Sir Charles James, G.C.B., was the eldest son of Colonel George Napier, comptroller of accounts in Ireland, and was born at Whitehall on the 10th August 1782. At an early age he removed with the family to Celbridge, a small town on the Liffey, about ten miles from Dublin, and there he attended school. By this time he held a commission in the 4th regiment, and was longing for an opportunity to wield his warlike weapons. An opportunity occurred during the Irish rebellion of 1798; and the boy-soldier bore himself with all the self-confident courage of a man. For the next ten years the most prominent incidents in his life were the changes which he made from one regiment into another. In 1800 he changed into the Rifle corps; in 1803 he was promoted to the staff of General Fox; and in 1806 he became a major in the 50th regiment. About this time large squadrons of troops were embarking for the French war. The fiery Napier chafed under the order that kept him in ignoble ease at home. At length in 1808 his regiment was ordered to the Peninsula, and he arrived in time to fight under his favourite general Sir John Moore. On the field of Corunna he led the 50th into the thickest of the battle, and was left, covered with wounds, in the hands of the enemy. His friends gave him up for lost; and were already disposing of his effects, when he arrived in England on patrol about two months after his capture. The reports of Wellington's victories soon rekindled his military enthusiasm, and in 1809 hurried him as a volunteer to the scene of war. For the next three years he shared in the perils and triumphs of the peninsular battles. He had two horses shot under him at Coa, and was taken up for dead on the field of Busaco. Promotion, hardly earned and long delayed, came at length in 1812, and drew him once more from active service. He was sent out to the Bermudas as lieutenant-colonel of the 102d regiment. A cruising expedition against America was fitted out in the following year, and Napier was appointed second in command. He was still employed in capturing vessels and making night descents on the coast of the United States, when the long-continued struggle with Napoleon was fast approaching a crisis. His return to Europe was hastened; but he arrived in time to find that the decisive blow had been struck three days before at Waterloo. With all its characteristic ardour his mind was next applied to study; and after an attendance of three years at the Military College he received a first certificate.

In 1825 Napier's talent for administration obtained for the first time a fair field of exercise, by his being appointed governor of the island of Cephalonia. His rule was characterized by an earnest and disinterested philanthropy. More than 100 miles of road were made; spacious streets were erected in the room of narrow dirty lanes; the administration of justice was reformed; and agriculture and commerce were encouraged and stimulated. At the same time, he co-operated with Lord Byron in the plan for the liberation of Greece, and would have accepted the offer of the chief command in that enterprise, had circumstances permitted. His career as a social benefactor was suddenly checked by his recall in 1830. Yet the Cephalonians com- Napier had been for about two years commanding the military district of the north of England, and managing to suppress the Chartist demonstrations without bloodshed, when he was appointed commander of the Bombay army in 1841. On arriving at his destination, he found that the British cause was endangered by the recent defeats and disasters in Afghanistan. It therefore became his chief aim to retrieve the national reputation. With this view he drew up a plan for the Afghan campaign, which received the approbation of the newly-appointed governor-general Lord Ellenborough. In 1842 he entered into active service as commander-in-chief in Scinde. This province was then under the military despotism of the Ameers, who, under cover of an ill-defined and ill-understood treaty made with Lord Auckland, the late governor-general, were cruelly oppressing their subjects, and carrying on a cunning system of intrigues against the British power. To define this crude treaty, to elevate the Scindians from their abject slavery, and to bring their tyrants to bay, were now the difficult tasks to which Charles Napier, at the age of sixty, with a constitution shaken by wounds and disease, and under an oppressive climate, addressed himself. The enterprise went rapidly on towards a successful issue. Early in 1843 the Ameers found themselves convicted of perfidy, and forced to the alternative of signing a new treaty or of resorting to open warfare. They chose the latter. Napier was immediately on the field, and was already aiming a sudden and decisive blow. This was the capture of Ennaum Ghur, a solitary fortress that stood in the middle of a waste wilderness of drifting sand, and was therefore considered the chief stronghold and ultimate refuge of the Ameers. By a laborious and ably-conducted march the British forces reached the desert castle, found it deserted, and shattered it to atoms with gunpowder. After thus achieving what the Duke of Wellington afterwards called "one of the most curious and extraordinary of all military feats," Napier returned to face the enemy in the field of battle. On the 17th February 1843 he confronted an army of 35,000 at Mecane. To oppose this overwhelming force he had only 2000 raw soldiers. Yet his bold tactics and fiery courage inspired his men with a restless valour. After a hard fight of four hours they defeated their foes, and drove them from the field. The Ameers resigned their swords, and the city of Hyderabad capitulated. In a short time, however, the conqueror was surrounded on all sides by hordes of wild Beloochees, and threatened in front by a large army under Shere Mohammed, surnamed "the Lion." Entrenching himself in Hyderabad, he dared his enemies to attack him, until he had contrived to procure a reinforcement. Then marching out at the head of 5000 men, he attacked and routed the 26,000 of "the Lion" at Dubba. "The Lion" retired to his native deserts, and soon returned with another army; but the brave barbarian was no match for the skilful English general. By the 8th June 1843 his force was hemmed in on all sides and forced to fight; his power was completely crushed; and the last blow was struck in the conquest of Scinde. Napier was now appointed governor of the province he had subjugated. Under the prostrating influence of the climate, the attacks of disease, and the more irritating attacks of intriguing malice, the old general began to rule the discordant elements of barbarism with the same fiery vigour and success with which he had swayed the fickle destinies of battle. The native laws were re-organized, an effective system of police was established, and all evil customs, such as suttee ship, infanticide, the murder of women, and the military tenure of land, were abolished. The Hindoo trader was protected, the Scindian slave was liberated, and the Beloochee cut-throat was tamed into a peaceful civilian. Commerce, suddenly springing into new life, made her principal seat at Kurachee; and the province, which was little else than a hunting forest for the Ameers, became in a few years a well-cultivated land, waving with rich harvests and enlivened by industrious villages. This work of reform would have been carried out still further had not Sir Charles Napier been compelled by the declining health of his wife to return home in 1847. He had not enjoyed his retirement long when the news of the disasters of the Sikh war reached England. The general voice of the nation called upon Napier to save once more the British honour in India. He was reluctant to expose his reputation again to his enemies in the Indian government. But the Duke of Wellington's laconic argument, "If you don't go, I must," overcame his unwillingness. He embarked in March 1849, and in forty-three days was in Bombay. The war by this time had been successfully ended by Lord Gough; but there were abuses that Napier considered as dangerous enemies as the Sikhs. Applying himself resolutely to the invidious task of reform, he travelled through the country, suppressing a mutinous spirit among the sepoys, and schooling the British officers in a severer discipline. At the end of two years the venerable warrior returned to England, worn out by his life-long and ill-appreciated labours in his country's service. He died on the 29th August 1853 at his seat of Oaklands, near Portsmouth, surrounded by the trophies of his many campaigns.

