PERSONAL

I went to court to-day, on purpose to present Mr. Berkeley, one of your Fellows of Dublin College, to Lord Berkeley of Stratton. That Mr. Berkeley is a very ingenious man, and great philosopher; and I have mentioned him to all the ministers, and have given them some of his writings, and I will favour him as much as I can. This I think I am bound to, in honour and conscience, to use all my little credit toward helping forward men of worth in the world.-SWIFT, JONATHAN, 1713, Journal to Stella, April 12.

Yesterday arrived here Dean Berkeley, of Londonderry, in a pretty large ship. He is a gentleman of middle stature, of an agreeable, pleasant, and erect aspect. He was ushered into the town with a great number of gentlemen, to whom he behaved himself after a very complaisant manner. 'Tis said he proposes to tarry here with his family about three months.-NEW ENGLAND WEEKLY COURIER, 1729, January 24, Newport Letter.

Whereas the Revd Dean Berkeley has lately produced a valuable collection of books, and sent them to Harvard College, voted yt ye thanks of y Corporation be returned by y President to ye Dean for the above donation, procured and sent by him, and yt he be desired to make proper acknowledgements, on behalf of y Corporation, to those gentlemen who have contributed to so literal a benefaction.PRESIDENT AND FELLOWS OF HARVARD COLLEGE, 1733, Sept. 3.

Manners with Candour are to Benson giv'n, To Berkeley, ev'ry Virtue under Heav'n. -POPE, ALEXANDER, 1738, Epilogue to the Satires, Dialogue ii, v. 72-73.

The newspapers say the Bishop of Cloyne, is dead; there is (if so) a great man gone. His country people are much disobliged at his settling his son at Oxford, and think that an university that trained him up was worthy of his son.-DELANY, MARY GRANVILLE, 1753, Letter to Mrs. Dewes, Jan. 23; Correspondence, ed. Llanover, vol. III, p.197.

In this respect I would with pleasure do justice to the memory of a very great though singular sort of man, Dr. Berkeley, known as a philosopher, and intended founder of a University in the Bermudas, or Summer Islands. An inclination to carry me out on that expedition, as one of the young professors on his new foundation, having brought us often together, I scarce remember to have conversed with him on that art, liberal or mechanic, of which he knew not more than the ordinary practitioners. With the widest views, he descended into a minute detail, and begrudged detail, and begrudged neither pains nor expense for the means of information. He travelled through a great part of Sicily on foot; clambered over the mountains and crept into the caverns to investigate its natural history, and discover the causes of its volcanoes; and I have known him sit for hours in forgeries and founderies to inspect their successive operations. I enter not into his peculiarities, either religious or personal; but admire the extensive genius of the man, and think it a loss to the Western World that his noble and exalted plan of an American University was not carried into execution. Many such spirits in our country would quickly make learning wear another face. -BLACKWELL, THOMAS, 1753-55, Memoirs of the Court of Augustus, vol. II, p. 277.

[Newport] Three miles from the town, is an indifferent wooden house, built by Dean Berkeley, when he was in these parts: the situation is low, but commands a fine view of the ocean, and of some wild rugged rocks that are on the left hand of it. They relate here several stories of the Dean's wild and chimerical notions, which, as they are characteristic of that extraordinary man, deserve to be taken notice of : one, in particular, I must beg the reader's indulgence to allow me to repeat to him. The Dean had formed the plan of building a town upon the rocks which I have just now taken notice of, and of cutting a road through a sandy beach which lies a little below it, in order that ships might come up and be sheltered in bad weather. He was so full of this project, as one day to say to one Smibert, a designer, whom he had brought over with him from Europe, on the latter's asking some ludicrous question concerning the future importance of the place: "Truly you have very little foresight, for, in fifty years time, every foot of land in this place will be as valuable as the land in Cheapside." The Dean's house, notwithstanding his prediction, is at present nothing better than a farm-house, and his library is converted into the dairy. BURNABY, ANDREW, 1759-60, Travels through the Middle Settlements in North America.

He was idolised in England before he set off for America. He used to go to St. James's two days a-week to dispute with Dr. Samuel Clarke before Queen Caroline, then Princess of Wales, and had a magnificent gold medal presented to him by George the Second; but he complained of the drudgery of taking part in these useless disputes. BERKELEY, GEORGE MONCK, 1789, Literary Relics, Preface.

Berkeley, afterwards the celebrated Bishop of Cloyne, owed to Swift those introductions which placed him in the way of promotion.-SCOTT, SIR WALTER, 1814, Memoirs of Jonathan Swift.

