OF THE UNIVERSITY Of ILLINOIS 19a v. 4 The person charging this material is re- sponsible for its return on or before the Latest Date stamped below. Theft, mutilation, and underlining of books are reasons for disciplinary action and may result in dismissal from the University. UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN L161— O-1096 LIFE AND LETTERS OF GEORGE BERKELEY, D.D. FORMERLY BISHOP OF CLOYNE. VOL. IV. 6 MACMILLAN AND CO. PUBLISHERS TO THE UNIVERSITY OF THE WORKS OF GEORGE BERKELEY, D. D. FORMERLY BISHOP OF CLOYNE; INCLUDING MANY OF HIS WRITINGS HITHERTO UNPUBLISHED. With Prefaces, Annotations, His Life and Letters, and an Account of his Philosophy, BY ALEXANDER CAMPBELL FRASER, M. A. PROFESSOR OF LOGIC AND METAPHYSICS IN THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH. IN FOUR VOLUMES. Vol. IV. AT THE CLARENDON PRESS M.DCCC.LXXI [All rights reserved] LIFE AND LETTERS OF GEORGE BERKELEY, D.D. FORMERLY BISHOP OF CLOYNE ; AND AN ACCOUNT OF HIS PHILOSOPHY. WITH MANY WRITINGS OF BISHOP BERKELEY HITHERTO UNPUBLISHED : METAPHYSICAL, DESCRIPTIVE, THEOLOGICAL. BY ALEXANDER CAMPBELL FRASER, M.A. PROFESSOR OF LOGIC AND METAPHYSICS IN THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH. AT THE CLARENDON PRESS M.DCCC.LXXI [ All rights reserved ] 312988 IT is curious that a life so good and beautiful in its devotion to a few great designs, so powerful in modern thought, and every way so uncommon, as Bishop Berkeley's should have been allowed by his contem- poraries to pass away without any tolerable interpreta- tion or even record of it. The present volume does not pretend to meet the want which the lapse of more than a hundred years, and neglected opportunities have made it difficult if not impossible to supply. The earliest biographical account of Berkeley known to me is the slight and inaccurate sketch which appeared in the British Plutarch in 1762, and in the Annual Register in the following year. I have not discovered by whom it was written. The only authentic Life we have is that by Bishop Stock, who was an intimate friend of the family 1 . It appeared in 1776, twenty-three years after Berkeley's death. It was re-published, with some additional notes, in 1780, in the second volume of the Biographia Britannica. A second edition of Stock's memoir, with appended extracts of some letters from Berkeley to Thomas Prior and to Dean Gervais, appeared in 1 784, 1 Joseph Stock, D.D., was born thence to the see of Waterford in in Dublin, in December 1741. He 18 10. In 1798 the French landed became a Fellow of Trinity College at Killala and took possession of the about 1765, and was made rector of bishop's palace and person — events Conwall in 1779, vicar of Lusk in of which he afterwards published 1780, and rector of Delganyin 1788. a narrative. Bishop Stock died at He was a prebendary of Lismore in Waterford in 1813. Some of his 1793. In 1798 he was made bishop writings are mentioned in Cotton's of Killala, and was transferred from Fasti, vol. I. p. 134. 9 viii PREFAC E. and was also prefixed to the first collected edition of Berkeley's Works, published in that year. In that edition the reader is informed that Stock's biographical facts were for the most part communicated by Dr. Robert Berkeley, rector of Midleton, near Cloyne, brother to the Bishop, and then living. This brief memoir of a few pages is prefixed to all the collected editions of Ber- keley. One regrets that when Dr. Stock had so good an opportunity for collecting and authenticating materials he should have produced so faint an outline of Berkeley's history. A few facts in supplement of Stock, authenticated by the Bishops widow and by his son George, are contained in 'Addenda and Corrigenda' in the third volume of the Bio- graphia Britannica, which appeared in i 784; and we have a few anecdotes, in the curious Preface, by Bishop Berke- ley's daughter-in-law, to the Poems of his grandson George Monck Berkeley, published in 1 79 7 2 . Mr. Monck Berkeley himself, in his interesting volume of Literary Relics*, pub- 2 Poems by the late George Monck Berkeley, Esq., LLB.,F.S.SA. With a Preface by the Editor, consisting of some Anecdotes of Mr. Monck Berkeley, and several of his friejids. London, printed by J. Nichols, 1797. The editor was Monck Berkeley's mother, Mrs. Eliza Berkeley, widow of Bishop Berke- ley's last surviving son, Dr. George Berkeley, Prebendary of Canter- bury. She was accomplished and pious, not without acuteness and wit, but eccentric to the verge of insanity. Her extraordinary Preface occupies 630 pages of the handsome quarto, and there are besides some pages of Postscript. The Poems themselves occupy 170 pages. The book is very rare. It is hardly to be found in any of our public libraries. In fact it was suppressed, and a fire at Mr. Nichols' warehouse, I believe, after- wards destroyed the copies. For an account of this singular work, and of the writer, see Gent. Mag. vols. LXVII. pp. 403, 455, and LXIX. p. 565 ; also Nichols' Liter- ary Anecdotes, vol. IX. pp. 733 — 35. 3 Literary Relics, by George Monck Berkeley, Esq., LL.B. in the University of Dublin, a mem- ber of St. Mary Magdalen Hall, Oxford, and of the Inner Temple, London. The preface is dated, ' Dublin, January 27, 1789/ Re- ferring to the numerous letters from Berkeley to Prior which the book contains, the writer says : — ' Those of Bishop Berkeley I received from my friend Mr. Archdall, the learned author of the Monasticon Hiber- nicum, dr. From these letters, some PREFAC E. ix lisheci in i 789, has given fully many of Berkeley's letters to Thomas Prior, extracts from some of which were appended, as already mentioned, to the later editions of Stock's memoir. The memoirs of Berkeley in Chalmers and elsewhere, as well as the biographical accounts of him in the dif- ferent histories of Philosophy, Continental and British, are founded on Stock, and very much copied from him. Professor Archer Butler produced, in the Dublin Uni- versity Magazine, in 1837, an eloquent philosophical in- terpretation of Berkeley's life and writings, but made almost no addition to the previous knowledge of the facts of his personal history. Two years ago, an excellent appreciative essay on Berkeley, as ' the philosopher' of the age he lived in, was given by Mrs. Oliphant, in her Historical Sketches of the Reign of George II. When I undertook to prepare the edition of the Works of Berkeley which accompanies this volume, and which is published under the auspices of the Uni- versity of Oxford, it seemed almost too late to attempt to remedy the loss the world has suffered by biographical neglect when the materials were fresh, and before death had taken away his friends and associates. It was, ac- cordingly, at first thought that any account of the author that might be associated with the Works must be very much a re-statement of what Stock had written — perhaps his short memoir with a few anno- tations. Further consideration and investigation, how- ever, led to the formation of this volume, which is the imperfect result of an attempt, thus far followed out, to extracts, together with a most im- in quarto.' (p. x.) Mr. Monck perfect Life of the writer, were pub- Berkeley died soon after the pub- lished by Dr. Stock in Dublin, and . lication of the Literary Relics. prefixed to the Works of the Bishop X P R E F A C E. recover all that immediately concerns Berkeley which the stream of time has not carried irrecoverably away. The Works and Letters of Berkeley previously published, together with Stock's meagre outline of facts, formed my starting-point. The Letters, as it seemed, might be read with more interest if they were collected, arranged in chronological order, and blended with the Life, with an annotation now and then. The largest, and probably the most interest- ing, portion of Berkeley's correspondence has I fear gone beyond recovery. His letters to Thomas Prior form the bulk of what remains. For them I have fol- lowed Monck Berkeley's edition, in his Literary Relics, amending the arrangement, however, and supplementing what is given there by a few additional letters to Prior drawn from other sources. For the letters to Dean Gervais I have had no resource beyond the appendix to Stock. The previously published letters to Pope I have collected in their order, but have failed to find any not hitherto published, or to discover anywhere any addressed to Swift, Steele, Addison, Clarke, Butler, or others among the brilliant society in which Berkeley moved in the early part of his life. Of his long cor- respondence with