s for Plutarch's _Lives_, the
favourite reading of so many great commanders. He had many outdoor
tastes: riding, fishing, and shooting, and he was soon familiar with the
country-side. There was no need of classes or prizes to stimulate his
reading, no need of organized games to provide an outlet for his
energies or to fill his leisure time.

The confidence that his father had in the training of his sons is best
shown by the early age at which he put them in responsible positions.
Charles actually received a commission in the 33rd Regiment at the age
of twelve, but he did not see service till he was seventeen. Meanwhile
the young ensign continued his schooling from his father's house at
Celbridge, to which he and his brother returned every evening, sometimes
in the most unconventional manner. Celbridge, like other Irish villages,
had its pigs. The Irish pig is longer in the leg and more active than
his English cousin, and the Napier boys would be seen careering along at
a headlong pace on these strange mounts, with a cheering company of
village boys behind them. They were Protestants among older Roman
Catholic comrades, but they soon became the leaders in the school, and
Charles, despite his youth and small stature, was chosen to command a
school volunteer corps at the age of fourteen. At seventeen he joined
his regiment at Limerick, and for six or seven years he led the life of
a soldier in various garrison towns of southern England, fretting at
inaction, learning what he could, and welcoming any chance of increased
work and danger. At this time his enthusiasm for soldiering was very
variable. In a letter written in 1803 he makes fun of the routine of his
profession, as he was set to practise it, and ends up, 'Such is the
difference between a hero of the present time and the idea of one formed
from reading Plutarch! Yet people wonder I don't like the army!'

But this was a passing mood. When stirring events were taking place, no
one was more full of ardour, and when he came under such a general as
Sir John Moore he expressed himself in a very different tone. In 1805
Moore was commanding at Hythe, and Charles Napier's letters are aglow
with enthusiasm for the great qualities which he showed as an
administrator and army reformer. Like Wolseley seventy or eighty years
later, Moore had the gift of finding the best among his subalterns and
training them in his own excellences. After his own father there was no
one who had s