The Press.
London, England, 1857-02-07 00:00:00

elution aintelligcnte.

SALFORD.—Mr. Langworthy was duly elected for
Salford on Monday last.
GREENWICH.—The returning officer has issued an
official notice fixing the nomination for Monday next,
at the hustings fronting St. Alphage Church, Green-
wich. The two candidates now in the field, Lieut.-
General Sir William Codrington and Colonel Sleigh,
are actively engaged in canvassing the electors, and
the friends of each are equally sanguine of success.
NEWPORT (ISLE OF W/GHT).—The now writ ordered
on Tuesday was received on Wednesday morning,
when the Mayor immediately appointed Monday next
for the day of nomination, and Tuesday for the day
of polling. Mr. Kinglake, it is said, stands no chance,
but he has not resigned.
SOUTIRMPTON.—TIIO election will take place on
Tuesday next. The writ was received on Wednesday
night, and the returning officers have fixed Monday
for the nomination, and Tuesday for the polling.

FEBRUARY 7, 1857.

ittraturt.

The Life and Opinions of General Sir Charles
James Napier,G.C.B. By Lieutenant-General
Sir W. Napier, K.C.B. Four Vols. Vols.

I. and 11. London : Murray.
WITH all respect for Sir William Napier, we
are sorry that the task of preparing these
memoirs did not fall into other hands. Sir
William is too prejudiced to supply us with
an impartial narrative of his brother's career ;
and his impetuosity of mind hurries him into
the most reckless assertion. The Napier habit
of selt•assertion continually bursts forth.
According to his narrative, no treatment was
good enough for the Napiers, while they met
only with neglect or tyranny. Whenever Sir
Charles Napier was engaged in controversy,
his opponents are painted in the blackest
colours, though from his hasty temper it was,
at least, as likely that he was right as wrong.
The opening sentence of the work is a key
to its whole character both in style and
spirit:—
This shall be the story of a man who never tarnished his
reputation by a shameful deed : of one who subdued
distant nations by his valour, and then governed them so
wisely, that English rule was reverenced and loved where
before it had been feared and execrated. For thus nobly
acting, the virulence of interested faction was loosed to do
him wrong ; honours were withheld, and efforts made to
depreciate his fame by successive Governments ; never-
theless, his fame has been accepted by the British people
as belonging to the glory of the nation.

This notion of the enmity of successive Govern-
ments is a proof of the vivacity and jealousy of
the Napier imagination always active in
both brothers to discover wrongs to justify a
display of indignation.
In the second paragraph of the narrative we
find an example of Sir William's carelessness
of statement. Lady Sarah Lennox —so ar-
dently admired by George 111. previous
to his marriage—was born, says Sir William,
in 1746 :
And when scarcely eighteen, George the Third offered
her his hand ; she refused, he persisted, and was finally
accepted, partly because of his apparently sincere passion,
partly from the influence of her brother•in law, the first
Lord Holland ; but then politicians worked on royal pride,
hurt by the first refusal, and the monarch fell back.
If Lady Sarah was born in 1746, and was
offered marriage by the King when she was
eighteen, the offer would have been made in
1764. The fact is, that the King was married
in the summer of 1761, three years previously.
Probably Sir William has mistaken the date
of Lady Sarah's birth. We notice the error
only as an instance of the carelessness with
which his statements are made.

In the accounts of Charles's childhood,
there is that silly desire to seek for evidences
of dawning genius which so frequently makes
both hero and biographer appear contemptible.
As an instance of the extreme susceptibility
of young Napier's nature, we are told :
When he could but just speak, hearing for the first time
the caw of a single crow, probably a melancholy one which
infancy could detect, he stretched forth his little hands,
and exclaimed with broken infantine accents :—Whal
walla, poor bird ? IVhat matte And only by repeated
assurances that the bird was not unhappy could he be
pacified.

How about his teething ? The facts we
suppose are forgotten, as nothing is said on
the subject. But we are informed that read-
ing in Plutarch how Philip, Sertorius, and
Hannibal were one-eyed, ho desired to lose
one eye as the token of a great general. From
young Napier's own revelations a better idea
may be gained of his early character than
from such apocryphal anecdotes. His im-
petuosity seems occasionally to have bordered
on frenzy. We meet with numerous such pas-
sages as these in the first specimens given of
his correspondence
I am a determined rake, in love with four misses at
once.

I read at least twenty books, and write three or four
letters in five minutes ; that is, the books are opened and
then shut, and the letters begun and then burned.
] begin to have a sane idea that I am mad.

Last night I ant up till two o'clock, writing on the old
subject of grievances, and lashing myself into a fury
with everything. Abusing the army, pulling off my
breeches, cursing creditors, and putting out the candle, all
in a minute, I jumped into bed, and lay there blaspheming,
praying, and perspiring for two hours, when bleep came.

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