Nickleby (Nicholas), the chief character and title of a novel by C. Dickens (1838). He is the son of a poor country gentleman, and has to make his own way in the world. He first goes as usher to Mr. Squeers, schoolmaster at Dotheboys Hall, in Yorkshire; but leaves in disgust with the tyranny of Squeers and his wife, especially to a poor boy named Smike. Smike runs away from the school to follow Nicholas, and remains his humble follower till death. At Portsmouth, Nicholas joins the theatrical company of Mr. Crummles, but leaves the profession for other adventures. He falls in with the brothers Cheeryble, who make him their clerk; and in this post he rises to become a merchant, and ultimately marries Madeline Bray.
Mrs. Nickleby, mother of Nicholas, and a widow. She is an enormous talker, fond of telling long stories with no connection. Mrs. Nickleby is a weak, vain woman, who imagines an idiot neighbor is in love with her because he tosses cabbages and other articles over the garden wall. In conversation, Mrs. Nickleby rides off from the main point at every word suggestive of some new idea. As a specimen of her sequence of ideas, take the following example: “The name began with ‘B’ and ended with ‘g,’ I am sure. Perhaps it was Waters” (p. 198).
*** “The original of ‘Mrs. Nickleby,’” says John Foster, “was the mother of Charles Dickens.”—Life of Dickens, iii. 8.
Kate Nickleby, sister of Nicholas; beautiful, pure-minded, and loving. Kate works hard to assist in the expenses of housekeeping, but shuns every attempt of Ralph and others to allure her from the path of virgin innocence. She ultimately marries Frank, the nephew of the Cheeryble brothers.
Ralph Nickleby, of Golden Square (London), uncle to Nicholas and Kate. A hard, grasping money-broker, with no ambition but the love of saving, no spirit beyond the thirst of gold, and no principle except that of fleecing every one who comes into his power. This villain is the father of Smike, and ultimately hangs himself, because he loses money, and sees his schemes one after another burst into thin air.—C. Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby, (1838).
Nicneven, a gigantic, malignant hag of Scotch superstition.
*** Dunbar, the Scotch poet, describes her in his Flyting of Dunbar and Kennedy (1508).
Nicode´mus, one of the servants of General Harrison.—Sir W. Scott, Woodstock (time, Commonwealth).
Nicole (2 syl.), a female servant of M. Jourdain, who sees the folly of her master, and exposes it in a natural and amusing manner.—Molière, Le Bourgeois Gentlehomme (1670).
Night or Nox. So Tennyson calls Sir Peread, the Black Knight of the Black Lands, one of the four brothers who kept the passages to Castle Perilous.—Tennyson, Idylls of the King (“Gareth and Lynette”); Sir T. Malory, History of Prince Arthur, i. 126 (1470).