Malebranche, it will give you pleasure to hear, was murdered. The man who murdered him is well known: it was Bishop Berkeley. The story is familiar, though hitherto not put in a proper light. Berke

ley, when a young man, went to Paris, and called on Père Malebranche. He found him in his cell cooking. Cooks

have ever been a genus irritabile; authors still more so: Malebranche was both: a dispute arose; the old father, warm already, became warmer; culinary and metaphysical irritations united to derange his liver he took to his bed, and died. Such is the common version of the story: "So the whole ear of Denmark is abused." The fact is that the matter was hushed up, out of consideration for Berkeley, who (as Pope justly observes) had "every virtue under heaven" else it was well known that Berkeley, feeling himself nettled by the waspishness of the old Frenchman, squared at him; a turn-up was the consequence: Malebranche was floored in the first round; the conceit was wholly taken out of him; and he would perhaps have given in; but Berkeley's blood was now up, and he insisted on the old Frenchman's retracting his doctrine of Occasional Causes. The vanity of the man was too great for this; and he fell a sacrifice to the impetuosity of Irish youth, combined with his own absurd absurd obstinacy.-DE QUINCEY, THOMAS, 1827-54, On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts; Works ed. Masson, vol. XIII, p. 32.

Ancient learning, exact science, polished society, modern literature, and the fine arts, contributed to adorn and enrich the mind of this accomplished man. his contemporaries agreed with the satirist in ascribing

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"To Berkeley every virtue under heaven." Adverse factions and hostile wits concurred only in loving, admiring, and contributing to advance him. The severe sense of Swift endured his visions; the modest Addison endeavoured to reconcile Clarke to his ambitious speculations. His character converted the satire of Pope into fervid praise, even the discerning, fastidious, and turbulent Atterbury said, after an interview with him, "So much understanding, so much knowledge, so much innocence, and such humility, I did not think had been the portion of any but angels, till I saw this gentleman."

Of the exquisite grace and beauty of his diction, no man accustomed to English composition can need to be informed. His works are, beyond works are, beyond dispute, the finest models of philosophical style since Cicero. Perhaps they surpass those of the orator, in the wonderful art by which the fullest light is thrown on the most minute and

evanescent parts of the most subtile of human conceptions. Perhaps, also, he surpassed Cicero in the charm of simplicity. -MACKINTOSH, SIR JAMES, 1830, Second Preliminary Dissertation to Encyclopædia Britannica.

There are few men of whom England has better reason to be proud than of George Berkeley, Bishop of Cloyne. To extraordinary merits as a writer and thinker, he united the most exquisite purity and generosity of character; and it is still a moot-point whether he was greater in head or heart.-LEWES, GEORGE HENRY, 1845-46, Biographical History of Philosophy, p. 547.

It may be said of Berkeley, without exaggeration, that, in point of virtue and

benevolence, no one of the sons of men has exceeded him. Whether we consider his public or his private life, we pause in admiration of efforts uncommonly exalted, disinterested, and pure.-CLEVELAND, CHARLES D., 1848, A Compendium of English Literature, p. 512.

Whenever a letter of Bishop Berkeley's appears, it shows him always the pure, the gentle, and the virtuous, the gentleman and the divine, the most beautiful character of that generation, the moral footprints of whose life are to this day visible on American soil.-REED, HENRY, 1855, Lectures on English Literature from Chaucer to Tennyson, p. 405.

cause.

No prominent man of that day enjoyed so many permanent and eligible friendships. Satire, then so much in vogue, was melted into kindness, and criticism softened to eulogy, when his name occurred in verse, letter, or conversation. Swift could not sympathize with his dreams, yet he earnestly advocated his Addison laid aside his constitutional reserve to promote Berkeley's wishes. Pope made an exception in his favor, and suffered encomium to remain on his musical page unbalanced by censure. "I take you,' says one of his letters, inviting the dean to Twickenham, "to be almost the only friend I have that is above the little vanities of the town." Atterbury declared, after an interview with him: "So much understanding, so much innocence, and such humility, I did not think had been the portion of any but angels, until I saw this gentleman." It

is related by Lord Bathurst, that, on one occasion, when several members of the Scriblerius Club met at his house to dine, it was agreed to rally Berkeley, who was also invited, upon his American scheme. The latter heard the merry banter with the utmost good-nature, and then asked permission to reply; and, as his noble host afterwards declared, "displayed his plan with such an astonishing and animating fiery eloquence and enthusiasm, that they were struck dumb, and, after some pause, rose all up together, with earnestness, exclaiming, 'Let us set out immediately!" When he determined to make Oxford his abode, he tendered the resignation of the bishopric of Cloyne; but the king refused to accept it, declaring that he "should live where he pleased and die a bishop." "He is," writes Warburton, 'a great man, and the only visionary I ever knew that was."-TUCKERMAN, HENRY T., 1857, Essays Biographical and Critical, p. 251.