Samuel Johnson, his American disciple, I have recovered several letters — four published in the Appendix to Chandler's Life of Johnson, and for the rest I am indebted to Mr. Gilman, the eminent librarian of Yale College. A few additional letters, and rough drafts of letters to various persons have been gathered in other quarters. It is possible that more may still be found. By far the most important original material connected with Berkeley, not hitherto given to the world, which has been disclosed since his death, has been made available P R E F A C E. xi for this volume, through the kindness of Archdeacon Rose, who possesses the only known collection of Ber- keley's manuscripts, including some of his correspon- dence. The history of these Papers is interesting. After Bishop Berkeley's death they passed into the hands of his son, Dr. George Berkeley, who died in 1795. In 1797, Dr. Berkeley's widow writes thus, in her edition of her son's Poems : — 'The Editor has several stone weight of papers to inspect of Bishop Berkeley's — his Journal when in Italy, &c. &c. ; of Mr. Cherry's ; of Archbishop Seeker's ; Miss Talbot's; Mr, Monck Berkeley's 4 .' After the death of this daughter-in-law, and the family dissolution, these Berkeley Papers were lost sight of for a while. They were thus referred to in 1812 by Southey 5 : — 'Bishop Berkeley. A journal of his travels in Italy, and many other of his papers, remain unpublished. His grand- son, George Monck Berkeley, had he lived, would have given them to the public. I know not what is become of them since the family has been extinct, but of such a man not a relick should be lost.' The family of Bishop Berkeley was extinct in the early part of this century. The Berkeley Papers referred to by Mrs. Berkeley and by Southey then came into the possession of the Grimston family. One member of that ancient and honourable family, Henry Grimston, Esq., of Grimston Hall in Yorkshire, often mentioned in the volume of Monck Berkeley's Poems, is there spoken of as Monck's ' chosen, beloved, and bosom friend,' ' his unwearied friend to his latest hour.' Through the Grimston family they became the property of the late Reverend Hugh James Rose, the learned and eminent Principal of King's College, London. After his death, 4 Preface to Monck Berkeley, 5 See Southey's Omniana, vol. I. p. dexxviii. p. 251. xii P R E F ACE. in 1838, they belonged to his widow 0 , who eventually gave them to his brother, the Venerable Henry John Rose, now Archdeacon of Bedford, who has, without reserve, placed them at the disposal of the Clarendon Press for publication in this volume. Those of them which seemed suitable for publication occupy here more than two hundred and fifty pages. The Berkeley Papers consist of the following manu- scripts : — 1. Two small quarto volumes. One of these volumes seems to have formed a Common- place Book for queries and other occasional thoughts in Metaphysics, written when Berkeley was a student at Trinity College, Dublin, apparently between his nine- teenth and twenty-third year, and before he had published anything in philosophy. This curious manuscript volume contains also a description of the Cave of Dunmore, in the County of Kilkenny, in Berkeley's handwriting. I have appended the Commonplace Book to the Life and Letters, and also the account of the Dunmore Cave. The reader must remember that the former consists of the stray speculations of one hardly beyond the years of boyhood, set down, in solitary study, as private memoranda for further consideration, and without a thought that they were ever to meet the public eye. The companion quarto is of much less interest. It contains what seems to be a rough draft of parts of the Discourse on Passive Obedience ; fragments of what was perhaps meant for a sermon on the text ' Let your zeal be according to knowledge;' a draft of the Prin- ciples of Human Knowledge, from Sect. 85 to Sect. 145, 6 The Berkeley Papers, when in the Colonial Church, which contains her possession, were seen by the an interesting chapter (xxviii) on Rev. J. S. M. Anderson, and they Berkeley's efforts on behalf of the are referred to in his History of Colonies. P R E FACE. xiii nearly as in print ; a few stray thoughts similar to those in the Commonplace Book ; some jottings of what may be fragments of letters, in Latin and English, written ap- parently at Trinity College. Very little here seemed suited for publication. 2. Four small volumes. These seem to have been Berkeley's travelling companions in Italy. They contain a minute account of what he saw there from day to day, in some of the months of 1 7 1 7, and during a short period in 1 718. They are perhaps fragments of private journals kept during his stay on the Continent in 171 5 — 20, some of which, it is said, were lost at sea. Nearly all that the four volumes contain is now offered to the world. 3. Some Sermons preached by Berkeley in the Chapel of Trinity College, Dublin, and in Leghorn ; Skeletons of Sermons preached in Rhode Island ; the primary Epi- scopal Charge at Cloyne ; and a Confirmation Address, form another portion of the Berkeley Papers. All of these which seemed in a state to admit of being published are given in this volume. 4. The Berkeley Papers likewise include a number of letters addressed to Bishop Berkeley, chiefly by Arch- bishop Seeker, when he was Bishop of Bristol, and after- wards of Oxford ; by Benson, Bishop of Gloucester ; and by Gibson, Bishop of London. We have also a long letter from Berkeley to Sir John James, on points in theology, one or two letters of his to Thomas Prior, as well as some rough drafts of letters to other corre- spondents, and of portions of one or two of his published works. All of these which seemed proper for publica- tion have been incorporated with his Life and Letters, in chronological order. Almost all in the Berkeley Papers that is immediately connected with Bishop Berkeley is summed up under the foregoing heads. The remaining portion of the xiv PR EF AC E. manuscripts consists of numerous letters, addressed mostly to his son George, or to his son's wife, by the Bishop's widow, or by Miss Talbot, Bishop Home, Bishop Gleig, and others. Some of these are very interesting, but only remotely connected with the subject of this volume. It is singular that so large an amount of hitherto unpublished manuscript of the great Bishop Berkeley should remain to be given to the world nearly a hundred and twenty years after his death. It may be truly said that this large collection contains nothing that is not fitted to add to our reverence for him : not a line has been found that is at variance with the overflowing purity and charity which marked his life 7 . To Archdeacon Rose the world is indebted not only for these writings, but also for his kind co-operation with me in the superintendence of the Italian Journal and the Sermons while they were in the press, as well as for his prefatory notes to those two portions of the Papers. While these Papers have supplied the largest part of the new matter illustrative of Berkeley's life of which I have been able to avail myself in this volume, many other interesting contributions have been gradually gathered from various quarters. In the course of a visit to Ireland for the purpose, and of an extensive correspondence with various persons there, previously and since, I have collected curious and valuable particulars of Berkeley's family, birthplace, school and college life in Ireland, his short residence there on his return from Italy, and his eighteen years afterwards at Cloyne. It is singular, however, that while 7 Some of the Papers are much immersed in the sea, that great dilapidated, and in some places so care and a strong light are neces- obliterated, as if the MS. had been sary in reading them. P R E F A C K. xv his fame as a philosopher has spread over the world, local traditions about him have mostly perished in the country of his birth, and what remains cannot now be traced without much labour. Where I am indebted to so many for help, in collecting and interpreting the few scattered facts, it is difficult to name any. Yet I cannot withhold the expression of my gratitude to the Rev. Dr. Reeves, whose learning in all that concerns Ireland is widely known ; the Rev. James Graves, the eminent Irish archaeologist ; Richard Caulfield, LL.D., of Cork : also to the Reverend the Provost and the Fellows of Trinity College, Dublin. I am much indebted to the Rev. Dr. Dickson, the librarian of Trinity College. And I have to thank the clergy of