(c.1742 - 1809), s. of Norton Nicholls of London; Trin. Hall Camb. 1760; L.Inn 1758; rect. of Lound and Bradwell, Suff., 1767 - d.
1771 - 2 Milan (Oct. 1771 - Feb. 1772), Parma (25 - 6 Feb.), Bologna (1 Mar.), Florence (15 Mar. - 8 Apr.), Rome (by 12 Apr. - 18 May), Naples (23 May - ), Rome (by 3 Oct. - ), Venice (27 Oct. - Nov.), Milan (Nov.)
'Mr Niccols, an ingenious friend of Mr [Thomas] Gray', arrived in Milan in October 1771.1 Bad weather held him there through the winter. He wrote from Bologna on 1 March describing his visit to Parma on 25 - 26 February. On 15 March he reached Florence where he dined out every day, attended concerts and was, of course, courteously received by Horace Mann.2 He intended to be in Rome for Sunday, 12 April, the beginning of Holy Week. On 13 May he was in Capua with Lord Findlater,3 and on the 23rd they arrived in Naples. Nicholls found it hard to imitate his Lordship's style, but appears to have stayed with him some time. In October he was in Rome where Patrick Home saw him looking at Raphael's Fire in the Borgo with James Byres.4 Nicholls pointed out that a course with Byres cost 15 guineas and a half-length portrait by Batoni cost 20. On 27 October he arrived with Findlater in Venice5 and the following month went on his own to Milan. He returned home the following year. Patrick Home had described Nicholls as 'a spruce English parson - plays the Cavalier abroad,'6 and the fact that he had had to borrow money from Findlater in Naples and Venice, and from Byres in Rome, suggests his reach exceeded his grasp.
1. Nicholls's letters to his mother are Yale U., Beinecke, Osborn MSS, c 467 i/; quotations from Black 1992, 35 - 6, 89 - 90, 102, 113, 116. 2. Wal.Corr., 23:397 and n16, 403, 446. 3. ASN cra 1259. 4. Home jnl.MSS. 5. ASV is 759. 6. Home list MSS.