Dr. O'Higgins resorts to what are termed equivalent phrases where
it suits him to enlarge the sense of the original, and to literal translation where the exact Latin word bears a significa- tion which it has lust in England, but which suits Dr. O'Hig- gins's purpose better than the equivalent. Speaking of the mur- ders, he renders " indirecta provocatio" by "indirect encourage- ment" ; a translation as false in philology as it is in spirit. The text says that the Sacred College "cannot in the least persuade itself that all this, which is put jiwth with so much noise, is true": Dr. O'Higgins uses the disparaging phrase so "ostentatiously pro- claimed." The Sacred Cullege asks "opportunas plenasque de hisce omnibus informationes, ut quvenani fides public's hujuemodi dffamationibus danda sit viler i possit"—" prompt and full in- formation on all these things, that it may see what credit is to be given to these injurious reports." Dr. O'Higgins, with an adroit selection of equivalent or literal translation, renders the passage —"seasonable and full information on all these things, that it may see what credit is to be given to such public defismations." The Bishop's translation implies that the Sacred College prejudges
the reports to be libellous ; but the Latin conveys no such mean- ing. A turn is given to the closing admonition to the priests, that, " Deo militantes, mundanis rebus se non immisceant, en- ixeque curent ne unit ex parts ministerium eorum vituperetur, et illi qui contra aunt nibil habeant dieere de ipsis": Dr. O'Hig- gins construes the latter part in this way—the priests "should earnestly take care that from no quarter their ministry be despised, and that those who are against them have nothing wherewith to reproach them." The Sacred College exhorts the priests to do so that their ministry be not blamed, and that their opponents have nothing to say against them : Dr. O'Higgins says their ministry must not be despised, and they must not incur reproach ; a form of admonition which might be held to sanction any formidable but professedly virtuous agitation. Dr. O'Higgins may hold that he acts so as not to be despised or reproached : he cannot say that he is not blamed,or that nothing is said against him. The object of this gently and adroitly perverted translation evidently is, to mislead the Roman Catholic laity of Ireland as to the real senti- ments and requirements of the Papal authorities.
In a letter to Dr. Crolly, the Roman Catholic Primate, Dr. O'Higgins suggests ways in which the information required at Rome should be supplied : exempli gratis— "I think also the Cardinal Fransoni] should be informed, that, under the name of legal right, the body of the landlords of Ireland are literally starving the poor, and doing so without a single remonstrance from our Lord-Lieutenant, or his employer, Lord John Russell; and that neither ever published a single word in vindication of the Archbishop of Tom, the Bishop of Elphin, and other Irish ecclesiastics, notwithstanding that they demonstrated the charges made against them and their priests to be the premeditated slanders of their enemies. Of course you will further state, that whilst the whole of the English and Irish Go- vernment press publish daily every sort of ruffian libels on ourselves and our clergy, they scarcely ever publish our defence."
Dr. O'Higgins very piously suggests effective means for testing the infallibility of the Sovereign Pontiff. One result of such enormous deviation from the truth is not likely to be overlooked by those who resort to it: the Roman authorities, distant, and imperfectly informed, will have before them the two conflicting statements—the facts, and the fictions like those suggested above ; and a compromise will be struck between the two : now it is evi- dent, that if the fiction takes a very wide berth indeed, the mid- dle course hazarded by the Sovereign Pontiff is likely to lean pro- portionately from the reality. Roman Catholic Peers and Mem- bers will hasten Lord Lansdowne's Diplomatic Relations Bill, in order that the Pope may be spared these wild assaults on his in- fallibility.
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