Manchester Memoirs^ Vol. liv. {igio), No. 9. 3 



aristocratic Lady Kirkwall they were good enough to 

 print, and that if printed they were certain to sell. Sub- 

 scriptions were solicited and the poems were sent to press. 

 The forthcoming book of poems, written by a juvenile 

 prodigy of Liverpool birth, was naturally a subject of 

 conversation in literary circles in Liverpool. Moving in 

 those circles, and intimate with William Roscoe and other 

 friends of the Brownes, was Mr. Matthew Nicholson. 

 Becoming interested in the young poetess, Mr. Nicholson 

 entered into correspondence with Mrs. Browne, and a 

 close friendship followed. 



Matthew Nicholson, who was the first cousin of my 

 grandfather of the same name, was born at Liverpool in 

 June, 1746. He was educated at the then celebrated 

 school of the Rev. Philip Holland, at Bolton, and in 1762 

 became a student at the Warrington Academy, w^hich 

 filled amongst the dissenters of those days the place of 

 the universities, which were closed to them. Probably no 

 seat of learning had so large a proportion of distinguished 

 men on its teaching staff as had the Warrington Academy. 

 Amongst the tutors in Mr. Nicholson's time, or of his 

 acquaintance, were Joseph Priestley, F.R.S. (in whose 

 house he boarded), Dr. Aikin, John Holt, the mathema- 

 tician. Dr. Nicholas Clayton (Mr. Nicholson's brother-in- 

 law). Dr. John Taylor, author of the " Hebrew Con- 

 cordance" (to which all the English and Welsh archbishops 

 and bishops, with four exceptions, subscribed), and George 

 Walker, F.R.S., sometime President of this Society. In 

 1773 Mr. Nicholson became a partner in a mercantile firm 

 founded in Liverpool by his grandfather early in the i8th 

 century. In 1785 the business of the firm was divided, the 

 junior partner (my grandfather) remaining in Liverpool, 

 while the two other partners (Matthew Nicholson and his 

 brother Thomas) removed to Manchester as being a better 



