The Sun.
London, England, 1844-03-27 00:00:00

THE NAPIER FAMILY.

Dashing and clever fellows, and alert alike with
sword and pen, are these Napiers, one and all of
them. There is the stout Commodore, who, since
he was the bulk of a midge or a middy, has kept
before his eyes Westminster Abbey and a duke-
dom, and who, by doing so, has become at least
already a count and a hero. There is the General,
conqueror of Sinde, and a true chip of the same
block, as his deeds show. There is the Colonel,
among a hundred rivals, as yet, and ever to be,
the historian, par excellence, of the great Peninsular
wars. And here is a scion of the same stock, a
Lieutenant-Colonel, whom the family energy has
spirited on to expend his leisure hours, in many
a distant land, in the warfare of the chase, sometimes
rendered pretty serious business by the objects of it
being tigers, wild-boars, and others of your " fearful
wild •fowls," disposed on occasion to die real " game."
We might mention others, too, that are note-worthy
among these now extant Napiers. Napiers, do we
say ? Perhaps the word should rather be Scotts.
The fathers of the gallant men alluded to branched
off from the common parent tree of Merchiston, hut
whether or not they did so after it had been grafted
upon the stem of Thirlestane, is what we are in
some doubt about. To speak more plainly, the pro-
per paternal name of the baronial house of Napier,
since the commencement of the eighteenth cen-
tury, has been Scott, Sir Walter Scott of Thirles-
tane having then married the heiress of the
Napiers; and it is hinted in the Life of Sir Walter
Scott, that the Lords Napier now represent the male
line of the house of Scott, the Buccleuch branch
being descended from a female. The meaning of this
genealogical gossip is, that these heroic modern
Napiers of ours, besides sharing the blood of the
illustrious inventor of the logarithms, are probably
the true representatives of the bold border-riders
who "rose from Branxholm readily" in the days of
old. Queen Elizabeth once asked the chief of the
Scotts how he dared to break into her dungeon-for-
tress of Carlisle. " What is there, Madam, that a
man may not dare ?" was the reply. That sort of
ancestry would well fit the victors of Acre and Sinde.
—Scotsman. _ _

[The preceding notice refers to Colonel Napier's
" Scenes and Sports in Foreign Lands," and gives on
the whole a correct genealogy of the Napiers. The
author of the work, however, does not belong to that
family ; but has been adopted by Sir Charles Napier,
and is the son of his wife by a former marriage.]

GATHERINGS EXTRAORDINARY.

-
A venerable pair, man and wife, and both highly
respectable people, died lately in Galloway, within a
day of one another, whose effects, if brought to sale,
would furnish matter for one of the most curious ca-
talogues that was perhaps ever submitted by an au-
tioneer to the attention of the public ; and we can
easily imagine how our crack artiste in that line, Mr.
George Dunbar, would luxuriate over so unique an
employment. Amidst the popular reports abroad on
the subject, it is difficult to arrive at the exact truth ;
but, as we have taken some pains to inquire into the
facts of the case, the following will be found a close
approximation :—Deposits of silver coin, secreted in
places where no one would have ever dreamed of look-
ing. for such arttcles ; one parcel, carefully wrapped in
a piece of rag, found in the corner of a lumber
drawer ; others in paper crammed into an old bas-
ket, or hid in outhouses, or some equally unpromising
corner. These coins appear to have been shut out
from the light of day for a number of years, from
the different values they represent, such as Is. 6d.,
Is. 3d., 2s. 6d., and 55., and had become, in conse-
quence, not only tarnished, but nearly as black as
soot itself. There were also gold coins, foreign as
well as British, of very small values up to 51., with
a great variety of different articles, the fancy of the
party appearing to have been to have a something of
everything. Of these let the following specimens
suffice : —Eight richly ornamented riding. whips,
18 unbroken pieces of linen, 30 pairs of
good sheets, 20 dozen of towels, about 250 rich
coloured silk handkerchiefs, three dozen thimbles
of divers metals, 30 pairs of scissors, and one
gold pair ditto, 100 pair of silk stockings, 30 gowns
(made and unmade), 16 women's bonnets, a lot of
shoemakers' waxed threads, with bristles attached,
coffin-lacing, and a great number of bottles of wine
and spirits of all qualities. Part of these were found
in an old tea-chest, supposed to contain nothing but
rubbish; but when the assistant to a professional
gentleman,. engaged in inventorying the effects,. was
directed to throw it out,..k ikelY ff9P4_thFq hiding 7.

pld.ces• seventeen bottles of wines and spirits, some of
the former Champagne. But there was an endless
army of other nick-nacks, an enumeration. of which
would occupy too much space, if not exhaust-the
patience of the general reader. The husband.,
in this case, was a great pigeon-fancier for
many years, and paoksessed a very large col-
lection of these birds, which she regularly fed
and cleaned with his own hands, and which in-
cluded nearly all the varying breeds known in the
world ; and, although a lengthened Period has inter-
vened,we still recollect himpointing out a curious fact in
natural history—viz.; that every time the turtle-dove
coos, it lifts its right foot. And that such is lite-
rally the fact, was proved by ocular demonstration.
He had also a number of fine canaries ; but all his
feathered favourites had been dispersed, since his
death, among friends and acquaintances residing
within the locality which knew him so long
and well, but shall now knew him no more. Many of
the doves were exceedingly beautiful, and even valu-
able to persons desirous of forming a collection on an
extended scale.—Dumfries Courier.