Note 634 — Chapter XVII · THE REGENCY—STRUGGLE BETWEEN WHIG AND TORY CAMPS—O'LEARY AND THE PRINCE OF WALES

Father Buckley, the biographer of O'Leary, died soon after the date of the following letter. It notices a weakness, of which a paid purveyor of news, like Higgins, would be apt to take ready advantage. Shamado is likely to have been the more successful because his own character of a brain-sucker and betrayer had not then been unmasked. On December 7, 1869, Father Buckley writes from SS. Peter and Paul's, Cork: 'The Personal Memoirs have arrived, and I am much pleased with them. The sketch of O'Leary I am sorry I had not seen, to embody in my book. I fear, however, it would not have tended much to enhance the esteem of the good padre's character, inasmuch as, in the background of the picture, there is a strong steam of whisky-punch, and the narrative affords a strong confirmation of what Michael Kelly records that Father O'Leary, like himself, was rather partial to "Saint Patrick's Eye-Water."