Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 17.djvu/584

538 N O R N R Barnabas, founded by Bishop Patteson, where 150 Mela- nesian boys and girls receive education. The following are the main facts in the history of Norfolk Island. 1774. Island discovered by Captain Cook. 1788. Taken possession of by Philip G. King of the "Stirling" and twenty-four convicts from New South Wales. 1805. Settlement abandoned by order issued in 1803. 1826. Island made penal settlement for New South Wales convicts. 1842. Island transferred from New South Wales to Tasmania. 1856. Pitcairn Islanders to the number of 194 take the place of the convicts. 1867. Melanesian mission station settled at St Barnabas. 1882. Memorial church to Bishop Patteson erected at a cost of 5000, the windows being designed by Burne Jones and executed by W. Morris. NORICUM was the ancient name of the country south of the Danube, around the rivers Inn and Drave, and ex tending on the south to the banks of the Save. The original population appears to have been Illyrian, but in the great emigration of the Gauls the country was occu pied by a Celtic people, Taurisci or Norici. The latter name seems to be derived from their town of Noreia, now Neumarkt. The country is mountainous, and the soil poor, but it is rich in iron, and has always been one of the great European centres of the trade. A great part of the Roman weapons were made of Noric steel. The country was conquered by the Romans under Tiberius and Drusus in 15 B.C., but for a time retained its old constitution and the name of Regnum Noricum. See AUSTRIA, BAVARIA, CARINTHIA, &c. NORMANBY, COXSTANTINE HENRY PHIPPS, MARQUIS OF (1797-1863), bore an eminent, though not a leading, part in some of the greatest movements of this century. As governor of Jamaica he had charge of the distribution of the huge compensation to owners upon the abolition of slavery in the West Indies ; it fell to him as lord-lieutenant of Ireland to give effect to the Catholic Emancipation Act ; he was English ambassador at Paris during the revolution of 1848, and minister in Tuscany in the years immediately preceding the struggle for Italian unity. The son of the first earl Mulgrave, and born 15th May 1797, he passed through Harrow and Trinity College, Cambridge, and sat for the family borough of Scarborough as soon as he attained his majority. But, speaking in favour of Catholic emanci pation, and dissenting in other points from the family politics, he thought proper to resign his seat, and went to live in Italy for some two years. Returning in 1822, he was elected for Higham Ferrers, and made a considerable reputation by political pamphlets and by his speeches in the House. He was returned for Malton at the general elec tion of 1826, and enrolled himself among the supporters of Canning. Previous to this, in 1825, he made his appear ance as a novelist with Matilda ; and three years later, in 1828, he produced another, Yes and No. Of the brilliant band of fashionable novelists who started up as by a common impulse in those years, including Ward, Lister, Bulwer, Disraeli, Lord Normanby was probably the least impressive ; yet his Matilda ran through four editions in a year. There is a certain stiffness in the construction of his novels, as if he were either deficient in the story-teller s vivacity and fertility or, oppressed by his own sense of dignity, over-fastidious in his theory of composition. The novels are comparatively short, and move forward steadily to tragic catastrophes that present themselves ahead from a very early stage in the journey. The moral is so obtru sive that they may almost be called sermons in disguise. Especially is this true of Yes and No, in which two oppo site types of character, the man who says " Yes " with too great facility, and the man who says " No " with too great obstinacy and suspiciousness, are very skilfully con trasted. It was chiefly character that he aimed at, as became a statesman, and his characters were drawn with fulness and keen insight, though not without too much appearance of labour. A speech put into the mouth of one of his characters expresses very fairly Lord Normanby s political creed, a creed not uncommon among the aristocracy at the time of the Reform Bill : "I can t help thinking it but befits a gentleman to move methodically forward with the main body of the age in its regular march of mind, neither seeking foolish forlorn hopes in advance, nor lagging dis gracefully in the rear." Acting on this principle, Lord Normanby reached the zenith of his career between the age of thirty and forty ; after that he began to lag and to decline in political reputation. He succeeded his father as Earl Mulgrave in 1831, was sent out as captain- general and governor of Jamaica in the same year, and, in spite of certain defects of manner, gained such credit as an administrator that he was appointed lord -lieutenant of Ireland in 1835. It is significant of the reputation he then held that his appointment was received with enthusiasm as the beginning of a new order in Ireland ; and during his three years of office, one of the most peaceful periods in the history of Ireland, great improvements were made. It is disputed how much was due to him and how much to his subordinate Thomas Drummond. He was created marquis of Normanby in 1838, and held successively the offices of colonial secretary and home secretary in the last years of Lord Melbourne s ministry. From 1846 to 1852 he was ambassador at Paris, and from 1854 to 1858 minister at Florence. He died in London, 28th July 1863. The publication in 1857 of a journal kept in Paris during the stormy times of 1848 (A Year of Revolutions) brought him into violent controversy with Louis Blanc on questions of fact as well as of policy ; and his controversies with Lord Palmerston and Mr Gladstone, after his retire ment from the public service, on questions of French and Italian policy, showed him to have fallen behind " the regular march of the mind " of his age. NORMANDY (Terra Northmannorum, Northmannia, Normannia, Normendie, Normandie) is the name which was given to part of northern Gaul in consequence of its occupation in the early part of the 10th century by the Northmen, whose name was on Gaulish soil gradually changed into Normans. Till that time the land which has ever since borne the name of Normandy had no distinct name, nor any separate political being. In ecclesiastical geography it answers very nearly, but not quite exactly, Geogra- to the province of Rouen. This includes the archdiocese phical of Rouen and the six suffragan dioceses of Evreux, Lisieux, " un(i Seez, Bayeux, Coutances, and Avranches. Politically it was, at the time of the Scandinavian settlement, part of the great duchy of France, of which it took in nearly the whole of the sea-coast. The name " Neustria " is sometimes used as equivalent to Normandy ; but of the old Neustria Normandy formed only a small part. As France was cut off from Neustria, so Normandy was cut off from France. Normandy, in its widest extent, reached on the eastern side to the rivers Eu and Epte, of which the Eu empties itself into the English Channel near the town of that name, while the Epte flows in the opposite direction and joins the Seine near Vernon. These streams form the boundary during nearly, but not quite, the whole of their course. Along the Epte the boundary of the duchy forsakes that of the ecclesiastical province, as the diocese of Rouen stretched a considerable way on the French side of that river. To the west Normandy is parted from Britanny by the border stream of Couesnon, but the shape of the coast makes the actual frontier very small. To the south the boundary of Normandy towards the duchy of France and the great counties which were parted off from it mainly followed the ecclesiastical frontier. But the diocese of Seez stretched beyond the duchy, while the conquests of William I. added to Normandy part of the diocese of Le Mans, and therefore