Sir Charles Napier was the author of Colonization in Southern Australia, Svo; History of the Colonies—Ionian Islands, Svo; Indian Misgovernments and Lord Dalhousie, Svo; Lights and Shades of Military Life, Svo; and Remarks on Military Law of Flogging, Svo. He was brother to the present Sir William Napier, and cousin to the present Admiral Sir Charles Napier. The former has written his Memoirs in 4 vols., Svo, London, 1857.

Napier, John, Baron of Merchiston, the distinguished inventor of logarithms, was the eldest son of Sir Archibald Napier of Edinbellie and Merchiston, by his first wife Janet Bothwell, and was born at Merchiston Castle, near Edinburgh, in 1550. After passing through the ordinary courses of liberal study at the university of St Andrews, he travelled in France, Italy, and Germany. Upon his return to his native country, his accomplishments soon rendered him conspicuous, and might have raised him to the highest offices of state; but declining all civil employments, he retired from active life to pursue those scientific and literary researches in which he subsequently made such uncommon progress. He applied himself chiefly to the study of mathematics, and of the Holy Scriptures; and in A Plain Discovery of the Revelation of St John, his first publication, he displayed great acuteness and striking ingenuity, but did not succeed in fathoming the mysteries of the Apocalypse. This work was printed abroad in several languages, particularly in French at Rochelle in the year 1602, in a quarto volume, revised by himself. But what has rendered his name for ever illustrious was his discovery of logarithms. That he had begun before the year 1594 the train of inquiry which led to this great achievement, appears evident from a letter to Crugerus, written by Kepler in the year 1624, wherein, mentioning the Canon Mirificus, he writes thus—"Nihil autem supra Nepieri-anam rationem esse puto; etsi Scotus quidem literis ad Tychonem, anno 1594, scriptis jam spem fecit canonis illius mirifici." This allusion agrees with the idle story mentioned by Wood in his Athenæ Oxonienses, and explains it in a way perfectly consonant to the rights of Napier as the inventor.

When Napier had communicated to Henry Briggs, mathematical professor in Gresham College, his wonderful Canon for Logarithms, that learned professor set himself to apply the rules in his Imitatio Nepierea; and in a letter to Archbishop Usher, written in the year 1615, he thus expresses himself:—"Napier, Baron of Merchiston, hath set my head and hands at work with his new and admirable logarithms. I hope to see him this summer, if it please God; for I never saw a book which pleased me better, and made me more wonder." The following passage from the Life of Lilly the astrologer gives a picturesque view of the meeting between Briggs and the inventor of the logarithms, at Merchiston, near Edinburgh:—"I will acquaint you," says Lilly, "with one memorable story related unto me by John Marr, an excellent mathematician and geometrician, whom I conceive you remember. He was servant to King James I. and Charles I. When Merchiston first published his logarithms, Mr Briggs, then reader of the astronomy lectures at Gresham College in London, was so much surprised with admiration of them, that he could have no quietness in himself until he had seen that noble person whose only invention they were. He acquaints John Marr therewith, who went into Scotland before Mr Briggs, purposely to be there when those two so learned persons should meet. Mr Briggs appoints a certain day when to meet at Edinburgh; but failing thereof, Merchiston was fearful he would not come. It happened one day as John Marr and the Baron Napier were speaking of Mr Briggs; 'Ah, John,' said Merchiston, 'Mr Briggs will not come.' At the very instant one knocks at the gate: John Marr hasted down, and it proved to be Mr Briggs, to his great contentment. He brings Mr Briggs up to the Baron's chamber, where almost one quarter of an hour was spent, each beholding the other with admiration, before one word was spoken. At last Mr Briggs began:—Sir, I have undertaken this long journey purposely to see your person, and to know by what engine of wit or ingenuity you came first to think of this most excellent help into astronomy, viz., the logarithms; but, Sir, being by you found out, I wonder nobody else found it out before, when now being known it appears so easy.' He was nobly entertained by the illustrious baron; and every summer after that, during the baron's life, this venerable man, Mr Briggs, went purposely to Scotland to visit him."

