e
celebrated Dr. Johnson. O'Leary was very anxious to be introduced to
that learned man, and Mr. Arthur Murphy took him one morning to the
doctor's lodgings. On his entering the room, the doctor viewed him from
top to toe, without taking any notice of him; and, at length, darting
one of his sourest looks at him, he spoke to him in the Hebrew language,
to which O'Leary made no reply. 'Why do you not answer me, sir?' 'Faith,
sir,' said O'Leary, 'because I don't understand the language in which
you are addressing me.' Upon this, the doctor, with a contemptuous
sneer, said to Murphy, 'Why, sir, this is a pretty fellow you have
brought hither. Sir, he does not comprehend the primitive language.'
O'Leary immediately bowed very low, and complimented the doctor in a
long speech in Irish, to which the doctor, not understanding a word,
made no reply, but looked at Murphy. O'Leary, seeing the doctor was
puzzled at hearing a language of which he was ignorant, said to Murphy,
pointing to the doctor, 'This is a pretty fellow to whom you have
brought me. Sir, he does not understand the language of the sister
kingdom.' The reverend _padre_ then made another low bow, and quitted
the room."

A NOLLE PROSEQUI.

At the time that Barry Yelverton was Attorney-General, himself and
O'Leary, while enjoying the beauties of Killarney, had the rare fortune
to witness a staghunt. The hunted animal ran towards the spot where the
Attorney-General and O'Leary stood. "Ah!" said Father Arthur, with
genuine wit, "how naturally instinct leads him to come to you, that you
may deliver him by a _nolle prosequi_!"

THE PRINCE OF WALES.

George the Fourth, when Prince of Wales, frequently had as guests at his
table Sheridan, Grattan, Curran, Flood, and Father O'Leary. Croly, in
his "Life of George the Fourth," says--"An occasional guest, and a
sufficiently singular one, was an Irish Franciscan, Arthur O'Leary, a
man of strong faculties and considerable knowledge. His first celebrity
was as a pamphleteer, in a long battle with Woodward, the able Bishop of
Cloyne, in Ireland.--O'Leary abounded in Irish anecdote, and was a
master of pleasant humor.

"Sheridan said that he considered claret the true parliamentary wine for
the peerage, for it might make a man sleepy or sick, but it never warmed
his heart, or stirred up his brains. Port, generous port, was for the
Commons--it was for the business of life--it quickened the circulation
and fancy together. F