nation to a vacancy in the judicial committee of the privy council (sitting at Westminster) caused by the death of Lord Kingsdown. For six years he was frequent in his attendance on the committee, and his judgments are reported in ‘Moore's Privy Council Cases’ (new ser. vol. v. seq.) Appeals from the admiralty and from the supreme courts of New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Hong-Kong, and the Cape of Good Hope were the cases which chiefly fell within his province, and he sat in judgment on the three notorious ecclesiastical suits, the Bishop of Capetown v. the Bishop of Natal, Martin v. Mackonochie, and Sheppard v. Bennett.
Upon the disestablishment of the Irish church Napier took an active part in its reconstruction. He helped largely in the revision of the prayer-book, opposing the introduction of any material alterations. During the parliament of 1870, Disraeli frequently consulted him on Mr. Gladstone's Irish land legislation. About this time a controversy arose with regard to the constitution of the university of Dublin, and its relation to Trinity College, and the matter was referred to Napier as vice-chancellor. The results of his investigation appeared in his tract, entitled ‘The College and the University,’ which were warmly approved by Lord Cairns, the chancellor of the university.
In 1874, when Disraeli once more became prime minister, the great seal of Ireland was put in commission, with Sir Joseph as chief commissioner, while the new lord chancellor, Ball, was detained in the House of Commons. The death of Napier's eldest son (3 Dec. 1874) impaired his health, and at the close of 1878 he was attacked by paralysis. In January 1881 he resigned his seat on the judicial committee of the privy council. From Merrion Square, where he had long dwelt, he had removed after 1874 to South Kensington. In 1880 he retired to St. Leonard's-on-Sea, and there he died on 9 Dec. 1882, in the seventy-eighth year of his age. He was buried in Mount Jerome cemetery, Dublin. There are tablets to his memory in the mortuary chapel of the cemetery and in St. Patrick's Cathedral. His coat of arms is in a memorial window in the hall of Gray's Inn. He was rightly described after his death as an indubitable type of the protestantism of the North of Ireland in its best form. But he inherited a full share of the indomitable energy and talent of his Scottish ancestry. The extreme views which he had adopted in religion and politics in his youth were modified in his later years by a spirit of toleration which rendered him popular even with his opponents.
In 1828 he married Charity, the second daughter of John Grace of Dublin, a descendant of the ancient family of the Graces of Courtstown, Kilkenny. They had two sons and three daughters. While at South Kensington he and Lady Napier erected a Napier ward in the Brompton Hospital, in memory of their elder son, and through life he was a generous contributor to church and other charities.
Among his publications not already mentioned were many separate addresses, and an ‘Essay on the Communion Service of the Church of England and Ireland.’ His ‘Lectures, Essays, and Letters,’ with an introduction by his daughter, appeared in 1888. A portrait is prefixed to the latter volume, and a second portrait, in his robes as lord chancellor, is given in his life by Ewald.
[Life of Sir Joseph Napier, Bart., Ex-Lord Chancellor of Ireland, from his private Correspondence, by Alex. Charles Ewald, F.S.A., 1887 (another edition, 1892); Dublin University Mag. xli. 300; Times, 12 Dec. 1882; Hist. of the Lord Chancellors of Ireland from 1186 to 1874, by Oliver J. Burke, A.B.T.C.D., Barrister-at-law; Law Times; Burke's Baronetage.]
NAPIER, MACVEY (1776–1847), editor of the ‘Edinburgh Review,’ born on 11 April 1776 at Kirkintilloch, Dumbartonshire, was a son of John Macvey, merchant, of Kirkintilloch, by a daughter of John Napier of Craigannet, Stirlingshire. He was christened Napier, but afterwards changed his name to Macvey Napier in deference to the wish of his grandfather. He was educated in the school of his native parish. In 1789 he went to the university of Glasgow, and two or three years later to Edinburgh. He there studied law, and in 1799 was admitted to the society of writers to the signet. His tastes, however, were rather literary than legal. In 1798 he made acquaintance with Archibald Constable [q. v.], who then kept a bookshop, and was just setting up as a publisher. They formed a close friendship, which lasted till Constable's death. In 1805 the writers to the signet appointed him their librarian, and for the next thirty years, according to a successor, Mr. Law, he was ‘the life and soul’ of every enterprise in ‘connection with the library.’ In the same year he wrote an article upon De Gerando in the ‘Edinburgh Review,’ and was subsequently a regular contributor. In 1814 he undertook to edit for Constable a supplement to the sixth edition of the ‘Encyclopædia Britannica,’ which was ultimately completed in six volumes in 1824. He went to London in 1814 with an introduction
