Life
1804-1882; b. Belfast; taught by J. Sheridan Knowles; TCD lawyer, later
TCD MP; Attorney General for Ireland under Lord Derby (1852); Vice Chancellor
TCD 1867, privy councillor of GB 1868; lawyer. ODNB, lord chancellor of
Ireland (1858-59); involved in evangelical work; endeavoured to avert
the disestablishment of the Church in Ireland and worked on its reconstruction;
vice-chancellor TCD. CAB ODNB
Works
Lectures, Essays, and Letters of Rt Hon. Sir Joseph Napier, Bart. (Dublin
1888) [cited in Thomas H. D. Mahoney, Burke and Ireland (Harvard
1960)].
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References
Belfast Public Library holds Napier, J., Butler’s Argument
on Miracles (1862), and An Address to the Dublin Oratorical and Literary
Institute (1849).
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Quotations
TCD Hist.: Address delivered before the Dublin Historical and Literary
Society, on the evening of the 21 June 1828 at the close of the session
by Joseph Napier AMTCD (Dublin: Bentham and Hardy, Cecilia St. 1828),
30pp; prefatory reference to motion by James Whiteside at the Rotunda.
Spec. ‘The noble and evelevted style of Chatham, the philosophic
imagery of Burke, the skilful rhetoric of Pitt, the pathetic and overpowering
eloquence of Sheridan, the philanthropic vigour of Fox, and the commanding
and captivating brilliance of the lamented Canning, were not accidental
attributes alone of natural genius, but the result of diligent and laborious
study ... In our own country, famed for its native eloquence, we find
that all its illustrious orators received their primary impulse from ...
the College Historical Society. [17; ...] I may appeal with satisfaction
to the names of our eminent countrymen, Swift, Goldsmith, and Edmund Burke.
Names, which shed lustre on the University [... &c.; 19] (Pamph. in
Library of Herbert Bell.)
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