in the house for an address to the crown for a commission of inquiry into the inns of court, which was followed by useful reforms. In February 1856 Napier carried a resolution in favour of the appointment of a minister of justice for the United Kingdom. The dissolution of parliament, however, prevented further steps being taken. In the same session Napier spoke in opposition to the Sunday opening of the museums, and his speech has since been published by the Working Men's Lord's Day Rest Association.
When Lord Derby formed his second administration in February 1858, Napier became lord chancellor of Ireland, although his practice had been confined to common law. Among many letters of congratulation sent him was an address from three hundred clergymen of the church of Ireland, accompanied by a handsomely bound bible. His judgments as chancellor will be found in vols. vii. viii. and ix. of the ‘Irish Chancery Reports;’ a selection was published under his supervision and with his authority by Mr. W. B. Drury. Upon the fall of Lord Derby's government in June 1859 Napier retired. An attempt was then made, with the approval of Lord Palmerston and Lord Campbell, the lord chancellor, to transfer him to the judicial committee of the privy council in London; but it was found that the Act of Parliament under which the committee was constituted did not provide for the admission of ex-judges of Ireland or Scotland.
Thereupon Napier, who was thus without professional employment, travelled on the continent, spending the autumn and winter of 1860 in the Tyrol and Italy. On his return he mainly devoted himself to evangelical religious work, but he incurred much adverse criticism by abandoning his early attitude of hostility to any scheme of national education which should exclude the perusal of the scriptures from the protestant schools in Ireland. He had come to the conclusion that state aid was essential to any good system of education, and that no state aid could be expected unless the bible were omitted from the curriculum. He was vice-president and an eloquent advocate of the Church Missionary Society, and one of his best speeches (delivered at Exeter Hall on 30 April 1861) was in favour of the admission of the bible into the government schools of India. He also wrote pamphlets on the current topics of the day, penned the preface to John Nash Griffin's ‘Seven Answers to the Seven Essays and Reviews,’ and lectured on Edmund Burke and other eminent Irishmen to the Dublin Young Men's Christian Association, and published two volumes of lectures on Butler's ‘Analogy’ (1862–4). When the Social Science Association met at Liverpool in 1858, and at Dublin in 1861, Napier was on each occasion chosen president of the section of jurisprudence. He was unable to attend the earlier meeting, and his address on ‘Jurisprudence and Amendment of the Law’ was read by Lord John Russell. He was a constant attendant at the Church Congress until 1868, when the subject of his paper was ‘How to increase the Efficiency of Church Service.’ Many of his suggestions have since been adopted. In 1864 he was appointed a member of a royal commission for considering the forms of subscriptions and declarations of assent required from the clergy of the churches of England and Ireland. The commissioners issued their report in February of the following year. The ‘declaration of assent’ now made by priests and deacons is substantially the one drafted by Napier and submitted to his brother commissioners. At the close of the commission Dean Milman, in ‘Fraser's Magazine,’ declared that subscription to the Thirty-nine Articles was objectionable, and that the only subscription required was that to the Book of Common Prayer. These views Napier tried to refute in a lucid pamphlet published in 1865.
In the summer of 1866 Lord Derby formed his third administration, but Napier was passed over, and Francis Blackburne [q. v.] became lord chancellor of Ireland. Napier had made some enemies by his change of opinion on the church education question, and they had successfully urged that a slight deafness from which he had long suffered incapacitated him for the office. He, however, accepted Lord Derby's offer of the lord justiceship of appeal, rendered vacant by Blackburne's promotion. But the appointment excited hostile comment, and Napier retired so as not to embarrass the government. On 26 March 1867 he received the dignity of a baronetcy.
Napier was looked upon in England as the special champion of the Irish church, and both by speaking and writing he endeavoured to avert its disestablishment. From 1867 to his death he was vice-chancellor of Dublin University, and he summed up the case against Fawcett's proposal to throw open the endowments of Trinity College to all creeds (June 1867). In the same month he was appointed one of the twenty-six members of the ritual commission, and was constant in his attendance at the meetings. All the reports of the commission were signed by Napier, but the third and fourth with protests.
On 28 March 1868 Napier was recalled by Disraeli to professional life by his nomi-
