‘The Lady of La Garaye,’ founded upon an authentic Breton history, the Byronic note is considerably subdued, and the general effect more resembles Campbell. The gain in dignity and repose is nevertheless purchased by some loss of freshness. The poem was published by Macmillan & Co., in whose magazine her novel of ‘Old Sir Douglas’ appeared in 1867. She had previously published two novels, ‘Stuart of Dunleath’ (1851), which appears to contain much veiled autobiography, and ‘Lost and Saved’ (1863). These works evince more thought and sustained power than her poems, but can only be regarded as the work of an exceedingly clever woman without special vocation in this department. During her latter years she wrote much anonymous criticism, literary and artistic. On 24 Feb. 1875 Norton died. On 1 March 1877, being at the time confined to her room by indisposition, his widow married Sir William Stirling-Maxwell, bart. [q. v.], an old and attached friend. She died on 15 June following.
Mrs. Norton had three sons. The eldest, Fletcher, born 10 July 1829, entered the diplomatic service, was attaché at Paris, and was appointed in 1859 secretary of legation at Athens, but died at Paris on 13 Oct. before he could assume the office. The second, Thomas Brinsley, born 4 Nov. 1831, is described as ‘kindly, clever, handsome, but wild;’ he married an Italian peasant girl of Capri, ‘who turned out the best of wives and mothers,’ and in 1875 succeeded his uncle as fourth Lord Grantley. He died at Capri on 24 July 1877, leaving a son, who became fifth Lord Grantley. He was the author of an anonymous volume of verse entitled ‘Pinocchi,’ published in 1856. Mrs. Norton's third son, William, was killed by a fall from his pony in September 1842 at the age of nine.
Mrs. Norton's portrait has been frequently engraved, but, according to the editor of ‘Hayward's Correspondence,’ no satisfactory likeness either of her or of her sisters exists. She is depicted as ‘Justice’ in Maclise's fresco in the House of Lords; a copy, with a harp substituted for the balance, is in the possession of Lord Dufferin at Clandeboye House. A portrait by Mrs. Ferguson of Raith is in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery. The portrait of her engraved in Lord Dufferin's edition of his mother's poems is from a crayon drawing by Swinton. ‘Mrs. Norton,’ he says, ‘was a brunette, with dark burning eyes like her grandfather's, a pure Greek profile, and a clear olive complexion.’ Mrs. Norton and Lady Dufferin would have been equally surprised if it had been predicted that the poems of the latter would eventually be preferred to those of the more brilliant sister. Such, however, has come to be the case, and with justice, for the simple lyrics of Lady Dufferin frequently startle by the uncalculated strokes that belong only to genius, while Mrs. Norton's are always the exercises of a powerful but self-conscious talent. The emotion itself is usually sincere—always when her personal feelings are concerned—but the expression is conventional. She follows Byron as the dominant poet of her day, but one feels that her lyre could with equal ease have been tuned to any other note. Her standard of artistic execution was not exalted. Though almost all her lyrics have merit, few are sufficiently perfect to endure, and she will be best remembered as a poetess by the passages of impassioned rhetoric imbedded in her longer poems. Her social and conversational gifts were great, and were enhanced by her fascinating beauty. She had a bright wit and a strong understanding. Had she married as advantageously as her younger sister, wife of the twelfth Duke of Somerset, she must have played a distinguished part in society, and might have been a considerable force in politics. She was a gifted artist and musician, and set some of her own lyrics very successfully.
[Athenæum; Academy; Ann. Register; Horne's New Spirit of the Age, vol. ii.; Songs, Poems, and Verses by Helen, lady Dufferin, edited by the Marquis of Dufferin; Fitzgerald's Lives of the Sheridans, vol. ii.; Kemble's Records of a Girlhood; Hayward's Correspondence; Disraeli's Letters; Torrens's Memoirs of Lord Melbourne; Greville Memoirs, vol. iii.; Norton's English Laws for Women in the Nineteenth Century; Quarterly Review, vol. lxvi.]
NORTON, CHAPPLE (1746–1818), general, third son of Fletcher Norton, first baron Grantley [q. v.], born in 1746, entered the 19th foot, in which regiment, then serving at Gibraltar, he became captain in June 1763. In 1769 he was promoted to a majority in the 1st royal foot, and in 1774 became captain and lieutenant-colonel in the Coldstream guards. He served with the regiment in America, and distinguished himself in February 1780 by the capture of Young's House, near White Plains, an important American post, which cut off supplies from Sir William Howe's army in New York. He became brevet-colonel in November the same year, regimental-major in 1786, major-general in 1787, lieutenant-general in 1797, and general on 29 April 1802. He was appointed colonel of the 81st regiment in 1795, and of the 56th on 24 Jan. 1797.
Norton, who is described as a good and
