Alexander I., his
eldest brother; suppressed with rigour and not a little severity a
formidable conspiracy which took form on his accession; took up arms
against Persia and wrested Erivan from its sway, struggled against both
the Poles and the Turks till his overbearing policy against the latter
provoked a coalition of France, England, and Sardinia to their defence in
the Crimean War, which was still going on when he died; in 1848 he aided
Austria in the suppression of the Hungarian insurrection (1796-1855).

NICHOLAS II., czar of Russia, born in St. Petersburg, son of
Alexander III., and his successor in Nov. 1894; was married on the month
of his accession to Princess Alice of Hesse-Darmstadt and granddaughter
of Queen Victoria through the Princess Alice, while his mother is a
sister of the Princess of Wales; his education under his father was
conducted expressly with a view to what might be required of him on his
accession to the throne; his ministers are in sympathy with himself, and
he has already (1899) distinguished himself by putting his finger on the
sore which is festering at the heart and is sucking up as a vampire the
life's blood of Europe; _b_. May 18, 1868.

NICHOLSON, JOHN, an Indian officer, born in Dublin, son of a
physician; served in the Sikh Wars, and at the outbreak of the Mutiny in
1857 in the Punjab crushed it in the bud; led the attack at the siege of
Delhi, Sept. 14, but fell mortally wounded as the storming party were
entering the Cabul Gate (1821-1857).

NICOBAR ISLANDS (7), a group of picturesque islands in the Indian
Ocean, S. of the Andaman Islands and midway between Ceylon and the Malay
Peninsula; 14 of the 20 islands are inhabited, chiefly by indigenous
Indians and Malays; after being in the hands of Denmark for upwards of
100 years, they were annexed by Britain in 1869; trade is carried on with
India in cocoa-nuts, ambergris, tortoise-shell, &c.

NICOLAITANS, a sect of heretics that arose in the Apostolic Church,
presumed to have been a party of professing Christians of Gentile
descent, who, after their profession, continued to take part in the
heathen festivals, and to have contributed to break down the distinction
between the Church and the world, so essential to the very existence of
the faith they professed, founded, as it is, no less absolutely on No to
the world than on Yea to God. See EVERLASTING NO and
EVERLASTING YEA.

NICOLE, PIERRE, French divine and moralist, b