HIS INTERVIEW WITH DR. MANN.
Before he entered into a controversy with Doctor Blair, he deemed it prudent, owing to the state of sufferance in which Catholic priests then lived in Ireland, to obtain the sanction of the Protestant bishop of the diocese. To this end he waited on Doctor Mann at the episcopal palace. The interview is said to have been humorous in the extreme. O'Leary's figure, joined to an originality of manner, sterling wit, and an imagination which gave a color to every object on which it played, made him a visitor of no common kind; and as the bishop was not cast in the mould of "handsome orthodoxy," the meeting was long remembered by both parties. After some explanation, Doctor Mann gave his consent to the undertaking; in consequence of which the public were soon gratified by the appearance of his letters to Blair, whose discomfiture was so complete that he never wrote a public letter afterwards.