and still advise, the formation of a department of jurisprudence like that of education.

Learn to be just, just through impartial law,
Far as ye may, erect and equalise;

And what ye cannot reach by statutes, draw
Each from his fountain of self-sacrifice.

This is the work of social science, a work eminently Christian. The Divine Founder of our pure and practical religion, the greatest yet the lowliest of beings, was the gentlest and the kindest and the best, and they who would follow Him need not turn from the path which leads to the social welfare of others, nor reject the agencies which we here seek to invigorate and improve. This co-operation in duty may help to soften the severity, to subdue the pride of opinion, and nourish the spirit which should ever urge us to love our neighbour as ourself. In this season of prosperity, in this time of peace, how thankful am I to have the privilege of uniting with the elevated peer, the enlightened commoner, the sagacious statesman, and the thoughtful scholar, upon common ground for the common weal, under the blessing of God publicly and solemnly invoked.

189

CHAPTER VI.

LEISURE.

Silken rest

Tie all my cares up.-BEAUMONT and FLETCHER,
Four Plays in One, sc. 3.

Absence of occupation is not rest.

COWPER, Retirement.

UPON the fall of the Government of Lord Derby in the June of 1859, owing to the failure of its promised measure of reform, and the direction of its foreign policy, which, it was said, unduly favoured Austria, Napier once more, after a brief reign of power, was out of office. He resigned the Seals, but as a proof of the estimation in which his judicial ability was held, an attempt was shortly afterwards made to transfer him from Dublin to London. With the full approval of Lord Palmerston, who was again Prime Minister, and of Lord Campbell, then Lord Chancellor of Great Britain, Napier was requested to consent to have his name placed on the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. No sooner had he assented to this very flattering offer when it was unexpectedly discovered

that the Act of Parliament under which the Judicial Committee was constituted had not provided for the admission of ex-judges of Ireland or Scotland, confining the privilege only to those of England. Napier thereupon had to accept the will for the deed, and bear his disappointment with all the resignation he could summon.

Lord Campbell wrote to him as follows:

Stratheden House, June 28, 1860.

My dear ex-Chancellor, I am sorry to say that unforeseen difficulties have arisen in accomplishing the wish to introduce you into the Judicial Committee. I need not say, that these do not arise from any doubt in any quarter of your high qualifications. Cum talis sis utinam noster esses! But an obstacle presents itself which had not been attended to when the proposal was first considered, that according to the existing law the Crown has no power to make such an appointment; and there is great reluctance to interfere by legislation with the constitution of this tribunal. If one change were to be made there are various others which have been suggested and would be pressed in Parliament; and as the business before the Judicial Committee continues to be done in a manner very satisfactory to the public, the safer course seems to be not at present in any degree to tamper with it.

I remain,

Yours very truly,

CAMPBELL.

The Right Honourable Joseph Napier.

Nor was this the only testimonial to the great

talents Napier had displayed during his brief tenure of office upon the bench. Shortly after his surrender of the Seals, Lord Justice Blackburne wrote to him congratulating him in the highest terms upon the marked ability he had displayed in the performance of his duties as Chancellor in the Court of Appeal. From his old and valued friend Lord Eglinton he received the following letter:

Viceregal Lodge, July 1, 1859.

My dear Sir, I hope to have the pleasure of seeing you to-morrow and expressing to you how entirely I reciprocate your feelings on the termination of our official connection.

I think I am justified in saying that no two people could have pulled together with more perfect harmony than ourselves, and I have to thank you not only for the valuable assistance which your talents and experience enabled you to give me, but for the private confidence and total absence of formality and red-tapeism with which you have treated me.

I trust that though our official association is at an end our private friendship will remain during our lives, and you must also allow me to express my hope that your retirement from public life is only temporary.

Right Honourable J. Napier.

Believe me,

Very truly yours,

EGLINTON AND WINTON.

The judgments of Napier during the period of his holding the Seals will be found in volumes eight and nine of the Irish Chancery Reports. A selection

from his decisions has also been published in one volume by a warm friend and admirer, Mr. W. B. Drury, dedicated to Napier's old master Mr. Justice Patteson. There will be found in this volume,' writes Mr. Drury in his preface, carefully considered decisions of the Lord Chancellor on questions of trust, fraud, the Statute of Limitations, and other general heads of equity. Most of the judgments have been written-all have been revised by his own hand.'

In the last case heard by Napier-it was the case of Walker v. Taylor, and heard on June 16, 1859the Lord Chancellor having delivered judgment, thus concluded And here, for the present, I close the book, the great volume of Equity. To have been enrolled as a commentator-associated with the wise, the learned, and the good—

The noble living and the noble dead,

might more than satisfy the highest professional ambition. I have enjoyed, moreover, while here presiding, what to me at least has been a source of unmixed gratification-the household happiness may I call it ?-for which I am mainly indebted to the kindness of my brethren of the bar and the unceasing attention of the officers of the court. To both I am grateful. For all, I am deeply thankful to God.'