LESLIE. 375 Ireland, but we know not in what year. He was educated at a grammar school at Inniskillen, in Fermanagh, from. whence he was admitted a fellow commoner of Trinity College in 1664, where he remained till he took his degree of M. A. On the decease of his father, in 1671, he visited England, and entered himself of the Temple, where he studied the law for some years; but afterwards relinquished it and applied himself to divinity. In 1680, he was admitted into holy orders; and, in 1687, he be came chancellor of the cathedral church or diocese of Connor. About this time, he rendered himself parti cularly obnoxious to the Catholics of Ireland, by his zealous opposition to them, which was thus called forth. Roger Boyle, Bishop of Clogher, dying in 1687, Patrick Tyrrel was made titular bishop, and had the revenues of the see assigned him by King James. He formed a convent of friars in Monaghan, and fixing his habita tion there, held a public visitation of his clergy with great solemnity. Some subtle logicians attended him in this visitation, and he challenged the established clergy to a disputation;–Leslie accepted the challenge, and disputed to the satisfaction of the Protestants, although it hap pened, as it generally does at such contests, that both sides claimed the victory. He afterwards held another public disputation with two celebrated Catholic divines in the church of Tynan in Armagh, before a very numerous assembly of persons of both religions; the issue of which was, that Mr. John Stewart, a Catholic gentleman, solemnly renounced the errors of the church of Rome. As the Catholics had got possession of an episcopal see, they engrossed other offices too; and a Catholic high sheriff was appointed for the county of Monaghan. This proceeding alarmed the gentlemen in that county; who, de pending much on Leslie's knowledge as a justice of peace, repaired to him, then confined by the gout to his house. He told them, that it would be as illegal in them to per mit the sheriff to act, as it would be in him to attempt i t . But they insisted that h e (Leslie) should appear i n person