Ireland, Protestant and Roman Catholic, to whom I have been led to apply, for their uniform courtesy and valued help. I regret that notwithstanding the assistance so readily given by Sir Bernard Burke, I have not been able to clear up the difficulties connected with Berkeley's pedigree. The kindness of many distinguished persons in Ame- rica has enabled me to throw some fresh light on the romantic and charming episode of Berkeley's recluse life in Rhode Island, when he went to try to realize the noblest enterprise in Christian missions of last century, or of almost any century since the Apostolic age. Here too it is difficult to select among so many, but I wish to express in some degree what I owe to the kind efforts of Dr. Porter, the distinguished philosopher of Yale College, and Mr. Gilman, its librarian ; also to Mr. Rowland Hazard, of Peacedale, in Rhode Island, who now culti- vates philosophy in the vales where Berkeley studied ; the Rev. Dr. Park of Andover, and the Rev. W. E. Park of Lawrence, Massachusetts; the Hon. J. R. Bartlett, Secretary of State, Rhode Island; the Rev. Dr. Beardsley, XVI V REFAC K of the Episcopal Church at Newhaven ; Dr. King of Newport; Mr. Langdon Sibley of Harvard College; and Mr. Samuel Tyler of the Maryland Bar. To the Abbd Rabbe, the Abbe Blampignon, and the Baroness Blaze de Bury, I am indebted for assistance in my ineffectual endeavours to throw satisfactory light upon Berkeley in France, and in his personal relations to Malebranche. The fruit of these efforts in Ireland, America, and France is scanty. But one felt that the very attempt to penetrate the mystery in which so much of Berkeley's pure and beautiful life has been left enveloped, and to rescue from oblivion the fast diminishing remains which have survived the ravages of time, was so far its own reward. Perhaps the publication of this volume may draw out some more facts from their hiding-places. To me it has been thus far a pleasant excursion into some of the dimly discernible society of that olden time — in Ireland, England, France, Italy, and America — in the days of William, and Anne, and the first two Georges. In the last chapter of the ' Life and Letters,' I have tried to give the outcome of Berkeley's intellectual life as a whole, touching upon some of its implied relations to other phases of our national philosophy in the eighteenth century, and to later philosophy looked at from Berkeley's point of view. A. C. FRASER. College of Edinburgh, February ^ 1871. CONTENTS. LIFE AND LETTERS OF BERKELEY. CHAPTER I. PAOK The Berkeley Family in Kilkenny: — 1685-1700 1 . CHAPTER II. Trinity College, Dublin : A New Philosophical Principle : — 1700-17 13 k . . 15 CHAPTER III. England, France, and Italy: — 1713-1721 54 CHAPTER IV. Back to Ireland : The American Enthusiasm : In London again, and letters from England: — 1721-1728 ... 92 CHAPTER V. A Recluse in Rhode Island: — 1728-1731 154 CHAPTER VI. Back to London: — 1731-1734 191 CHAPTER VII. First years in the Irish Diocese :— 1 734-T738 228 CHAPTER VIII. Philanthropy, Theology, and Philosophy at Cloyne : Tar-water : — 1738-1752 . . 261 VOL. IV. b xviii CONTENTS. CHAPTER IX. PAOR Oxford: The End : The Family Dissolution :— 17 52-1 7 53 . . 336 CHAPTER X. The Philosophy of Berkeley. A. Berkeley's New Question, and the Essence of his Answers to it 362 B. Berkeleian Immediate Perception of Extended Sensible Reality 383 C. Berkeleian Mediate Perception, or Presumptive Inference of the Existence of Sensible Things and their Rela- tions — illustrated in the New Theory of Vision . . 392 D. Berkeleian Intellectual Knowledge of Providential or Divine Reality and Universal Conceptions . . . . 402 HITHERTO UNPUBLISHED WRITINGS OF BISHOP BERKELEY. Commonplace Book of Occasional Metaphysical Thoughts . 419 Description of the Cave of Dunmore 503 Journal of a Tour in Italy in 1 7 1 7, 1718 512 Sermons preached in Trinity College, Dublin, and at Leghorn . . 598 Skeletons of Sermons preached in Rhode Island 629 Primary Visitation Charge at Cloyne 650 Confirmation Charge at Cloyne 657 LIFE AND LETTERS. LIFE AND LETTERS OF GEORGE BERKELEY, D.D. BISHOP OF CLOYNE. CHAPTER I. THE BERKELEY FAMILY IN KILKENNY. 1685 — l 7°°- The early years and the ancestry of George Berkeley are curiously shrouded in mystery. He comes forth the most subtle and accomplished philosopher of his time, almost from darkness. The dry statements of the biographers may be soon summed up. They tell us that his father, William Berkeley, of Thomas- town in the County of Kilkenny, was the son of an English royalist (somehow connected with the noble family of Berkeley), who was rewarded for his loyalty to Charles I by a collector- ship at Belfast in the reign of Charles II. Further, that the philosopher was born at Kilcrin, or Killerin, near Thomastown, on the 12th of March, 1684, that he received the first part of his education at Kilkenny School, under Dr. Hinton, and that he entered Trinity College, Dublin, at the age of fifteen, exhausts the information thus given. The truth is that almost no light now falls upon the family life in which Berkeley's first revealed itself. What his parents were, from whom descended, why they were living in the County of Kilkenny at his birth, what the exact spot of his birth was, and VOL. IV. b 2 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. what thoughts and aspirations the boy experienced in his early years, have all been left in a darkness which the lapse of time makes it now difficult in any degree to remove. The earliest authentic documents about Berkeley which I have been able to find belong to the places in which he was educated. The first is in the curious old Register of the Free School or College of Kilkenny K On a page in that part of this Register which contains c the names of such as were admitted into his Grace the Duke of Ormonde's School in Kilkenny, since the warre ended in Ireland, in the year 1691,' the following entry may be seen : — ' George Berkley 2 , gent, aged II years, entered the Second Class, July 17, 1696/ And in another part of the Book, in a list of c names of such as left his Grace the Duke of Ormonde's School at Kilkenny since October the first, an. dom. 1684,' we read: — 4 Mr. George Berkley left the First Class, January 1 700, and was entered the University of Dublin.' The Register, as then kept, unfortunately does not give the names and residences of the parents, except in a few cases of persons of rank. The boy is usually designated c gent.' or c yeo- man,' according to his father's social position. The Register of Trinity College, Dublin, contains the following entry : — Tutor D' Jo. Hall |V. Praep. Parish registry of births was hardly known in Ireland before the year 1800. Any original record (if any) of Berkeley's birth or baptism has been lost. But, as he was only eleven years old when he entered school at Kilkenny, in July 1696, and only fifteen when he matriculated at Trinity College, on the 21st of March 1700, we may infer that i68f was the year of his birth. On the au- thority of the biographers I assume that the day was the 12th of March. According to modern style, therefore, Berkeley was born on 1 The Rev. Dr. Martin, the present Head is in several other early documents. Indeed Master, kindly allowed me to examine this we occasionally find 'Berkly' and 'Barkly' Register at Kilkenny, in May 1870. as well. Berkeley's own signature, in 1721, 2 Here, as well as in the Trinity College and, so far as can be ascertained, previously Register, the name is spelt 1 Berkley,' as it and since., was uniformly * Berkeley. ' Annus Pupillus Parens A etas Ubi Natus Ubi Educatus 1 Geo. Berkley Filius Guliel 1 annum Natus Ibi Educatus 1 Berkley agens Kilkenniae. sub D re Martii.die 21. Pens. gen. 15- Hinton. i.] The Berkeley Family in Kilkenny. 