Croker was described by Sir Walter Scott, who breakfasted with him at Lockhart's, as "little as a dwarf, keen-eyed as a hawk, and of easy pre-possessing manners,—something like Tom Moore." There is a whole-length of him, in oil, by Maclise, in the possession of Richard Sainthill, Esq., of Cork; and a pen sketch in the Dublin University Magazine, for August, 1849, greatly inferior to Maclise's outline here before us, accompanied by a long memoir, of which the materials were evidently furnished by himself. He will also be recognized in one of the figures in his fellow-townsman, Maclise's picture, "Snap-Apple Night;" and he appears, in very characteristic miniature, in the engraving of the Druidical remains at Gur Lough, in the Gentleman's Magazine, for February, 1833.
Lastly, should the curious reader pick up a volume which has belonged to Croker's library, he will find detailed with amiable vanity upon the book-plate,—a veritable curiosity among ex libris,—either indicating the possessor's residence, "Rosamond's Bower, Fulham," or "3, Gloucester Road, Old Brompton," the various learned societies, with dates of membership, to which he belonged; with the information, ad calcem that he was Founder and President (1828 to 1848), of the "Society of Noviomagus."[1]
It was at this latter residence that our amiable antiquary died, in the fifty-seventh year of his age, on August 8, 1854.
X.— MRS. NORTON.
"Fair Mrs. Norton!"—we are tempted to ejaculate with Fraser, — "whom can we better choose for a beginning of our illustrious literary portraits, when, diverging from the inferior sex, our pencil dares to portray the angels of the craft .^ " And what an exquisite delineation it is that we here have of the fairest of the " Three Graces," as the Sheridan sisterhood were called in their lovely spring-time,—of this Sappho of our days, as she was termed,—the " Byron of modern poetesses," according to the Quarterly,—beautiful "Boudhist," as she was "baptized " by "Balaam Bulwer! "A charming portrait, truly,—"whimsical," as D. G. Rossetti so well puts it, "as in the spirit of the series,—yet truly appreciative,—of that noble beauty which in Caroline Norton inspired the best genius of her long summer-day."
This installation of the gifted authoress of The Undying One must be taken as the fulfilment of a kind of promise, made some six months before, at the close of an eulogistic review of that poem (Fraser's Magazine, ii. 180), to give the lovely poetess a place in the "Gallery."
The terrible "Doctor" was evidently in his softer mood, as he illustrated with pen the tracing of the pencil of Maclise; Regina was looking
- ↑ The Noviomagians are a club composed exclusively of members of the Society of Antiquaries. Their professed object is the discovery of the site of the ancient city of Noviomagis,—perhaps the Noviomagos of Ptolemy. Some would place it in Surrey, some in Kent, and some in Sussex; but pending identification of the precise spot, the members dine together between the months of December and April.
