Sir Nicholas Harris, a very eminent English antiquary, was the fourth son of John Harris Nicholas of East Looe in Cornwall, whose Breton ancestors had settled there on the revocation of the edict of Nantes. He was born on the 10th March 1799. He entered the navy on the 27th October 1808; and after some years of active service as midshipman under his brother, in which he took part in the capture of several armed vessels and convoys on the coast of Calabria, he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant on the 20th September 1815. Not succeeding at the close of the war in obtaining employment, he left the service, and took to the study of English law and antiquarian literature. His first work, The Life of Secretary Davison, appeared in 1823, the author having married a descendant of the family of that worthy privy counsellor during the previous year. He was called to the bar by the society of the Inner Temple in 1825, but his practice never extended beyond the occasional claims of peerage before the House of Lords. Nicolas was chosen shortly afterwards a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, became a member of their council in 1826, and was a frequent and valuable contributor to the Archaeologia. His imprudent zeal and violent temper, however, did not permit him long to enjoy this dignity; for after his first appearance at its deliberations, the society struck him off their list. He thereupon commenced a series of attacks against the administration of the affairs of the society, which do not seem to have been in the most perfect state possible. These animadversions, besides appearing in pamphlets, found a frequent place in the pages of the Retrospective Review, of which Nicolas had become joint editor in 1826. He continued with incredible industry to elucidate and illustrate various departments of history, genealogy, and heraldry, in a series of works, displaying great research and sound critical acumen. As a whole, his works possess a substantial historical value; but those perhaps in which he has placed the majority of writers under the greatest obligations to his industry and acuteness, are the Synopsis of the Peerage of England, 2 vols., 1825; the Testamenta Vetusta, 2 vols., 1826; and his Chronology of History, a work of great value, written in 1835 for Lardner's Cyclopaedia, and remodelled from his Notitia Historica of 1824. In his Controversy between Sir Richard Scrope and Sir Robert Grosvenor, 2 vols., 1832, a work which was never completed, and in his Siege of Caerlaverock, there occur a number of highly valuable biographical notices; and, among others, one of Geoffrey Chaucer, which the author afterwards enlarged for Pickering's Aldine edition of that poet. For the same series of British poetical authors, Nicolas wrote the memoirs of Surrey, Wyatt, Collins, Cowper, Thomson, Burns, and Kirke White. In connection with the same field, he made some curious and successful explorations in his Lives of Isaac Walton and Charles Cotton, prefixed to Pickering's beautiful edition of The Complete Angler. His greatest works, however, and those by which his name will be longest remembered by the majority of readers, are the History of the Orders of Knighthood of the British Empire, four large 4to vols., 1841–12; and The Dispatches and Letters of Admiral Lord Viscount Nelson, 7 vols. 8vo, 1844–46. In acknowledgment of his merits in connection with the former work, he was made a knight of the Hanoverian Guelphic Order in 1831, was appointed chancellor of the Ionian Order of St Michael and St George in 1832, and was advanced to the grade of Grand Cross by Her Majesty in 1840. Sir Harris left an unfinished History of the British Navy, in 2 vols., which promised to be a work of very great merit. He was engaged in editing the papers of Sir Hudson Lowe, until within a few days of his death, which took place at Cape Curé, near Boulogne, August 3, 1848. (See Gentleman's Magazine for October 1848, which contains a complete list of his writings; and Athenæum for August 12, 1848.)

NICOLAS I., Pavlovich, Emperor of Russia, was the third son of the Emperor Paul, and was born at St Petersburg on the 7th of July 1796. He succeeded his eldest brother, Alexander I., on the 1st of December 1825, and was crowned at Moscow on the 3rd September 1826. He declared war against the Shah of Persia in this latter year, incorporated the kingdom of Poland with his own empire in 1832, commenced a war with Turkey in 1853, which brought against him the allied armies of England and France in 1854, and died on the 2nd March 1855, leaving his throne to his eldest son, the present Emperor Alexander II. (See Russia.)

or Nicholas, Sr., a town of Belgium, in the province of East Flanders, is the principal place in the populous and well-cultivated district called the Pays de Waes, 20 miles N.E. of Ghent. It is well built, with broad and regular streets, and a spacious market-place, surrounded with fine houses. There are several churches, one of which, that of St Nicholas, is a handsome structure; a town-hall, a college, several schools, an hospital, two orphan asylums, and a prison. Among the manufactories of the town, tanneries, breweries, distilleries, salt-refineries, dye-works, and potteries are the chief; and in addition to these, linen, cotton, woollen, and silken stuffs, carpets, lace, hats, tobacco, chocolate, earthenware, &c., are manufactured. In corn, flax, hemp, linen, &c., an active trade is carried on; and a market for flax is held here which is said to be the largest in the world. Pop. 20,500.