3 the 12th of March 1685 3 . In the month preceding his birth, Charles II had passed through his last hours in Whitehall, and James II was entering on his short and disastrous reign. Before 1685 was ended, James was at the height of his power, and the convulsions were approaching which ushered in the reign of William and Mary in Ireland. The spot in the County of Kilkenny at which Berkeley was born is called by some c Kilcrin, near Thomastown;' ' Killerin,' near the same place, by others. This seems to be a mistake, and it is difficult to explain how it originated. In the first place, Kilcrin or Killerin is not known c near Thomastown.' In the second place, the uniform and vivid tradition of all that country points to Dysert Castle or Tower, on the bank of the Nore, about two miles below Thomastown, and twelve miles below the City of Kilkenny, as the place of Berkeley's birth. In the third place, this tradition is confirmed by various entries in the Corporation Records of the ancient town of Inis- tiogue, near Dysert, which show that Dysert was inhabited by Berkeleys, at any rate in the early part of last century. These Records prove that c Randolph Berkely de Dysert, gent.,' was admitted as a freeman on the 15th of April, 1728. The name c Ralph Berkeley' also appears in that year, and in 1756. There are several reasons for supposing that c Randolph' and c Ralph' refer to the same person, which is important, for Berkeley, as we shall see, had a brother named Ralph. It is a pity that the Records do not date further back than 171 7 : if earlier ones were ever kept they have been lost 4 . In the fourth place, the tradi- tion is countenanced by the high local authority of the late Mr. Tighe. In his Statistical Observations relative to the County of Kilkenny (p. 638), published in 1802, he says that c the Castle of Dysett is remarkable for having been the birth-place of Bishop 3 In the sequel it may be assumed by the reader that the dates are given, so far as known, according to the New Style. (In some of my annotations upon the Works, I inadvertently followed the old account of the year of Berkeley's birth.) 4 For the facts of the Inistiogue Records, I am indebted to the kindness of Colonel Tighe of Woodstock and Mr. Connellan of Coolmore. The family of Deane as well as the Berkeleys are prominent in these Records. The signatures of Deanes, and of the Rev. Maurice Berkeley (' Maurice Berkly, Clerk') occur often between 1742 and 1 753- Mau- rice Berkeley first appears in 1 71 7. On 20th December, 1 756, 'Ralph Berkeley' signs as the first burgess on the list. This is the last appearance of a Berkeley in the book. B 2 4 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [cii. Berkeley.' Mr. Tighe died in 1814, at an advanced age, and might have known those who knew Berkeley's father. A tradition, thus confirmed, may perhaps be accepted as satis- factory evidence that Berkeley was born at Dysert, in the absence of direct documentary proof 5 . This old monastic ruin is in one of the loveliest regions in Ireland. It may well be that Berkeley was not a little indebted for his deep-seated love of nature and fervid imagination to the sparkling Norc, and to a childhood spent among the wooded hills that enfold the valley through which it flows. The position of the graceful ruin, on a grassy meadow on the bank of the river, under the wooded hill-side on which a road from Thomastown to Inistiogue now passes, shows at once to the eye that it was not erected as a stronghold. It was originally a grange which belonged to the rich priory of Kells, and was given, in the sixteenth century, with other possessions of the Abbey, to James, the ninth Earl of Ormond. A ruined church adjoins the tower to the east. The tower itself was probably inhabited at one time by the vicar of the monks. Some comparatively modern remains of what might formerly have been a considerable farm house, attached to the Tower on the south, mark the site of the modest abode of the Berkeleys of Dysert. The family inhabiting the house must also have oc- cupied the Keep, and from the two windows of its upper chamber they had within their view a charming scene. One can hardly picture a place more suited to nourish the heart of the boy by communion with nature, than this now classic part of the fair vale through which the Nore descends from the city of Kilkenny and Thomastown, through Inistiogue and amidst the foliage of Woodstock, to its junction with the Barrow above New Ross. The river itself is one of the three c renowned brethren' to which Spencer conducts us : — ' The first, the gentle Shure that, making way By sweet Clonmel, adorns rich Waterford ; The next, the stubborne Newre, whose waters gray, By fair Kilkenny and Rossponte boord ; The third, the goodly Barow.' 5 How Kilcrin, or Killerin, came to be asso- archaeological friend suggests to me ety- ciated with the birth-place of Berkeley it is mological affinities between Kilerin and Dy- difficult to say. An ingenious and eminent sert — the last a name common in Ireland. i.] The Berkeley Family in Kilkenny. 5 The peasantry of Kilkenny have had their quaint stories of the Berkeleys of Dysert. With an inversion of facts not uncommon in Irish traditions, they would tell that in his youth the philosopher kept a school in the neighbourhood, and taught his scholars that there was no spirit, but that when the body died the man was annihilated. He used, they added, to make the boys leap over the school benches till they were bruised and bled, and then explain that after the blood all ran out there was an end of them. Another fancy, equally absurd, was that Berkeley's own corporeal remains were buried within the masonry of the battlements of Dysert 6 . Thus the family of William Berkeley may be imagined in the modest abode attached to Dysert Castle, in the vale of the Nore, in March, 1685. But who and what was this William Berkeley, and why then living there ? Bishop Stock, who professes to have got much of the material in his brief biographical outline from Berkeley's brother Robert, says, that William's father c went over to Ireland, after the Restoration (the family having suffered greatly for their loyalty to Charles I), and there obtained the collectorship of Belfast.' In a note, in Wright's edition, it is added that he went over c in the suite of his reputed father, Lord Berkeley of Stratton, who had been appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland.' According to this addition to the story, our Kilkenny branch of the great Berkeley family must have gone to Ireland in 1670; for it was in April of that year that the first Lord Berkeley of Stratton landed to assume the Lord Lieutenancy, an office which he held till April, 1672. As to the Belfast collectorship, it is worthy of note that until 167 1 Carrickfergus was the head-quarters of the revenue in those parts. Belfast, then an insignificant place, is not mentioned at all in the Records till that year. The first acknowledgment of Belfast as a revenue town coincides, indeed, with the period of Lord Berkeley of Stratton's rule in Ireland. But the name of Berkeley has not been found in the lists of Belfast revenue officials at that time. A recent careful search in the Record Office, Dublin 7 , has failed to discover a Berkeley, at or about 1670, employed as a collector of any branch of the revenue, 6 See Nooks and Corners of our County, ditioas in Ireland, by Mr. Prim of Kilkenny. I have more 7 Kindly made by Samuel Ferguson, LLD., than once encountered these whimsical tra- Public Record Office, Ireland. 6 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. either in Belfast or in any part of Ulster. And it is rather difficult to reconcile with ascertained chronological facts the un- supported assertion that the supposed grandfather-collector was a natural son of the first Lord Berkeley of Stratton. That noble- man was born about 1608, and it is not obvious to suppose, in the absence of positive evidence, that he was the great-grandfather of the philosopher, born in 1685. That Berkeley's family was originally from Berkeley Castle need not, however, be doubted, nor that it was more immediately connected with the Bcrkeleys of Stratton. He was afterwards introduced by Swift to the representative of the Stratton Berkeleys as a kinsman, and also to Earl Berkeley, as related to the family \ And his family is else- where mentioned as a younger branch of the Earls of Berkeley. The garrulous writer of the rambling Preface 0 to Monck Berkeley's Poems speaks of Ireland as only c accidentally' the country of the philosopher Berkeley, his father and all his ancestors having been born in England 10 . c His grandfather,' she adds, c expended a large fortune in the service of king Charles I, and in remitting money to king Charles II and his brothers. The only return was making his son, the bishop's father 11 , collector of the port of in Ireland, a more respectable post than in England, noblemen's sons often accepting it. This occasioned the old gentleman's leaving his malediction on any descendant of his who should ever in any way assist any monarch.' That an English Cavalier in the seventeenth century should devote his fortune to the first Charles, and be requited with ingratitude by the second Charles— that till the king was again in danger the injured Cavalier should grumble at the king's ingratitude — all this was not uncommon in those days, and with this the reader may take what satisfaction he can in the glimpse of the Berkeley family and their history that is thus offered in the eccentric Preface. We know, at any rate, in a general way, that the condition of Ireland after the Restoration afforded openings of which loyalist adventurers of small fortune and good family in England then 8 Swift is said to have introduced him in this characteristic way : ' My lord, here is a young gentleman of your family. I can assure your lordship it is a much greater honour to you to be related to him, than to him to be related to you.' 9 p. ccclxxxii. 