There is a passage in the Life of Tycho Brahe by Gas-sendi, which might lead some to suppose that Napier's method had previously been explored by Herwart at Hoenburg. But Herwart's work, published in 1610, solves triangles by prostapheresis, a mode totally different from that of logarithms. Kepler, who was ignorant that Napier had been decessed for more than two years, addressed a letter to him, dated 28th of July 1619 (prefixed as a dedication to his Ephemerides for the year 1620), in which he expresses his high admiration of the Canon Mirificus, and his astonishment and delight on first becoming acquainted with the importance of Napier's great discovery. In the archiepiscopal library of Lambeth the original of a letter still exists, addressed by Baron Napier to Anthony Bacon in 1596, entitled "Secret Inventions necessary in those days for the Defence of this Island, and notwithstanding Strangers, Enemies to God's Truth and Religion." These inventions consisted of burning mirrors designed to fire the enemies' ships at a distance, by reflecting the sun's rays, or "the beams of any material fire or flame," to a focus. It does not appear that the invention attracted much notice at the time, owing probably to the modesty or humanity of the author, who, in relation to this matter, remarked on his deathbed, that the instruments of human destruction "should never be increased by any new conceit of his."

Baron Napier's last work was his Rabdology and Promp-tuary, published in 1617, and dedicated to the Chancellor Seton. He died at Merchiston on the 4th of April of the same year, in the sixty-eighth year of his age.

Napier was twice married. By his first wife, who was a daughter of Sir James Stirling of Keir, he had only one son, named Aronaid. He was appointed a privy councillor by James VI., under whose reign he also held the offices of treasurer-depute, justice-clerk, and senator of the college of justice; and by Charles I. he was raised to the peerage. By his second wife, a daughter of Sir James Chisholm of Cromlix, he had a numerous family of sons and daughters.

We have two Lives of the inventor of logarithms; one by the late Earl of Buchan, with an analysis of Napier's printed works by Dr Walter Minto, published in 1787; the other by Mr Mark Napier, advocate, published in 1834; both in 4to. (For additional information respecting this illustrious mathematician, see Logarithms.) The following is a correct list of his different publications:

1. A plaine Discovery of the whole Revelation of Saint John; set downe in two treatises: the one searching and proving the true interpretation thereof; the other applying the same paraphrastically and historically to the text. Set forth by John Napier L. of Merchiston young. Edinburgh, printed by Robert Waldegrave, 1603, 4to. In republishing this work in 1611, the author subjoined "A resolution of certaine doubts, mov'd by some well-affected bretheren." The fifth edition was printed at Edinburgh, 1645, 4to. It was translated into French by George Thomson, and printed at Rochelle, 1692, in 4to. On the title, it is said to have been revised by the author himself ("revenu par lui-même"), and was reprinted in 1605, and again in 1607, in 8vo.

2. Mirifici Logarithmorum Canonis Descriptio, ejusque usu, in utraque trigonometria, ut etiam in omni Logistica Mathematica amplissimi, &c., explicatio. Edinburgi, ex officina Andreae Hart, 1614, 4to.

3. Rabdologia, seu Numerationis per Virgulas libri duo: cum Appendice de expeditissimo Multiplicationis Promptuario. Quibus accessit et Arithmetica Locallis Liber unus. Edinburgi, excudebat Andreas Hart, 1617, 12mo. Reprinted at Lyons in 1626, and again in 1628, 12mo.

4. Mirifici Logarithmorum Canonis Construction, et cum ad naturales ipsorum numeros habitudines; una cum Appendice, de alla eaque praestantiori Logarithmorum specie condenda. Quibus accessero Propositiones ad triangula sphærica facillime calculo resolvenda, &c. Edinburgi, excudebat Andreas Hart, 1619, 4to.

This posthumous work was published by the author's third son, Robert Napier. Some copies of it occur, along with the Canonis Description, having a general title-page for both, dated 1619, the original title of 1614 being cancelled. Both works were reprinted at Lyons in 1620, 4to; and the first, followed with copious "Observations," was included in Baron Mauser's large collection, entitled Scriptores Logarithmici, vol. vi., London, 1807, 4to.