“When I first knew Caroline Sheridan she had not long been married to the Hon. George Norton. She was splendidly handsome, of an un-English character of beauty, her rather large and heavy head and features recalling the grandest Grecian and Italian models, to the latter of whom her rich colouring and blue-black braids of hair gave her an additional resemblance. Though neither as perfectly lovely as the Duchess of Somerset, nor as perfectly charming as Lady Dufferin, she produced a far more striking impression than either of them, by the combination of the poetical genius with which she alone, of the three, was gifted, with the brilliant power of repartee which they (especially Lady Dufferin) possessed in common with her, united to the exceptional beauty with which they were all three endowed. Mrs. Norton was exceedingly epigrammatic in her talk, and comically dramatic in her manner of relating things.... She was no musician, but had a deep, sweet contralto voice, precisely the same in which she always spoke, and which, combined with her always lowered eyelids (‘downy eyelids’ with sweeping silken fringes), gave such incomparably comic effect to her sharp retorts and ludicrous stories.... I admired her extremely.—1827.

“The next time ... was at an evening party at my sister’s house, where her appearance struck me more than it had ever done. Her dress had something to do with this effect, no doubt. She had a rich gold-coloured silk on, shaded and softened all over with black lace draperies, and her splendid head, neck, and arms, were adorned with magnificently simple Etruscan ornaments, which she had brought from Rome, whence she had just returned, and where the fashion of that famous antique jewellery had lately been revived. She was still ‘une beautÉ triomphante À faire voir aux ambassadeurs.’”

“The most beautiful of ‘the beautiful Sheridans,’ Caroline Norton will also live in the memory of her friends as one of the most fascinating of women. Her voice was exceedingly sweet and musical, her movements wonderfully graceful, and, with the solitary exception of Theodore Hook, whose rough, coarse wit spared no one, her queenly bearing won her general adulation and deference. Her face was a pure oval, her head was crowned by heavy braids of the darkest hair, while the warmth and light which suffused her expressive countenance gave her a somewhat un-English appearance. Her eyes were dark; black curly lashes swept over the warmly-tinted cheek; the lips were of geranium red; the teeth, dazzlingly white. Altogether she was a vivid piece of colouring, and as she was always very beautifully dressed, it did not require her literary reputation to make her at all times sought after and admired.”

“It seems but yesterday—it is not so very long ago certainly—that I saw for the last time the Hon. Mrs. Norton. Her radiant beauty was then faded, but her stately form had been little impaired by years, and she had retained much of the grace that made her early womanhood so surpassingly attractive. She combined, in a singular degree, feminine delicacy with masculine vigour; though essentially womanly, she seemed to have the force of character of man. Remarkably handsome she perhaps excited admiration rather than affection. I can easily imagine greater love to be given to a far plainer woman. She had, in more than full measure, the traditional beauty of her family, and no doubt inherited with it some of the waywardness that is associated with the name of Sheridan.”