Brinsley Nicholson M.D. (1824–14 September 1892) was a Scottish physician, known as an editor of Elizabethan literature.

Life

Born at Fort George, Scotland, he was the eldest son of B. W. Hewittson Nicholson of the army medical staff. After a boyhood passed at Gibraltar, Malta, and the Cape, where his father was stationed, he studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh in 1841. After graduation he completed his medical studies in Paris. Becoming an army surgeon, Nicholson spent some years in South Africa, and saw service in the Xhosa Wars in 1853 and 1854. He was in China during the

Second Opium War The Second Opium War (), also known as the Second Anglo-Sino War, the Second China War, the Arrow War, or the Anglo-French expedition to China, was a colonial war lasting from 1856 to 1860, which pitted the British Empire and the French Emp ...

, and present at the looting of the Summer Palace in Beijing; and in New Zealand took part in the Second Taranaki War. About 1870 Nicholson retired from the army, and settled near London. He died 14 September 1892. He had married in 1875, and his wife survived him.

Works

Nicholson contributed genealogical tables of Xhosa chiefs to a ''Compendium of Kafir Laws and Customs'' printed by the government of British Kaffraria at Mount Coke in 1858. In 1875 Nicholson edited, for the then recently formed

New Shakspere Society The New Shakspere Society was founded in autumn 1873 by Frederick James Furnivall in order "to do honor to Shakspere, to make out the succession of his plays, and thereby the growth of his mind and art; to promote the intelligent study of him, and ...

, the First Folio and the first quarto of '' Henry the Fifth'', and began the preparation of the "Parallel Texts" of the same play, issued in 1877 (not completed because serious illness). He later read papers at meetings of the New Shakspere Society. Encouraged by

William Tennant Gairdner Sir William Tennant Gairdner (8 November 1824 – 28 June 1907) was a Scottish Professor of Medicine in the University of Glasgow. Early life William Tennant Gardiner was born in Edinburgh, the son of physician John Gairdner and his wife, Su ...

, Nicholson brought out in 1886 a reprint of Reginald Scot's '' Discoverie of Witchcraft'' (1584). His edition of ''The Best Plays of Ben Jonson'', which was published posthumously in 1893, with an introduction by

C. H. Herford Charles Harold Herford, FBA (18 February 1853 – 25 April 1931) was an English literary scholar and critic. He is remembered principally for his biography and edition of the works of Ben Jonson in 11 volumes. This major scholarly project was ...

, in the Mermaid Series (3 vols.) His edition of

John Donne John Donne ( ; 22 January 1572 – 31 March 1631) was an English poet, scholar, soldier and secretary born into a recusant family, who later became a clergy, cleric in the Church of England. Under royal patronage, he was made Dean of St Paul's ...

's poems was completed for the Muses' Library in 1895. Nicholson contributed to '' Notes and Queries'', '' The Athenæum'', ''The Antiquary'', and ''Shakespeariana''.

Notes

;Attribution {{DEFAULTSORT:Nicholson, Brinsley 1824 births 1892 deaths 19th-century Scottish medical doctors British scholars British book editors Alumni of the University of Edinburgh