Robert Nicoll

In 1833 he began to contribute to Johnstone's Magazine (later Tait's Magazine), and in the next year, his apprenticeship was cancelled. He visited Edinburgh, and was kindly received there, but obtained no employment. However, in 1835, he published Poems and Lyrics with Edinburgh printer William Tait, which was dedicated to the popular Scottish author "Mrs. Johnstone" (Christian Isobel Johnstone). In critics' opinion, the best of Nicoll's lyrics are those written in the Scottish dialect. Due to this circumstance, and his precocity as a writer of verse and prose, Nicoll was often compared to fellow Scottish poet Robert Burns.[5] One of Nicoll's most famous poems, featured in The Monthly Miscellany of Religion and Letters in 1840 is "God is Everywhere," which begins:[6]

After this publication, Nicolls opened a circulating library at Dundee, and in 1836 became editor of the Leeds Times. Additionally, he was a member of the provisional committee of the Leeds Working Men's Association and of the Leeds Radical Association. While in Dundee, he took on a work partner, a local tradesman who was also in desperate need of money. Robert realized that this partnership was a poor choice since the library business could barely sustain one person, let alone two. In 1836, Robert gave the business over to his partner completely. As he had left the business without gaining anything, his losses concerned his mother, who was in a great measure responsible for his ambitions.[7]

In the midst of a frigid winter and worsening health, on 9 December 1836, Robert Nicoll married Alice Griffiths Suter (or Soutar), the niece of Mr. Peter Brown, editor of the Dundee Advertiser in Dundee.[8][9] Though the marriage was happy, the couple were under immense financial stress to pay off Nicoll's debts, support themselves, and care for Alice's mother, Mrs. Suter, who came to live with them.[10]

Espousing pronounced Radical opinions, Nicoll overtaxed his slender physical resources in electioneering work for Sir William Molesworth in the summer of 1837. Due to the stress and pure exhaustion of the election, he was obliged to resign his successful editorship due to his decreasing health. His final letter to his mother dated 13 September 1837 admits the severity of his illness and explains that he did not tell her because he knew it would keep her unsettled. His appetite lessened due to his medications, accelerating the conclusion of his prolonged decline.[11] He died on December 7, 1837, at the house of his friend William Tait, at Trinity, near Edinburgh, after a long battle with an illness caused by stress, exhaustion and lack of proper appetite and rest. He is buried in North Leith Burial Ground on Coburg Street in Edinburgh, Scotland.[12]

In 1844, the second edition of Poems and Lyrics appeared with an anonymous memoir of the author by Christian Isobel Johnstone. An appreciation of Nicoll's character and his poetry was included in Charles Kingsley's article on Burns and his School in the North British Review for November 1851. In 1884, Peter Robert Drummond wrote a detailed autobiography entitled, Life of Robert Nicoll, Poet. The poem "We are Lowly" was set to music by Sophia Dobson Colett.[13]