Sympathy;
an excellent parish priest, - looking upon Christianity as a
life and not a dogma; beloved by all, for he had a kind
thought and a kind word for every needy or sick being in his
parish.
With such qualities, the man always predominated over the
priest. Hence his large-hearted charity and indulgence for
the faults - nay, crimes - of others. Yet, if taken aback by
an outrage, or an act of gross stupidity, which even the
perpetrator himself had to suffer for, he would momentarily
lose his patience, and rap out an objurgation that would
stagger the straiter-laced gentlemen of his own cloth, or an
outsider who knew less of him than - the recording angel.
A fellow undergraduate of Napier's told me a characteristic
anecdote of his impetuosity. Both were Trinity men, and had
been keeping high jinks at a supper party at Caius. The
friend suddenly pointed to the clock, reminding Napier they
had but five minutes to get into college before Trinity gates
were closed. 'D-n the clock!' shouted Napier, and snatching
up the sugar basin (it was not EAU SUCREE they were
drinking), incontinently flung it at the face of the
offending timepiece.
This youthful vivacity did not desert him in later years. An
old college friend - also a Scotchman - had become Bishop of
Edinburgh. Napier paid him a visit (he described it to me
himself). They talked of books, they talked of politics,
they talked of English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, of
Brougham, Horner, Wilson, Macaulay, Jeffrey, of Carlyle's
dealings with Napier's father - 'Nosey,' as Carlyle calls
him. They chatted into the small hours of the night, as boon
companions, and as what Bacon calls 'full' men, are wont.
The claret, once so famous in the 'land of cakes,' had given
place to toddy; its flow was in due measure to the flow of
soul. But all that ends is short - the old friends had spent
their last evening together. Yes, their last, perhaps. It
was bed-time, and quoth Napier to his lordship, 'I tell you
what it is, Bishop, I am na fou', but I'll be hanged if I
haven't got two left legs.'
'I see something odd about them,' says his lordship. 'We'd
better go to bed.'
Who the bishop was I do not know, but I'll answer for it he
was one of the right sort.
In 1846 I became an undergraduate of Trinity College,
Cambridge. I do not envy the man (though, of course, one
ought) whose college days are not the happiest to look back
upon. One should hope that however profitably a young man
spends his time at the University, it is but the preparation
for something better.