10 It may be remarked that in the Querist (sect. 91, 92) Berkeley speaks of himself rather as if ranking his people among the English. 11 Not grandfather, but father, according to this account. i.] The Berkeley Family in Kilkenny. J availed themselves in considerable numbers. In 1662 an Act was passed c for encouraging Protestant strangers and others to inhabit and plant in the Kingdom of Ireland.' A Commission of In- quiry, issued in the same year, c with instructions concerning the regicides in Ireland,' included the name of Sir Maurice Berkeley, one of the brothers of Lord Berkeley of Stratton 12 . Sir Charles Berkeley, their elder brother, who became Viscount Fitzhardinge in 1665, and died in 1688, filled several important offices in Ire- land, and, for the steadfastness of his loyalty, was rewarded after the Restoration with grants of lands in the counties of Wicklow, Carlow, and Kilkenny. His position in Ireland induced some of his relations to settle there, amongst them the ancestors of the Berkeleys of Skark in Wexford. Sir Maurice Berkeley himself has been claimed as the grand- father of the philosopher, and as the common ancestor of the Berkeleys of Dysert and the Berkeleys of Skark. This, though in some respects fully as likely as the Berkeley of Stratton story, I have, as little as the other, been able to verify by documentary evidence 13 . Our Dysert Berkeleys, then, may have made their way to the vale of the Nore, as one of many families of English colonists or adventurers, who, in the quarter of a century preceding Berkeley's birth, were finding permanent or temporary settlements in that and other parts of Ireland. It does not seem however that they had any firm holding in their adopted country. They appear indeed in the Inistiogue corporation, but there is no mention of them in various records in which the names of holders of land, or officials of consideration might be expected to occur. The 12 These facts are recorded in the Liber Munerum Publicorum Hibernice. 13 Sir Maurice Berkeley, son of Sir Henry- Berkeley of Bruton (descended, through Sir Richard of Stoke Gifford in the County of Gloucester, from a younger son of Maurice Lord Berkeley, who died in 1 326), had five sons. Of these Sir Charles, the eldest, who became Viscount Fitzhardinge, died without male issue, when his title became extinct. A younger son, Sir John Berkeley, was in 1658 created Lord Berkeley of Stratton. As mentioned above, he was sent to govern Ireland in 1670. He died in 1678. This title too became extinct, in default of male issue, in 1772. The other three sons were Sir Henry, Sir William (the eccentric go- vernor of Virginia), and Sir Maurice above mentioned. Maurice Berkeley, who in 1 68 1 was put in possession of the lands of Skark, near New Ross, in the County of Wexford, is said to have been a son of this Sir Maurice ; and William Berkeley, the father of the philo- sopher, it is suggested, may have been an- other son, temporarily settled about the same time in the County of Kilkenny. Colonel Berkeley, the grandson of this Maurice, and son of the Rev. Maurice Berkeley of Skark, bequeathed the lands of Skark to his cousin Joseph Deane, who then called the place Berkeley Forest. These are probably the ' Deanes ' and the ' Maurice Berkly, Clerk' of the Inistiogue Records. 8 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. symptoms suggest that they were not wealthy, but still recognised as of gentle birth 14 . In the successive matriculation records of William Berkeley's sons, in Trinity College, Dublin, he is variously described as c gene- rosus (as already mentioned) in the case of George, in 1700; Ct vexil. equestris' (cornet), when his son Robert matriculated, in 1J16 j and c dux mllitum'' (captain of horse), when his son Thomas was enrolled, in 1721. The facts may have been that he was at one time, as tradition affirms, an officer of customs, and that he afterwards engaged in military service 15 . Nothing perfectly trustworthy is recorded of Berkeley's mother. She was probably Irish. In the gossiping Preface 16 already quoted, we are told that she was c aunt to old General Wolfe, father of the famous general of that name' — the Quebec hero. That there was a connection between the Berkcleys and the Wolfes is not without other circumstantial evidence, as we shall see • and the Wolfes were of Irish connection. I have not found any confirmation of another assertion of this lady — that Berkeley was c nephew to Archbishop Usher, as well as his cousin-german General Wolfe.' She also tells us that the philo- 14 The number of untitled Berkeleys in different parts of Ireland, in the seventeenth century, was considerable, and the history of their connection with the heads of the family in England is in most cases obscure. Berke- leys had estates in the County of Carlow in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Viscount Fitzhardinge had a grant of land in that county in 1666, under the Act of Settlement. A ' Henry Berkeley ' was named a burgess of Carlow, in the charter granted to the town in 1675 by Charles II; the same name appears in the charter granted to the same town by James II in 1689. • Dr. Henry Berkeley' was one of the Jus- tices of Peace in County Carlow, appointed by William and Mary, in July, 1690. Digby Berkeley served as High Sheriff of the county in 1707. Berkeleys were settled in Wexford in the seventeenth century. In the same century there was a Rowland Berkeley of Kelmerix in the County of Tipperary. In the early part of the century a Berkeley is placed in Ireland, by the following pedigree in the Herald's College in London, pointed out to me by Sir Albert Woods : — ' John Berkeley, Mayor of Hereford, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, son of Richard Berkeley of Dursley, son of Richard also of Dursley, son of Thomas, brother of Maurice Lord Berkeley (in Henry VII) ; had a son William, who married the daughter ofBurghill, whose son, William Berkeley, is now (cir. 1635) living in Ireland.' 15 The register of Trinity College seems almost to imply that the family removed from the Nore and the County of Kilkenny into the County of Tipperary some time after the birth of the philosopher. The matriculation entry of Robert bears that he was born 'near Thurles,' about 1699; that of Thomas, who seems to have been the youngest son, that he too was born in the County of Tipperary about 1703. (Robert was educated at Kilkenny, under Dr. Dagrell, and Thomas at Dublin, under Mr. Sheridan. This Sheridan was probably Swift's friend, who kept a school of high repute in Dublin about that time.) I find no clue to the Tipperary movement. The ' Will Pedigrees ' in Ulster's Office, Dublin, give a Rowland Berkeley in Tipperary (Will dated 1706), which proves some Berkeley connection in that quarter. 16 p. ccccxcviii. I] The Berkeley Family in Kilkenny. 9 sopher's father and mother c both died in the same week, and were interred at the same time, in the same grave/ It cannot be said,' she adds, c that they died an untimely death • both being near ninety. They lived to breed up six sons gentlemen. They lived to see their eldest son a bishop some years before their * death.' If all this is true, they must have lived almost till 1740. Leaving the ancestry, and inquiring about the descendants, we find, from various sources, that William Berkeley had six sons, and probably one daughter. The six sons, whom the parents 'lived to breed up gentlemen,' were : — 1. George, born (as already mentioned) March 12, 1685. He seems to have been the eldest. 2. Rowland, c of Newmarket, Co. Cork,' according to the Will Pedigrees in Ulster's Office. His Will is dated May 5, ] 757. Of his history I have no trace. 