Life of Robert Napier. By James Napier, MA. (W. Blackwood
and Sons. 12s. 6d. net.)—Robert Napier has been long left without a biography—he died in 1875—but it is welcome when it comes, and, we need hardly say, full of interest. Robert Napier, a scion of a hard-working, hard-headed race, after serving an apprenticeship to his father—he became an apprentice to save himself from the pressgang—went to Glasgow to find work, and succeeded so ill that he often "had to count the lamp-posts for his supper." But he was not of the kind to be beaten. Step by step he rose to eminence and wealth. The history of his life is, in fact, the history of steam navigation. We do not mean by this to claim for him anything like an exclusive title to the great achievements of the nineteenth century in this direction. But it is a fact that he had something to do with all the great advances made in this industry. After the necessary stage of neglect and hostility, he was allowed to work for the Admiralty, and made his way by sheer force of good service to a very high place indeed. A curious passage in his history is the Return moved for by a friend in Parliament when for a time hostile influences had triumphed. It set side by side the figures of Napier's ships and of those of a rival. The engines of five of the rival's ships cost £70,308 for 1,184 nominal horse-power, Napier's cost £27,360 for 575 nominal horse-power. The first gives .R.59 per horse-power ; the second £47. But the contrast of the coat of repairs is more striking. The rival's ships cost .£3,299, Napier's £104. It is warmly neces- sary to say that Robert Napier received no distinction from his own Government; the King of Denmark gave him the Dannebrog; but then the King of Denmark has not such an army of soldiers, sailors, and Civil servants to provide for.
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