CHARLES O'CONOR of BELANAGARE Restore blest patriot, to thy Country light 941.5 A postliminious Preface. con 2 The officiousness of some of Columbanus' secret abettors has forced from him a plenteous discharge of bile. Resuming his nom de guerre, Columbanus No. V. he professes to give to his countrymen the correspondence between the most Rev. Doctor Troy and himself, which the reader will find faithfully set forth in the postscript to this letter. It takes up little more than a page. His advertisement, which is twice printed in front of his work, announces, that "he has lately returned to this king"dom for the purpose of collating, during the summer months, "the MSS. of ancient Irish history, transcribed by him "from the Bodleian Library, with those deposited in Trinity "College." In order to afford his countrymen a specimen of his accuracy and fidelity in collating and transcribing, and quoting, and dealing out original documents to his countrymen, in that short correspondence he has taken the liberty of changing 15 words, of omitting 78, and inserting 186!!! materially altering the spirit and purport of the originals. It is to be presumed, that in his eagerness to come before the public on his native soil, he had drawn off the sheets containing his edition of that correspondence, and above 50 pages of the irrelevant matter of Harold, de Vecchiis, Dowdal, &c. before he saw a printed copy of my postscript. Knowing that to give the documents correctly, he cavalierly adds in the contents to his pamphlet, the reader will observe, that this is a second edition of both (i. e. of Doctor Troy's letter to him and of his to Doctor Troy) and that Doctor O'Conor has added one paragraph to his own!!! As if giving a second edition of original letters justified the variance! Compare. Compare (5 Col. 153.) “Read it ye sycophants—and blush, if any such ruin of expiring virtue as a blush remains," Columbanus (p. 11) says the only law, by which Doctor "O'Conor might feel himself bound in this respect is that of "the 6th session of the Council of Trent." "Deinde ut irre❝verentia vitetur singulis in suis dioceșibus interdicant, ne cui vago et ignoto sacerdoti, missas celebrare liceat; neminem << præterea qui publice et notorie criminosus sit, aut sancto ❝ altari ministrare, aut sacris interesse permittant. Doctor "O'Conor présumes to hope, that he is neither a vagus, nor "an ignotus, nor'a publice vel notorie criminosus, and that therefore he comes not within the purview of this decree; a "decree, which he most sincerely respects and most cordially "reveres." I call upon the Rev. and most learned Doctor for the dispensation, release, or enfranchisement either of Doctor Troy or of himself from the obligation of the decree of the 23d Session of the same Council, ch. xvi. "Nullus præterea clericus peregri66 nus, sine commendaticiis sui ordinarii litteris, ab ullo epis66 copo ad divína celebranda & sacramenta administranda admit"tatur." Did Dr. O'Conor produce to Dr. Troy the letters of recommendation from his ordinary, or the sentence of his interdict? He who reads my letter to Columbanus, will not call upon me to prove, that I have not in any part of it stood up for the 437988 |