3. Ralph, according to the same authority, c of Scarteen, near Newmarket, Co. Cork,' Will proved 1778. ('Ralph Berkeley,' as already mentioned, appears in the In- istiogue Record in 1728, and in 1756.) Ralph married c Anne Hobson.' A son, William, and a daughter, Elizabeth, were the issue of this marriage. The daughter married the Rev. Edward Kippax, Vicar of Clonfert, near Newmarket. They had two sons, George and Charles Berkeley, and two daughters, Mary and Anne. Charles Berkeley Kippax was clerk in the chief secre- tary's office, Dublin Castle, and corresponded with Lord Cornwallis in 1798 1 7. 4. William, afterwards a commissioned officer in the army, of whom it is recorded, in the same c Pedigrees,' that he married c Anne,' and that three daughters, Anne, Elizabeth, and Eleanor, were the issue of the marriage 18 . 5. Robert, born about 1699, c near Thuries' (as already men- tioned), afterwards Rector of Midleton, and Vicar- General of Cloyne, died in 1787. Of him afterwards. 6. Thomas, regarding whom the Dublin College Register exhausts the information, was born in the County of 17 Cornwallis Correspondence, vol. iii. cxxxviii) it is said that William had four p. 10. daughters, all twins. 18 In the Preface to Monck Berkeley (p. io Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. Tipperary about 1704, and entered Trinity College in 1721. Of the daughter I have no distinct account. Ber- keley alludes to a c sister' in one of his letters to Prior, written in 1744. Berkeley's Common-place Book, that precious record of his - thoughts in his early years at College, reveals this much about his inner child-life in the Kilkenny valley, among these domestic surroundings : — « From my childhood I had an unaccountable turn of thought that way. Mem. That I was distrustful at 8 years old, and consequently by nature disposed for these new doctrines.' It is not probable that Berkeley's dawning speculative reason and imagination met with much sympathy in the family circle ; though an even eccentric individuality, and much chivalry, may be traced among his reputed ancestry 19 . His parents have left no discernible mark. In the glimpses we have of any of his brothers we do not detect symptoms of community of spirit with one born to be a philosopher in thought and action. On the con- trary, Berkeley could hardly have been intelligible to the family, we should fancy, from what we hear of them. The imagination of the precocious child might, however, have been disturbed by the circumstances of the time, if his singular intellect was little quickened by family sympathy. The c warre in Ireland' was going on whilst he was advancing from his fourth to his sixth year. He had not reached his sixth year when the battle of the Boyne was fought; and we may imagine him at Dysert on those now long past days when James made his rapid retreat to Waterford, or when William of Orange was receiving the hospitality which could be given at such a time in the ancient castle of the Butlers at Kilkenny. We may picture the Berkeley family in the neighbourhood when James, soon followed by William, hu: ried down the valley of the Nore. But we must return from excursions of fancy to the Kilkenny 19 Recorded anecdotes show that the his- have had its effect upon the imagination of tory of the noble house of Berkeley may the philosopher. I. ] The Berkeley Family in Kilkenny. 1 1 School, and to the Register 20 which records the simple fact of Berkeley's appearance there on a summer day in 1696, when he was placed in the Second Class. That he was placed so high is remarkable. The lowest class at that time was the Fifth. One is disposed to interpret as a sign of unusual precocity the fact, that the boy, entering school at the age of eleven, was considered fit for this advanced place. The old Register contains almost no parallel instance 21 . The page on which the name of c George Berkley' occurs con- tains a list of long-forgotten names — his school companions in the old school. But the following entries refer to one who must remain associated with Berkeley's history, as long as his life is kept in distinct remembrance : — • Thomas Pryor, gent., aged 15 years, entered the Third Class, Jan. 11, an. dom. 169^' . . . ' Mr. Thomas Pryor left the Second Class, April 1699, and was entered in the University of Dublin.' It has escaped the biographers of Berkeley that his life- long intimacy with Thomas Prior' 22 of Rathdowney, the c dear Tom' of so many letters, commenced at Kilkenny School. Berkeley went there in the summer of 1696, and Thomas Prior crossed the 20 This Register commences on the 1st of October, 1684, on which day twenty boys entered. The re-organization of the School after the Restoration of Charles II must have been a good many years earlier. Dr. Edward Jones (afterwards Dean of Lismore, and Bishop of Cloyne in 1683), was Head Master from 1670 to 1 680 ; and Dr. Henry Rider (afterwards Archdeacon of Ossory, and Bishop of Killaloe in 1693), from 1680 to 1684. The Register commences when Dr. Edward Hinton was appointed in 1 684. It is continued without interruption till July 27, 1688, after which a lacuna of nearly four years occurs, during which time the School seems to have been shut up. From January, 1692, the series of entries is com- plete till August 6, 1 716. 21 The School was re-opened after the War on the 20th of January, 1692, four years and a half before Berkeley entered it. Seventy-two boys joined in this interval, and Berkeley's name is the seventy-third in the list. Of all these, as well as the others who entered till the close of the century, Berkeley alone joined the Second Class at the early age of eleven. All the others, at or under the same age, were placed in one of the junior classes. Berkeley's case is in fact unique in the early history of Kilkenny School. 22 Prior is spelt 'Pryor' in the Register. The Priors of Rathdowney were of some consideration in that part of the country. Grants of lands were made to them soon after the Restoration. The family, I believe, is now extinct. In the latter part of last century, Andrew Prior of Rathdowney mar- ried a sister of the first Lord Frankfort. Thomas Prior, Berkeley's friend, was born about 1682. We are indebted to his care for the greater part of Berkeley's now extant correspondence. He was of a delicate con- stitution, and did not enter any profession. To promote the happiness of his country and his friends was the object of his life. He was one of the founders (in June 1731) of the Dublin Society, in which he long acted as Secretary. He published A List of the Absentees of Ireland (1729); Observa- tions on Coin (1729); On the Effects of Tar Water (1746); Essay on the Linen Manufacture in Ireland (1749). He died in 1751. 12 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. country from Rathdowney, in Queen's County, in the following winter, to enter the same school. The two boys found themselves in a quaint old house, three stories high, with a garden attached to it which reached to the Nore, the whole commanded by the ancient castle of the Or- monds on the opposite bank. The present building is not the one in which Berkeley and Prior formed their lasting friend- ship. The modern School or College of Kilkenny is a large square house, three stories high. Turning its back, as has been said, in suitable abstraction from the hum and bustle of the small though populous city, it faces toward the green country, an extensive lawn spreading before it, which was washed by the placid Nore. But the original edifice, with which Berkeley was familiar, was a little farther back, and faced the street, c a grey reverend pile, of irregular and rather straggling design, or perhaps of no design at all; having partly a monastic physiognomy, and partly that of a dwelling-house. 5 The entrance to the school-room was immediately to the street ; the rough oak folding doors, arching at top, and gained by flights of steps at each side, made a platform before the entrance, with a passage below by which visitors approached. To the left was another gateway by which carriages had egress. The front of the building was of cut stone, with Gothic windows; giving an appearance of a side or back rather than a front, with its grotesque gables, chimneys, and spouts. The spouts jutted into the street, and the platform before the school-room entrance is said to have tempted the boys to contrive various annoyances to passers by. It was in this quaint building that Berkeley spent the greater part of four years. It was pulled down about eighty years ago, but when he entered it must have been comparatively new. The School itself — the c Eton of Ireland,' as it has been called —before and since famed for its excellent masters, and its many celebrated pupils, was originally an appendage to the magnificent Cathedral of St. Canice. It declined in the early part of the seventeenth century, and had almost disappeared, when the original Ormond foundation was revived, and placed upon a more ample footing, soon after the Restoration. In T684 it was confirmed by the grant of a new Charter by the Duke of Ormond, and about that I.] The Berkeley Family in Kilkenny. 