and quitted Dundee, with the intention of seeking out some literary employment by which he might live.
 

Robert Nicoll Monument, facing Obney Hill at Little Tulliebelton Farm. Photo Alistair Bell.

    The Dundee speculation had involved Nicoll, and through him his mother, in debt, though to only a small amount.  This debt weighed heavy on his mind, and he thus opened his heart in a highly characteristic letter to his parent about it: "This money of R.'s (a friend who had lent him a few pounds to commence business with) hangs like a millstone about my neck.  If I had it paid, I would never borrow again from mortal man.  But do not mistake me, mother; I am not one of those men who faint and falter in the great battle of life.  God has given me too strong a heart for that.  I look upon earth as a place where every man is set to struggle, and to work, that he may be made humble and pure-hearted, and fit for that better land for which earth is a preparation,—to which earth is the gate.  Cowardly is that man who bows before the storm of life,—who runs not the needful race manfully, and with a cheerful heart.  If men would but consider how little of real evil there is in all the ills of which they are so much afraid,—poverty included,—there would be more virtue and happiness, and less world and mammon worship on earth than is.  I think, mother, that to me has been given talent; and if so, that talent was given to make it useful to man.  To man it cannot be made a source of happiness unless it be cultivated; and cultivated it cannot be unless, I think, little [here some words are obliterated]; and much and well of purifying and enlightening the soul.  This is my philosophy; and its motto is,—

Half the unhappiness of life springs from looking back to griefs which are past, and forward with fear to the future.  That is not my way.  I am determined never to bend to the storm that is coming, and never to look back on it after it has passed.   Fear not for me, dear mother; for I feel myself daily growing firmer, and more hopeful in spirit.  The more I think and reflect,—and thinking, instead of reading, is now my occupation,—I feel that, whether I be growing richer or not, I am growing a wiser man, which is far better.  Pain, poverty, and all the other wild beasts of life which so affright others, I am so bold as to think I could look in the face without shrinking, without losing respect for myself, faith in man's high destinies, and trust in God.  There is a point which it costs much mental toil and struggling to gain, but which, when once gained, a man can look down from, as a traveller from a lofty mountain, on storms raging below, while he is walking in sunshine.  That I have yet gained this point in life, I will not say, but I feel myself daily nearer it."

    About the end of the year 1836, Nicoll succeeded, through the kind assistance of Mr. Tait, of Edinburgh, in obtaining an appointment as editor of an English newspaper, the Leeds Times.  This was the kind of occupation for which he had longed; and he entered upon the arduous labours of his office with great spirit.  During his year and a half of editorship his mind seemed to be on fire; and on the occasion of a Parliamentary contest in the town in which the paper was published, he wrote in a style which to some seemed bordering on frenzy.  He neither gave nor took quarter.  The man who went not so far as he did in political opinion was regarded by him as an enemy, and denounced accordingly.  He dealt about his blows with almost savage violence.  This novel and daring style, however, attracted attention to the paper, and its circulation rapidly increased, sometimes at the rate of two or three hundred a week.  One can scarcely believe that the tender-hearted poet and the fierce political partisan were one and the same person, or that he who had so touchingly written

should have held up his political opponents, in the words of another poet,

    But such inconsistencies are, we believe, reconcilable in the mental histories of ardent and impetuous men.  Doubtless, had Nicoll lived, we should have found his sympathies becoming more enlarged, and embracing other classes besides those of only one form of political creed.  One of his friends once asked him why, like Elliot, he did not write political poetry.  His reply was, that "he could not: when writing politics, he could be as wild as he chose: he felt a vehement desire, a feeling amounting almost to a wish, for vengeance upon the oppressor: but when he turned to poetry, a softening influence came over him, and he could be bitter no longer."

    His literary labours while in Leeds were enormous.  He was not satisfied with writing from four to five columns weekly for the paper; but he was engaged at the same time in writing a long poem, a novel, and in furnishing leading articles for a new Sheffield newspaper.  In the midst of this tremendous labour, he found time to go down to Dundee to get married to the young woman with whom he had fallen in love.  The comfort of his home was thus increased, though his labours continued as before.  They soon told upon his health.  The clear and ruddy complexion of the youth grew pallid; the erect, manly gait became stooping; the firm step faltered; the lustrous eye dimmed; and health gave place to debility: the worm of disease was already at his heart and gnawing away his vitals.  His cough, which had never entirely left him since his illness, brought on by self-imposed privation and study while at Perth, again appeared in an aggravated form; his breath grew short and thick; his cheeks became shrunken; and the hectic flush which rarely deceives, soon made its appearance.  He appeared as if suddenly to grow old; his shoulders became contracted; he appeared to wither up, and the sap of life to shrink from his veins.  Need we detail the melancholy progress of a disease which is, in this country, the annual fate of thousands.

    As Nicoll's illness increased, he expressed an anxious desire to see his mother, and she was informed of it accordingly.  She was very poor, and little able to afford an expensive journey to Yorkshire by coach; nevertheless she contrived to pay the visit to her son.  Afterwards, when a friend inquired how she had been able to incur the expense, as poor Robert was in no condition to assist her even to the extent of the coach fare, her simple but noble reply was, "Indeed, Mr.——, I shore for the siller."  The true woman, worthy mother of so worthy a son, earned as a reaper the means of honestly and independently fulfilling her boy's dying wish, and the ardent desire of her own loving heart.  So soon as she set eyes on him on her arrival at Leeds, she felt at once that his days were numbered.