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Bishop Berkeley was not only a philosopher, he was a man. His being was not starved upon the meagre fare of speculation, but nourished by all the generous currents of existence. A life full of active service to his kind, full of the warm impulses of a spontaneous, frank, open-hearted Irish nature-a sensibility so keen as to lead him even to Quixotisms and oddities of kindness-give such a warm background to his philosophy as no other great thinker within our recollection can equal. A man who is ready, at an age when men are supposed to consider their own comfort, to sacrifice himself in one of the least comfortable of missionsa man moved in later years to pause in his philosophy in order to promulgate tarwater-grand specific for all the physical ills of humanity-one who feared neither poverty nor neglect nor derision for what seemed to him at the moment the best he could do for his fellow creatures, -is such a man as is rarely met with in the sphere of philosophy. No mental system has called forth such contemptuous criticism, rude laughter, and foolish condemnation-none has been denounced as so visionary and unreal; yet Berkeley is the one philosopher of modern times who brings the race within the warmest circle of human sympathies, and casts a certain interest and glow of light from his own

nature upon metaphysics themselves. OLIPHANT, MARGARET, 1869, Historical Sketches of the Reign of George II., Blackwood's Magazine, vol. 105, p. 4.

The man who stands out as one of the noblest and purest figures of his time: that Berkeley from whom the jealousy of Pope did not withhold a single one of all "the virtues under heaven;" nor the cynicism of Swift, the dignity of "one of the first men of the kingdom for learning and virtue;" the man whom the pious Atterbury could compare to nothing less than an angel; and whose personal influence and eloquence filled the Scriblerus Club and the House of Commons with enthusiasm for the evangelization of the North American Indians; and even led Sir Robert Walpole to assent to the appropriation of public money to a scheme which was neither business nor bribery.-HUXLEY, THOMAS HENRY, 1871, Bishop Berkeley on the Metaphysics of Sensation, Macmillan's Magazine, vol. 24, p. 147.

Yale College is fortunate in the possession of a portrait of Berkeley, painted in this country by Smibert, an English artist, who accompanied Berkeley to this country. The Berkeley Divinity School honors him in its name. The seat of the University of California, at the extreme limit of that westward course of empire to which Berkeley's eyes were turned, is, owing to the happy suggestion of the present President of the Johns Hopkins University, most appropriately named Berkeley, and the portrait of the philosopher adorns its walls. There will be academic shrines to his memory in this country as long as our land shall endure.MORRIS, GEORGE S., 1880, British Thought and Thinkers, p. 231.

The greatest of the sons of Ireland who came to us in those days was George Berkeley, and he, like Penn, reposed hopes for humanity on America. Versed in ancient learning, exact science, and modern literature, disciplined by travel and reflection, adverse factions agreed in ascribing to him "every virtue under heaven." Cherished by those who were the pride of English letters and society, favored with unsolicited dignities and revenues, he required for his happiness, not fortune or preferment, but a real progress in knowledge. The material tendencies of the age in which he lived were hateful to his

purity of sentiment; and having a mind kindred with Plato and the Alexandrine philosophers, with Barclay and Malebranche, he held that the external world was wholly subordinate to intelligence; that true existence can be predicted of spirits alone.-BANCROFT, GEORGE, 1883, History of the United States, pt. iii, ch. xv.

Though it be true, therefore, thatphilosophy apart-Berkeley effected little; though he did not write enough to rank in the first class among men of letters, nor perform enough to be counted a successful man of action; though he was neither a great social power, nor a great missionary, nor a great ecclesiastic, it is also true that scarce any man of his generation touched contemporary life at so many points. In reading his not very voluminous works we find ourselves not only in the thick of every great controversytheological, mathematical, and philosophical-which raged in England during the first half of the eighteenth century, but we get glimpses of life in the most diverse conditions: in the seclusion of Trinity College, Dublin, in the best literary and fashionable society in London, among the prosperous colonists of Rhode Island, among the very far from prosperous peasants and squireens of Cork. And all this in the company of a man endowed with the subtlest of intellects, lit up with a humour the most delicate and urbane.BALFOUR, ARTHUR JAMES, 1897, Berkeley's Works, ed. Sampson, Biographical Introduction, p. ix.