13 time was reared the curious gabled building, with its small central court, in which Berkeley studied. The School had not escaped the troubles of the time. Dr. Hinton, who was Head Master while Berkeley was a pupil, had retired to England during Tyrconnel's government. In his absence the house was converted into a military hospital. After the rout of the Boyne, the second Duke of Ormond returned to his ancestral castle at Kilkenny. The School endowed by his grandfather was restored to the original foundation. It was opened again by Dr. Hinton' 23 in January, 1692. Besides Berkeley, Swift has helped to make the Kilkenny School famous. His name is not to be found in the Register, for he was there before the earliest entry in it was commenced. But there is Swift's own authority for it, and that of the Matriculation Register of Trinity College 24 . Provost Baldwin, Harris the historian, Flood the orator, and Banim the novelist, are among the later ornaments. Scions of the noble houses of Desert, Inchiquin, Waterford, Mornington, Lismore, Charlmont, Boyle 3 Bandon, and Shannon, were in those days to be found upon its benches. A late learned Head Master laments that now c the great men and the little men of Ireland are no longer satisfied with an education in their own country,' and adds that c the consequence is an unlearned and mentally enfeebled race, instead of the giants of the days when Ireland educated her own sons 25 . 5 In these four years, Berkeley may be supposed to have learned to construe Latin books, and perhaps easy Greek ones. Nor were questions of mathematics, we may imagine, entirely 23 Dr. Hinton was Master from 1684 till his death in 1 703. He was also (1693- 1 703) Archdeacon of Cashel. 1682, Jonathan Filius Natus Natus Educatus Vicesimo Swift, Thomae annos in comi- sub ferula quarto die Pens. Jonathani quatuor tatu Dub- Mag. Rider Aprilis Swift decim hniensi As already mentioned, Rider (a native of Paris) was Master of Kilkenny School from 1680 to 1684. Swift, like Berkeley, was of English and Cavalier descent. His grandfather, the Rev. Thomas Swift, a vicar in Hereford- shire, suffered for his zeal in the cause of Charles I. The eldest son, Godwin, ob- tained an appointment in Ireland, under the Duke of Ormond, and his success induced 24 In the Registry of Trinity College we have the following : — Tutor St. George Ashe. three brothers (including the father of the Dean of St. Patrick's), to go over as colonists to that country, where they obtained agen- cies and other employments, according to the fashion of the time. 25 See ' Kilkenny College,' by the Rev. John Browne, LL D., in the Transactions of the Kilkenny Archaeological Society, vol. i. pp. 221 — 229 — an article to which I am indebted. 14 Life and Letters of Berkeley. strange to him and his companions. But what exactly he was asked to learn, and how he learned it, is not clear. It has been affirmed and denied 26 that in his youthful days he fed his imagina- tion with the airy visions of romances, and that these helped to dissolve his sense of the difference between illusion and reality. What the romances may have been we are not told, nor can we readily conjecture. There is some evidence that he indulged in observation of nature, with a propensity to explore the country round Kilkenny. His hitherto unpublished account (contained in another part of this volume) of a visit, perhaps about this time, to the Cave of Dunmore, four miles from the city, is more in keep- ing than the books of romance of that day with his inquisitive curiosity about all physical phenomena, afterwards remarked by Blackwell. The new neighbourhood was not less apt to awaken a love for the visible world than the scenes of his childhood on the Nore below Thomastown. Kilkenny has been compared to Warwick, and to Windsor, and to Oxford. However one may judge of these comparisons, no modern visitor of the Irish city can soon forget the still beauty of the Nore, as viewed upwards or downwards on a fair summer evening from John's bridge, or from the College meadow ; or the intermixture of buildings, new and old — Castle, Cathedrals, and Round Tower, so happily grouped on the high ground on which the city stands; or the free and careless grace of nature in all the neighbouring country. Such were the surroundings of the boy Berkeley, as we now dimly discern him and his family doings through the mists of nearly two centuries. Out of them emerged soon after, on the death of Locke and Leibnitz, one who was then without doubt the foremost psychologist and metaphysician in Europe. 26 The affirmation is in the Biog. Brit. (vol. ii. art. 'Berkeley') and by Stock; the denial in the Biog. Brit. (vol. iii. — Addenda et Corrigenda), on the authority of Mrs. Berkeley. CHAPTER II. TRINITY COLLEGE, DUBLIN. ENTHUSIASM ABOUT A NEW PHILOSOPHICAL PRINCIPLE. 1700 — 17 13. On the 21st of March, 1700, Berkeley, leaving the ancient city of Kilkenny, and the picturesque valley of the Nore, matriculated in Trinity College, Dublin. Trinity College was his head-quarters during the thirteen years which followed. Not long after his matriculation, we find him exulting, with the fervour of an en- thusiastic temperament, in a New Principle, for the relief of the difficulties of human knowledge, with which he somehow felt himself inspired, and which he was eager to apply to our conception of the material world and its supposed powers. His thoughts soon began to overflow in writings, published and un- published, so that we cannot follow him during these thirteen years without becoming involved in the speculations of metaphysical philosophy. We have in this chapter to trace the beginnings of his intellectual history. Let us first look at the City and University where this Kil- kenny boy found himself nine days after he had completed his fifteenth year, and in which the inclination of his childhood to reflective thought found energetic expression. Dublin in those days little resembled the brilliant and pros- perous city which pleases the eye of the stranger who now visits the Irish capital. The ground now covered by its most graceful buildings was then waste land or meadow. The population, which in 1700 was probably less than 50,000, was gathered round the Castle and the Cathedrals, with some signs of new streets on 1 6 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. the opposite side of the Liffey, where old ones are now found. The original buildings of Trinity College, erected partly in the reign of Elizabeth, were becoming ruinous, and, although standing where the classic modern structure stands, were then in the outskirts of the city. The College was designated Trinity College c near Dublin.' The City and the surrounding country, at the opening of the new century, were beginning to recover from the effects of the c warre in Ireland, 5 which had ended ten years before. The Univer- sity was about to renew its youth, after having been on the verge of ruin. The contest into which the Revolution of 1688 plunged Ireland, involved Trinity College, as well as the c famous school' of Kilkenny, in its collisions. Early in 1689 the Registry reveals preparations for flight on the part of the Fellows. A month later the College was occupied by the military, and most of the Fellows were in England. Then James arrived in Dublin, and converted the academical buildings into a garrison, and the old College Chapel into a magazine for gunpowder. It was even proposed to commit the Library to the flames. The battle of the Boyne, in July 1690, saved the University in the crisis of its fate. After this, it recovered rapidly, by the fostering care of the Government, and the sagacity of its Provosts and other officials. Even in 1693, it was able to celebrate its first centenary in a way not unbecoming. It gradually engaged the attention and support of the Irish Parliament. Successive grants of money were made in the early part of the eighteenth century and afterwards. New buildings began to rise. Many of the extensive and handsome academical structures which now form Trinity College