    It almost seemed as if, while the body of the poet decayed, his mind grew more active and excitable, and that, as the physical powers become more weakened, his sense of sympathy became more keen.  When he engaged in conversation upon a subject which he loved,—upon human progress, the amelioration of the lot of the poor, the emancipation of mind,—he seemed as one inspired.  Usually quiet and reserved, he would on such occasions work himself into a state of the greatest excitement.  His breast heaved, his whole frame was agitated, and while he spoke, his large lustrous eyes beamed with unwonted fire.  His wife feared such outbursts, which were followed by sleepless nights, and the aggravation of his complaint.

    Throughout the whole progress of his disease, down to the time when he left Leeds, Nicoll did not fail to produce his usual weekly quota of literary labour.  They little know, who have not learnt from experience, what pains and anxieties, what sorrows and cares, he hid under the columns of a daily or weekly newspaper.  No galley-slave at the oar tugs harder for life than the man who writes in newspapers for the indispensable of daily bread.  The press is ever at his heels, crying, "Give, give!" and well or ill, gay or sad, the Editor must supply the usual complement of "leading article."  The last articles poor Nicoll wrote for the paper were prepared whilst he sat up in bed, propped about by pillows.  A friend entered just as he had finished them, and found him in a state of high excitement: the veins on his forehead were turgid and his eyes bloodshot; his whole frame quivered, and the perspiration streamed from him.  He had produced a pile of blotted and blurred manuscript, written in his usual energetic manner.  It was immediately after sent to press.  These were the last leaders he wrote.  They were shortly after followed by a short address to the readers of the paper, in which he took a short but affectionate farewell of them, stating that he went "to try the effect of his native air, as a last chance for life."

    Almost at the moment of his departure from Leeds, an incident occurred which must have been exceedingly affecting to Nicoll, as it was to those who witnessed it.  Ebenezer Elliott, the "Corn-Law Rhymer," who entertained an enthusiastic admiration for the young poet, had gone over from Sheffield to deliver a short course of lectures to the Leeds Literary Institution, and promised himself the pleasure of a kindly interview with Robert Nicoll.  On inquiring about him, after the delivery of his first lecture, he was distressed to learn the sad state to which he was reduced.  "No words," says Elliott, in a letter to the writer of this memoir, "can express the pain I felt when informed, on my return to my inn, that he was dying, and that if I would see him I must reach his dwelling before eight o'clock next morning, at which hour he would depart by railway for Edinburgh, in the hope that his native air might restore him.  I was five minutes too late to see him at his house, but I followed him to the station, where about a minute before the train started he was pointed out to me in one of the carriages, seated, I believe, between his wife and his mother.  I stood on the step of the carriage and told him my name.  He gasped,—they all three wept; but I heard not his voice."

    The invalid reached Newhaven, near Leith, sick, exhausted, distressed, and dying.  He was received under the hospitable roof of Mrs. Johnstone, his early friend, who tended him as if he had been her own child.  Other friends gathered around him, and contributed to smooth his dying couch.  It was not the least of Nicoll's distresses, that towards his latter end he was tortured by the horrors of destitution; not so much for himself as for those who were dependent on him for their daily bread.  A generous gift of £50 was forwarded by Sir William Molesworth, but Nicoll did not live to enjoy the bounty; in a few days after, he breathed his last in the arms of his wife.

    The remains of Robert Nicoll rest in a narrow spot in Newhaven Churchyard.  No stone marks his resting place; only a small green mound, that has been watered by the tears of the loved he has left behind him.  On that spot the eye of God dwells; and around the precincts of the poet's grave, the memories of friends still hover with a fond and melancholy regret.

    Robert Nicoll was no ordinary man; Ebenezer Elliott has said of him, "Burns at his age had done nothing like him."  His poetry is the very soul of pathos, tenderness, and sublimity.  We might almost style him the Scottish Keats; though he was much more real and lifelike, and more definite in his aims and purposes, than Keats was.  There is a truthful earnestness in the poetry of Nicoll, which comes home to the universal heart. Especially does he give utterance to that deep poetry which lives in the heart, and murmurs in the lot of the poor man.  He knew and felt it all, and found for it a voice in his exquisite lyrics.  These have truth written on their very front;—as Nicoll said truly to a friend, "I have written my heart in my poems; and rude, unfinished, and hasty as they are, it can be read there."

    "We are lowly," "The Ha' Bible," "The Hero," "The Bursting of the Chain," "I dare not scorn," and numerous other pieces which might be named, are inferior to few things of their kind in the English language.  "The Ha' Bible" is perhaps not unworthy to take rank with "The Cotter's Saturday Night" of Robert Burns.  It is as follows:—

__________________

Ed.:  Robert Nicholl was born in Little Tullibelton in the parish of Auchtergaven, Perthshire, in 1814, and died at Leith, where he was buried, in 1837.  A prominent obelisk commemorates him in his home town.

"WE ARE LOWLY"
A poem by Robert Nicoll,
set in four parts with piano accompaniment
by Sophia Collet.