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LIFE

OF

SIR JOSEPH NAPIER.

CHAPTER I.

EARLY DAYS.

Every one is the son of his own works.- Cervantes.

LIVES of lawyers who have attained to eminence in their profession are always, from the special nature of their duties and from the peculiar combination of two distinct careers, framed more or less on the same lines. In the majority of cases we have the same early struggles to emerge from obscurity; the same success which follows upon opportunity grasped and made the most of; then an extensive practice; that curious union between the House of Commons and the bar so indispensable to the lawyer ambitious of the prizes of his profession; and finally the same successive occupancy of high office. The materials for such biographies are mainly to be found in the pleadings

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of the advocate, the speeches of the legislator, and the judgments from the bench, and hence are necessarily of a somewhat limited interest and technical character. The eminently successful career of Sir Joseph Napier offers few exceptions to the nature of these remarks. He was first the sound and skilled advocate rising daily in his calling; afterwards the active and prominent politician; and then one of the most careful and weighty judges ever elevated to preside over the laws of his country.

In him there was a combination of gifts which at the very outset marked him for the bar, and destined. him to exercise a distinct influence upon the fortunes of his nation. Endowed with a presence which was kindly yet dignified, with great powers of conversation developed by deep and judicious reading, and with that charm of manner characteristic of the better bred of his countrymen, his very appearance was an introduction in itself, and most favourably impressed all who came in contact with him. The face was singularly fine and full of intellect and refinement; the brow broad and lofty; the eyes well cut and keenly penetrating in their regard; the nose thin and shapely; the mouth well moulded, though somewhat too sensitive for a man; while in the expression of the face-especially later in life-there was that air of thought and deep attention which those whose

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