aded; at first their
invasions were mere raids for plunder, but at length they were satisfied
with no less than conquest and the permanent occupancy of the lands they
subdued, settling some of them on the shores of England and France, and
even in the S. of Italy; these invasions were common and frequent during
the whole of the 9th and the early part of the 10th centuries.

NORTHUMBERLAND (506), the most northerly county of England, lies on
the border of Scotland, from which it is separated by the Cheviots and
the Tweed; its eastern shore, off which lie the Farne Islands,
Lindisfarne, and Coquet Isle, N. of Durham, fronts the North Sea; is
fifth in size of the English counties; in the N. the Cheviot slopes form
excellent pasturage, but the Pennine Range towards the W. presents dreary
and less valuable moorland; on the W. are arable lowlands; Tweed, Tyne,
Till, Alne, Wansbeck, are the chief rivers. Its great coal-field in the
S.E. is the most celebrated in the world, and is the county's greatest
source of wealth, and includes upwards of 100 collieries; Newcastle,
Alnwick (county town), Hexham, and North Shields are the principal towns.
Within its borders were fought the battles of Otterburn, Homildon Hill,
and Flodden.

NORTHUMBRIA, one of the ancient English kingdoms; comprised the
eastern half of the island from the Humber to the Firth of Forth, and was
divided into the Northern Bernicia and the southern Deira; was founded in
547 by Ida the Angle.

NORTHWICH (14), a town in Cheshire, with springs in and around of
brine, from which salt has been procured for centuries.

NORTON, CHARLES EDWARD, American litterateur, born in Cambridge,
Massachusetts; has travelled a good deal in Europe; edited, with Lowell,
the _North American Review_ and the early Letters of Carlyle, as well as
the "Reminiscences," which had been too carelessly edited by Froude; _b_.
1827.

NORTON, MRS., English novelist and poet, _nee_ Sheridan,
granddaughter of Sheridan, authoress of "Stuart of Dunleath," "Lost and
Saved," &c., described by Lockhart as "the Byron of poetesses," figures
in Meredith's "Diana of the Crossways" (1808-1877).

NORWAY (2,000), a kingdom of North Europe, comprising the western
side of the Scandinavian peninsula, and separated from Sweden on the E.
by the Kjoelen Mountains; the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans beat upon its
long and serrated western seaboard, forcing a way up the many narrow and
sinuous fiords; Sogn