JAMES NICOL.

James Nicol, the son of Michael Nicol and Marion Hope, was born at Innerleithen, in the county of Peebles, on the 28th of September 1769.  Having acquired the elements of classical knowledge under Mr Tate, the parochial schoolmaster, he was sent to the University of Edinburgh, where he pursued study with unflinching assiduity and success.  On completing his academical studies, he was licensed as a probationer by the Presbytery of Peebles.  His first professional employment was as an assistant to the minister of Traquair, a parish bordering on that of Innerleithen; and on the death of the incumbent, Mr Nicol succeeded to the living.  On the 4th of November 1802, he was ordained to the ministerial office; and on the 25th of the same month and year, he espoused Agnes Walker, a native of Glasgow, and the sister of his immediate predecessor, who had for a considerable period possessed a warm place in his affections, and been the heroine of his poetical reveries.  He had for some time been in the habit of communicating verses to the Edinburgh Magazine; and he afterwards published a collection of “Poems, chiefly in the Scottish Dialect,” Edinburgh, 1805, 2 vols. 12mo.  This publication, which was well received, contains some lyrical effusions that entitle the author to a respectable rank among the modern cultivators of national poetry; yet it is to be regretted that a deep admiration of Burns has led him into an imitation, somewhat servile, of that immortal bard.

At Traquair Mr Nicol continued to devote himself to mental improvement.  He read extensively; and writing upon the subject of his studies was his daily habit.  He was never robust, being affected with a chronic disorder of the stomach; and when sickness prevented him, as occasionally happened, from writing in a sitting posture, he would for hours together have devoted himself to composition in a standing position.  Of his prose writings, which were numerous, the greater number still remain in MS., in the possession of his elder son.  During his lifetime, he contributed a number of articles to the Edinburgh Encyclopaedia, among which are “Baptism,” “Baptistry,” “Baptists,” “Bithynia,” and “Cranmer.”  His posthumous work, “An Essay on the Nature and Design of Scripture Sacrifices,” was published in an octavo volume in the year 1823.

Mr Nicol was much respected for his sound discernment in matters of business, as well as for his benevolent disposition.  Every dispute in the vicinity was submitted to his adjudication, and his counsel checked all differences in the district.  He was regularly consulted as a physician, for he had studied medicine at the University.  From his own medicine chest he dispensed gratuitously to the indigent sick; and without fee he vaccinated all the children of the neighbourhood who were brought to him.  After a short illness, he died on the 5th of November 1819.  Of a family of three sons and three daughters, the eldest son predeceased him; two sons and two daughters still survive.  The elder son, who bears his father’s Christian name, is Professor of Civil and Natural History in Marischal College, Aberdeen, and is well known as a geologist.  Mrs Nicol survived her husband till the 19th of March 1845.