music, though admirable specimens of these exist; nothing of the language, dress, diversions, diet, and customs of the Irish. What then, it may be asked, does it contain? I answer, a dull, monotonous detail of domestic convulsions, a weak government, and a barbarous people."
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Lesley, John, Bishop of Clogher, was born in Scotland towards the close of the
16th century. He is described as a very
learned and accomplished man, who resided
on the Continent for many years, and was
high in favour with Charles I. In 1633 he
was translated from the see of Orkney to
that of Raphoe. By an expensive law-suit
he retrieved some of the alienated emoluments of the diocese ; and also built a
"stately palace" for himself and his successors, contriving it for strength as well
as beauty. On the breaking out of the
war in 1641, he took an active part for the
King, and at times evidenced in "action as
much personal valour as regular conduct."
The Bishop raised and manned a foot
company at his own charge, and bravely
defended his palace at Raphoe against
Cromwell's forces. Ware says: "He declared then against the Presbyterian as
well as the Popish pretences for religion;
and would neither join in the treasons nor
schism of those times, but held unalterably
to the practice as well as the principles of the Church of England." In 1661, after the
Restoration, he was translated to Clogher.
"He was a person of great temperance, and
was so great a stranger to covetousness that
he hardly understood money. . . He
wrote on the Art of Memory, and several
other curious and learned treatises; which
were designed for the publick, but were all
destroyed, with his library of many years'
collection, and several manuscripts which
he had gathered in foreign countries, partly
by the rapine of the Irish, and partly by
King William's army in 1690, long after
his death " He died at Glaslough in the
County ot Monaghan, in September 1671,
"aged 100 years or more," 118 and was there interred in the parish church. "118 339
Lesley, Charles, Rev., second son of
preceding, was born in Ireland about the
middle of the 17th century; educated at
Enniskillen, and admitted a fellow-commoner of Trinity College in 1664. There
he continued till he commenced M. A. He
then entered the Temple and studied law.
In 1680 he took orders, and seven years
afterwards became Chancellor of the Cathedral of Connor. He engaged in several
public disputations, notably with the Catholic Bishop of the diocese, "which he performed to the satisfaction of the Protestants and the indignation and confusion of the
Papists," though, as usual, both sides
claimed the victory. He opposed the
claims of the Catholics during James II.'s
sojourn in Ireland, but steadily refused
to take the oaths to King William and
Queen Mary; for this he was deprived of
his preferments, and he became the virtual head of the non-juring party. An able
and interesting Answer to Archbishop
King's State of the Protestants in Ireland,
printed anonymously in London in 1692,
is attributed to him. He followed James
II. to France, and we are told took much
pains to convert him to Protestantism.
Returning to Ireland in 1721, he died
13th April 1722,124 at his house at Glaslough in Monaghan. Dr. Johnson said
that "Leslie was a reasoner, and a reasoner who was not to be reasoned against."
Concerning his legal abilities Hallam
writes: "Leslie's case of the Regale and
Pontificate . . is full of enormous
misrepresentation as to the English law.
Leslie, however, like many other controversialists, wrote impetuously and hastily
for his immediate purpose." Macaulay
says of him: "His abilities and his connexions were such that he might easily have
attained high preferment in the Church of
England. But he took his place in the
front rank of the Jacobite body, and remained there steadfastly through all the
dangers and vicissitudes of three-and-thirty
troubled years. Though constantly engaged in theological controversy with Deists,
Jews, Sociuians, Presbyterians, Papists,
and Quakers, he found time to be one of
the most voluminous political writers of his
age. Of all the non-juring clergy he was
the best qualified to discuss constitutional
questions, for before he had taken orders
he had resided long in the Temple, and had
been studying English history and law,
while most of the other chiefs of the schism
had been poring over the Acts of Chalcedon, or seeking for wisdom in the Targum of Onkelos."
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34
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339
Lever, Charles James, novelist, was born 31st August 41† 1809,241 in Dublin, where his father was a professional man. He took his B.A. degree at the University of Dublin in 1827, and four years afterwards that of Bachelor of Medicine. Of a mercurial temperament, and endowed with a keen relish for social pleasures, medicine was little congenial to him. Nevertheless he pursued it with diligence, completed his studies at Gottingen, and entered upon practice in Ireland. When cholera was raging in 1832 he was settled in one of the northern counties, and acquired considerable reputation for his skill and devotion towards his patients.
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