UNIVERSITY OF BERMUDA

It is now about ten months since I have determined to spend the residue of my days in Bermuda, where I trust in Providence I may be the mean instrument of doing great good to mankind. . . The reformation of manners among the English in our Western plantations, and the propagation of the Gospel among the American savages, are two points of high moment. The natural way of doing this is by founding a college or seminary in some convenient part of the West Indies, where the English youth of our plantations may be educated in such sort as to supply their churches with pastors of good morals and good learning a thing (God knows) much wanted. In the same seminary a number of young American savages may also be

educated till they have taken the degree of Master of Arts. And being by that time well instructed in the Christian religion, practical mathematics, and other liberal arts and sciences, and early imbued with public-spirited principles and inclinations, they may become the fittest instruments for spreading religion, morals, and civil life among their countrymen, who can entertain no suspicion or jealousy of men of their own blood and language, as they might do of English missionaries, who can never be well qualified for that work.BERKELEY, GEORGE, 1723, Letter to Sir John Percival, March.

He is an absolute philosopher with regard to money, titles, and power, and for three years past has been struck with a notion of founding an university at Bermudas, by a charter from the Crown. He has seduced several of the hopefullest young clergymen and others here, many of them well provided for, and all of them in the fairest way of preferment; but in England his conquests are greater, and I doubt will spread very far this winter. He showed me a little tract which he designs to publish, and there your Excellency will see his whole scheme of a life academico-philosophical of a college founded for Indian scholars and missionaries, where he most exorbitantly proposeth a whole hundred pound a-year for himself, forty pounds for a fellow, and ten for a student. His heart will break if his deanery be not taken from him and left to your Excellency's disposal. I discourage him by the coldness of courts and ministers, who will interpret all this as impossible and a vision, but nothing will do. And therefore I do humbly entreat your Excellency either to use such persuasions as will keep one of the first men in this kingdom for learning and virtue quiet at home, or assist him by your credit to compass his romantic design, which, however, is very noble and generous, and directly proper for a great person of your excellent education to encourage.—SWIFT, JONATHAN, 1724, Letter to Lord Carteret, Sept. 3.

But in the meantime no news or bad news came from England. The money from which the endowment of the Bermuda College was to have come was otherwise appropriated; and Sir Robert Walpole, on being finally appealed to, made

answer, that of course the money would be paid as soon as suited the public convenience, but, as a friend, he counselled Dean Berkeley to return home and not to wait that far-off contingency. Thus the whole chivalric scheme broke down. Berkeley had wasted four years in the blank existence of the little New England town, had "expended much of his private property,' and spent infinite exertions and hopes in vain. A long period before his actual setting-out had been swallowed up in negotiations to obtain this futile charter and unpaid grant. He gave up, on the whole, some seven years of the flower and prime of his life to the scheme thus cruelly and treacherously rendered abortive. It is so that England treats the generous movements and attempted self-devotion of her sons. Had it been a factory or a plantation, there might have been some hope for Berkeley; but a college with only ideal advantages, mere possibilities of influence and evangelisation,-what was that to Walpole, or to the slumbrous prosaic nation over which he ruled?OLIPHANT, MARGARET, 1869, Historical Sketches of the Reign of George II., Blackwood's Magazine, vol. 105, p. 21.

With a character like that of Berkeley, and a scheme so calculated to strike the imagination and the finer sentiments of men, it is natural that there should be little but reprobation for the unimaginative and unsympathetic minister by whom Berkeley's project was crushed. But a word of justice remains to be spoken, even here, on the side of the prosaic practical sense by which the business of the world is carried on. The truth is, that Berkeley's project never commended itself to the practical tact of men. From the first

announcement of it in Swift's letters to Lord Carteret down to the callous mockery of Walpole's advice, the project is treated very generally as a visionary's dream, which is not to be laughed down simply out of respect for the visionary's character, and for the purity of the motives out of which his dream arose. Even Blackwell of Aberdeen, and the other scholars who at first proposed to act under Berkeley in his new university, all drew back at the last, and left their principal to go out as a lonely pioneer. Berkeley's scheme in fact, ignored one essential condition of success: it was altogether unnecessary,