uperior
shrewdness and information; subsequently to his seventh year he tended
cattle in the summer months, to procure the means of attending the
parish school during the other portion of the year. From his childhood
fond of reading, books were his constant companions--in the field, on
the highway, and during the intervals of leisure in his father's
cottage. In his thirteenth year, he wrote verses and became the
correspondent of a newspaper. Apprenticed to a grocer and wine-merchant
in Perth, and occupied in business from seven o'clock morning till nine
o'clock evening, he prosecuted mental culture by abridging the usual
hours of rest. At the age of nineteen he communicated a tale to
_Johnstone's Magazine_, an Edinburgh periodical, which was inserted, and
attracted towards him the notice of Mr Johnstone, the ingenious
proprietor. By this gentleman he was introduced, during a visit he made
to the capital, to some men of letters, who subsequently evinced a warm
interest in his career.

In 1834, Nicoll opened a small circulating library in Dundee, occupying
his spare time in reading and composition, and likewise taking part in
public meetings convened for the support of Radical or extreme liberal
opinions. To the liberal journals of the town he became a frequent
contributor both in prose and verse, and in 1835 appeared as the author
of a volume of "Poems and Lyrics." This publication was highly esteemed
by his friends, and most favourably received by the press. Abandoning
business in Dundee, which had never been prosperous, he meditated
proceeding as a literary adventurer to London, but was induced by Mr
Tait, his friendly publisher, and some other well-wishers, to remain in
Edinburgh till a suitable opening should occur. In the summer of 1836 he
was appointed editor of the _Leeds Times_ newspaper, with a salary of
L100. The politics of this journal were Radical, and to the exposition
and advocacy of these opinions he devoted himself with equal ardour and
success. But the unremitting labour of conducting a public journal soon
began materially to undermine the energies of a constitution which,
never robust, had been already impaired by a course of untiring literary
occupation. The excitement of a political contest at Leeds, during a
general parliamentary election, completed the physical prostration of
the poet; he removed from Leeds to Knaresborough, and from thence to
Laverock Bank, near Edinburgh, the residence of his fri