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tents of these volumes has no doubt become antiquated, and many of the tentative meanings assigned to words may be rejected hereafter; still they will always be ac- knowledged to contain a great amount of useful and trustworth}' information, showing on every page the vast extent of Mr. Norris's reading; while those who use his work cannot but admire the singular candor and modesty with which he places before his fellow- students the results of his inquiries. The works hith- erto mentioned, while they are the principal, are b}^ no means the sole fruits of iMr. Norris's philological labors. For some time he paid considerable attention to the Celtic dialects, and in 1859 published in two volumes the text and translation of three Cornish dramas, con- stituting by far the greater portion of the existing relics of Cornish literature. Of other publications, we may mention A Specimen of the Vai Language of West Africa (1851) : — .4 Grammar of the Bornu or Kanuri Language (1853)-, and Dialogues, and a Small Portion of the New Testament in the English, A rabic, Haussa, and Bornu lAinguages (1853). A disposition naturally modest and retiring impeded the recognition of jMr. Norris's merits in the great world (his only honors were a foreign membership of the German Oriental Society and a Bonn honorary degree of doctor of philosophy) ; but none who had the happiness of his acquaintance, or who have carefully studied any of his works, will with- hold their tribute to such a rare union of excellences. Edwin Norris died Dec. 10, 1872. See English Cyclop. s. V. ; Allibone, Diet, of Brit, and A mer. A uthors, s. v. ; Presb. Qti. Rev. April, 1873, p. 385.
Norris, Henry Handley, an English divine, was born about 1771 ; studied at Newcomb's School, Hackney, and at St. Peter's College, Cambridge, where he graduated B.A. in 1797, and M.A. in 1806. He sub- sequently became perpetual curate of St. John's Chapel, Hackney, which was erected into the district rectorate of South Hackney in 1831 ; he was afterwards made prebendary of Llandaff in 1819, and of St. Paul in 1825. He died in 1851. His chief works are, A Practical Ex- position of the Tendency and Proceedings of the Bible Society (2d ed. Lond. 1814, 8vo) : — A respectful L^etter to the Earl of Licerpool on the Bible Society (Lond. 1822, 8vo); a vindication of it was published in 1823: — The Origin, Progress, and Existing Circumstances of the Lon- don Society for Promoting Christianity among the Jews; an Historical Inquiry (Lond. 1825, 8vo) : — The Good Shepherd; a Sermon on John x,\\ (funeral of the ven. archdeacon Watson) (Lond. 1839, 8vo). — Darling, Cy- clop. Bibliog. ii, 221 1. (J. N. P.)
Norris, John (1), an English divine and Platonic philosopher, was born at Collingborne Kingston, Wilt- shire, in 1G57. He studied at the University of Ox- ford, where he graduated, and of which he became fellow in U)80. He was an ardent admirer of Plato, and trans- lated i;(il)ert Waryng's Ejfigies amoris into English un- der tlie title of The Picture of Love Unveiled (Lond. 1682, 12mo). This work brought him into relations with Henry ]More (q. v.), the most eminent Platonic philos- opher of England at that time, and with two distin- guished women — lady iMasham and Mrs. Astell; Itut when, a few years afterwards, the tendency of Locke's philiisopliy to one extreme of belief provoked a contro- versy wliich travelled the length and breadth of Europe, he was found witli the opposite party — followers of Des Cartes and ^faleliranche. In 1&89 he was appointed to the curacy of Newton St. Lo, aiul in 16IU was transferred to that of Hemerton, near Sarum, where he died in 1711. Norris was a fine writer for strength and thought, and his sentiments are connnonly just. '• His philosophical activity," says Tiilloch, '-only commenced with the ter- mination of the Cambridge movement. He c^irried it forward to another age, but he did not himself belong to it, Norris, indeed, stands by himself in the history of English philos()[)hy, the solitarj' Platonist of the Rev- olution a;ra, ^vho handed on the torch of idealism into