(honourable mrs.norton.)

born 1808. died 1877.

THE brilliancy and attractiveness of the Sheridans has already been commented upon; but of the whole literary portion of the race—commencing with and excepting the witty Richard Brinsley—not one has been so distinguished as Caroline Elizabeth Sarah, the second daughter of Thomas Sheridan, and the grand-daughter of the great dramatist.

She was brought up, like her sisters, Lady Dufferin and the Duchess of Somerset, in comparative retirement at Hampton Court. Their mother, who was the daughter of Colonel and Lady Elizabeth Callander, was a wise and good woman, and carefully educated her three beautiful daughters. The eldest made a happy marriage; the youngest, one equally happy and brilliant; and the second sister, and the subject of this memoir, became the wife of a man who ill-treated her and held her fair fame up to public scorn.

When Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Sheridan was about sixteen, she attracted the attention of the Hon. George Chapple Norton, brother of Lord Grantley. He proposed to her mother for her, who refused the offer on the plea of her daughter's youth. Three years later he again proposed, and in her nineteenth year Miss Caroline Sheridan became the Hon. Mrs. Norton, the name by which she is best known in literature. In the meantime, however, she had become acquainted with and deeply attached to a gentleman, whose early death alone hindered their union.