Nicholas, a celebrated chemist, born at Rouen, in Normandy, in 1645. After having made the tour of France, he, in 1672, commenced an acquaintance with Martyn, apothecary to the prince, and performed several courses of chemistry in the laboratory of this chemist, at the Hôtel de Condé, which were the means of making him known to the prince. He provided himself at length with a laboratory of his own, and might have been created a doctor of physic; but he chose to continue an apothecary, from his attachment to chemistry. He opened public lectures on that subject; and his confluence of scholars was so great as scarcely to allow him room to perform his operations. The true principles of chemistry were but ill understood in his time. Lemery was the first who abolished the senseless jargon of barbarous terms, reduced the science to clear and simple ideas, and promised nothing which he did not perform. In 1681 he was disturbed on account of his religion, and came to England, where he was well received by Charles II.; but affairs not promising him the tranquillity he had sought for, he returned to France, and took shelter under a doctor's degree. The revocation of the edict of Nantes, however, drove him into the communion of the Catholic church to avoid persecution. He then became associate-chemist and pensionary in the Royal Academy of Sciences, and died in 1715. He wrote, 1. A Course of Chemistry; 2. An universal Pharmacopeia; 3. An universal Treatise of Drugs; and, 4. a Treatise on Antimony.