Richard Lalor Sheil’s satirical account of the contest between Doyle and Magee, situated at Clongowes Wood College where the Jesuits have taken Archbishop Magee in order to rid him of a variety of demons it was believed he was possessed by:
Having thus expelled the devil of avarice, Father Kenny was proceeding to eject the devil of polemics, when it was suggested that Dr Doyle was the best qualified theologian to perform this operation. Accordingly Father Kenny yielded his place to the Bachelor of Coimbra, and the Bishop advanced to the offices of exorcism. He did not, however, adopt the ordinary ritual of diabolical ejection; but in order to allure this devil out, who he knew was always prompt and willing to appear, he challenged him to a controversial disputation respecting the comparative claims of the two rival religions, when instantly a direful hissing was heard and the devil of polemics sprang from the Doctor into the midst of the fraternity.
The young Jesuits immediately assailed it, and the Rev. Mr. Esmonde laid his hand boldly upon the fiend; but the fierce adder turned upon him and giving him a formidable sting, he was compelled to let him loose. The fiend went hissing in triumph around the chapel, spitting its venom on the images of the saints and crucifixes, rearing itself aloft, and erecting itself upon its burnished spires. It must be owned that, however hateful its venomous qualities, it was not destitute of beauty, and its brilliant skin and glossy scales were appropriately emblematic of the Doctor’s intellectual qualifications. It was manifest that Dr Doyle was the only divine competent to contend with this devil, and he was loudly called upon to attack it. The fiend, who did not at first appear to entertain any dread of the Carlow theologian, turned round, and seemed to collect and concentrate all its power to make a single dreadful spring upon him; but Dr Doyle subdued it with a single word. He merely articulated ‘Plagiarism’! and instantaneously the serpent shrunk back, and made an effort to escape; but Dr Doyle set his foot upon his head, and crushing it to the ground, commanded it to confess the misdeeds which it had caused the doctor to perpetuate. The fiend, after twisting and contorting itself in vain, assumed a human voice, and answered—
That it was the devil of polemics
And all religions have gone amiss
Since he flung his fierce antithesis,
If discord rages through the land,
If controversy’s furious band,
From north to south and east to west,
The country with their howls infest,
The doctor has the fearful merit
Of having raised this frantic spirit,
That long has set, and will for years
Still set the people by the ears.
Now, holy father, I entreat you
Since I could never yet defeat you
And since ’tis by opposing me
You owe your fame in theology,
And if you lose an antagonist,
Your name in the papers will be miss’d,
I humbly pray you, J.K.L.,
Don’t trample me too soon to hell,
But long in Kildare Street let me dwell.
’Twould never answer me or you,
That neither should have nought to do
‘No!’ exclaimed Dr Doyle; ‘I will drive thee from the face of the country.’
He was about to put his menace into execution, when there was a general remonstrance from the Jesuits, who felt the force of the devil’s logic and the cogency of the last argument.
Notes
1. Quoted in Fitzpatrick, Doyle, vol. II, pp. 22–3.