Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 41.djvu/226

 now defaced. He married an illegitimate daughter of Lord Zouche. Another Sampson Norton was a vintner in Calais in 1528, and his house was assigned to the French for lodgings in 1532. 

NORTON, SAMUEL (1548–1604?), alchemist, was the son of Sir George Norton of Abbots Leigh in Somerset (d. 1584), and was great-grandson of Thomas Norton (fl. 1477), of Bristol [q. v.] He studied for some time at St. John's College, Cambridge, but appears to have taken no degree. On the death of his father, in 1584, he succeeded to the estates. Early in 1585 he was in the commission of the peace for the county, but apparently suffered removal, for he was reappointed in October 1589, on the recommendation of Godwin, bishop of Bath and Wells (, Annals, vol. iii. pt. ii. p. 462). He was sheriff of Somerset in 1589, and was appointed muster master of Somerset and Wiltshire on 30 June 1604.

Norton was the author of several alchemistic tracts, which were edited and published in Latin by Edmund Deane, at Frankfort, in 4to, in 1630. The titles are: 1. ‘Mercurius Redivivus.’ 2. ‘Catholicon Physicorum, seu modus conficiendi Tincturam Physicam et Alchymicam.’ 3. ‘Venus Vitriolata, in Elixer conversa.’ 4. ‘Elixer, seu Medicina Vitæ seu modus conficiendi verum Aurum et Argentum Potabile.’ 5. ‘Metamorphosis Lapidum ignobilium in Gemmas quasdam pretiosas,’ &c. 6. ‘Saturnus Saturatus Dissolutus et Cœlo restitutus, seu modus componendi Lapidem Philosophicum tam album quam rubeum e plumbo.’ 7. ‘Alchymiæ Complementum et Perfectio.’ 8. ‘Tractatulus de Antiquorum Scriptorum Considerationibus in Alchymia.’ A German translation of the treatises was published in Nuremberg in 1667, in a work entitled ‘Dreyfaches hermetisches Kleeblat.’ Portions of the work in manuscript, brought together before Deane edited his volume under the title of ‘Ramorum Arboris Philosophicalis Libri tres,’ are in the British Museum (Sloane MS. 3667, ff. 17–21, 24–28, and 31–90), and the Bodleian Library (Ashmolean MS. 1478, vi. ff. 42–104). Norton was occupied on the work in 1598 and 1599. Among the Ashmolean MSS. (1421[26]) is a work by Norton entitled ‘The Key of Alchimie,’ written in 1578, when he was at St. John's College, and it is dedicated to Queen Elizabeth; an abridgement is in the Ashmolean MS. (1424[38.3]). In 1574 Norton translated Ripley's ‘Bosome Booke’ into English. Copies of it are in the British Museum (Sloane MSS. 2175, ff. 148–72, 3667, f. 124 et seq.) 

NORTON, THOMAS (fl. 1477), alchemist, was a native of Bristol, and probably born in the family mansion built towards the close of the fourteenth century, on the site of which now stands St. Peter's Hospital (see, Itinerary, ed. Nasmith, p. 207). His father was doubtless the Thomas Norton, bailiff of Bristol in 1392, sheriff in 1401, mayor in 1413, and the ‘mercator,’ who represented the borough of Bristol in the parliaments of 1399, 1402, 1411, 1413, 1417, 1420, and 1421. The alchemist seems to have been returned for the borough in 1436. According to Samuel Norton [q. v.], Thomas Norton was a member of Edward IV's privy chamber, was employed by the king on several embassies, and shared his troubles with him when he fled to Burgundy. The old house in Bristol remained in the possession of the family till 1580, when Sir George Norton, grandson of Thomas the alchemist, sold it to the Newton family. The Nortons afterwards resided at Abbots Leigh in Somerset.

Norton probably studied alchemy under Sir George Ripley [q. v.] At the age of twenty-eight he visited Ripley, and entreated to be taught the art. Ripley, soon perceiving his ability and earnestness, agreed to make him his ‘heire unto this Arte.’ He became possessed of the secrets in forty days. Norton's zeal does not appear to have been rewarded. Twice, he says, he had succeeded in making the elixir of life only to have the treasure stolen from him; once by his own servant, and again by a merchant's wife of Bristol, who is reported, without apparent foundation, to have been the wife of William Canynges [q. v.] Fuller, without giving his authority, states that Norton died in 1477, having financially ruined himself and those of his friends who trusted him. A Thomas Norton of Bristol in 1478 made himself noticeable by accusing the mayor of high treason, and challenging him in the council-room to single combat. It may have been the alchemist, and the date of the writing of his ‘Ordinal’ may have been mistaken for that of his death. It has been