were reared in the reigns of Anne and the first two Georges. Little remains of the decayed build- ings, desecrated in war, which met Berkeley's eye when he came to matriculate in March 1700. The present magnificent library was erected between 1710 and 1720. The elegant west front belongs to a still later period, as well as the new College Chapel, which stands a little to the north of the old one, where Berkeley went to daily prayers, and delivered discourses on Sundays. Intellectual activity, and extension of the means of knowledge seem, as the century advanced, to have fairly kept pace with the renovation of the College buildings. The influence of the dis- Trinity College, Dublin. *7 coveries of Newton, Boyle, Hooke, and Locke, and of the splendid hypotheses of Des Cartes, Malebranche, and Leibnitz — a galaxy of men of genius who were passing away as the eighteenth century was opening — began gradually to show itself. Lectureships in chemistry, botany, and anatomy were added to the College courses in 1710. Experimental philosophy soon followed. A complete school of physic was designed, and to a great extent organised, later in the century. Nor was modern science the only object of regard. In 1718, Archbishop King endowed a Divinity Lecture, to be held by a Senior Fellow, for the better instruction of Bachelors of Arts intended for holy orders. A scholasticism out of which the subtle intellectual life of the middle ages had departed apparently still prevailed in the Uni- versity, at the close of the seventeenth century, especially in logic and metaphysics, ethics and theology. From more than one eminent man subjected to the influences of Trinity College at this time, there came complaints of the tendency of the system to crush spontaneous thought and inquiry, similar to those of contemporary students in other European Universities. Logic, according to the model of that time, was in vain presented to Swift's notice, for instance, during the years in which he was at Trinity (1682 — 87), although it was then and there a principal object of learning. c His disposition, 5 says Scott, c altogether rejected the scholastic sophistry of Smiglicius, Keckermannus, Burgersdicius, and other ponderous worthies, now hardly known by name; nor could his tutor ever persuade him to read three pages in one of them, though some acquaintance with the commentators of Aristotle was then abso- lutely necessary at passing examination for his degrees V Swift was naturally averse to the subtleties of the schools, but this aversion to a then dead philosophy was shared by more specu- lative minds, and only waited for a powerful philosophical voice to give it practical expression. The Provost of Trinity, in March 1700, was Dr. Peter Browne 2 — a man not unworthy of note in the philosophical annals of Ireland, as the author afterwards of the Procedure and Limits of Human 1 Life of Swift, pp. 15, 16. mined in favour of Browne,' by the most 2 The orthography — ' Brown' or 'Browne' numerous and weighty (but not by all) the — about which I have hitherto hesitated, in original authorities. - In fact the practice the conflict of precedents, has been deter- was not uniform, as in the case of ' Berkeley.' VOL. IV. C 1 8 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. Understanding and the Divine Analogy , and as a learned critical an- tagonist of Locke. Many now remember him, when they remember him at all, only for his whimsical sermons and pamphlets 3 against drinking healths, and against drinking in remembrance of the dead. The life of Browne is unwritten, but it deserves research. Ac- cording to contemporary report, he was c an austere, learned, and mortified man.' The gravity of his manner, and the severe beauty of his eloquence as a preacher are said to have checked the c false glitter of words' in which his countrymen are apt to indulge themselves. In 1700 he was known as the author of the most learned and vigorous reply 4 then encountered by Toland's Christianity not Mysterious^ a reply which contains the germs of some of his own philosophical theology. He was born in the county of Dublin soon after the Restoration, and he entered Trinity College in June 1682. Ten years later he became a Fellow. He was raised to the Provostship in August 1699, a few months before Berkeley matriculated, and was promoted to the bishopric of Cork and Ross in January 1710 5 . Browne was thus Provost during the greater part of Berkeley's residence in Trinity. Long after this, they encountered one another as philosophical and theological antagonists, and we shall find them near neighbours for a few months in a distant part of Ireland. In his early years at Trinity, Berkeley was under the tuition of Dr. John Hall, who was Vice-Provost from 1697 till 1713. To Hall he attributes, in the Preface to his Arithmetical his own early enthusiasm in mathematics, and he refers with gratitude to his example and instructions. Of other contemporary Fellows or Professors nothing particular is recorded. Pratt and Baldwin, 3 (1) Drinking in Remembrance of the Dead, being the substance of a Discourse delivered to the Clergy of the Diocese of Cork. Dublin, 1 7 1 3. (2) Second Part of , Drinking in Remembrance of the Dead, &c. Dublin, 1 714. (3) An Answer to a Right Reverend Prelate's Defence of Eating and Drinking to the Memory of the Dead. Dublin, 1 7 1 5. (4) A Discourse of Drinking Healths ; wherein the great evil of the custom is shewn. Dublin, 1716. f 5") ^4 Letter to a Gentleman in Oxford on the Subject of Health Driftking. 1722. The Jacobites were said to indulge in the practice of drinking in remembrance of the dead King James. 4 A Letter in Answer to a Book entitled ' Christianity not Mysterious ;' as also to all those who set up for Reason and Evidence in opposition to Revelation and Mysteries. Dublin, 1697. This work brought the author the patronage of Marsh, Archbishop of Dublin, whose influence gained for Browne the Provostship of the College, and after- wards the bishopric of Cork. Toland, ac- cordingly, used to say that it was he who made Browne Bishop of Cork. 5 Swift expected this bishopric when Browne got it, and the disappointment is said to have been the immediate occasion of his going over to the Tories. II.] Trinity College, Dublin. 19 afterwards distinguished Provosts, seem to have been among the number, as well as Nicholas Forster, afterwards Bishop of Killaloe and of Raphoe, and Richard Helsham, afterwards Professor of Natural Philosophy. In Dublin, outside the University, considerable intellectual forces were at work. One remarkable figure, associated both with the City and the University in the last two decades of the seventeenth century, was William Molyneux, born of a family eminent in letters and in public life 6 , whose keen and delicate features are represented in his picture in the Examination Hall of the College. The correspondence of Molyneux with Locke, his visit to the English philosopher at Oates, and the story of his death immediately after the pleasant weeks in Essex, are familiar to those acquainted with the history of the English philosopher. He was born in Dublin in 1655, and entered the University in 1670. In June 1676, he became a member of the Middle Temple, and applied himself for a time to the study of law. But his inclination lay in another direction. He was delicate from his infancy, and through life he suffered from a dangerous chronic disease. This did not interfere with his strong bias to mathe- matics and the modern philosophy, nor with his expressions of contempt for the scholasticism then dominant in the University. He was active in promoting the modern spirit of inquiry. In 1680, he published a translation of the Meditations of Des Cartes, the objections of Hobbes, and Des Cartes' rejoin- ders, along with a short biographical account of the French philosopher. In 1683, he founded a Society in Dublin, similar to the Royal Society of London, in which he acted as secretary, and which continued in vigour for several years, till it was dispersed by the storms of 1688. About that time the severities of Tyrconnel obliged Molyneux to fly to England. He spent some time with his family at Chester, and there his son Samuel was born, afterwards the friend of Berkeley. After his 6 The father of William Molyneux (spelt s Molynex in the matriculation registry of 1 Trinity College, and elsewhere Molineux) was < an eminent engineer, and an author in that \ department. He died in 1696. A brother, i Sir Thomas Molyneux, was an eminent phy- c a sician. The grandfather, Daniel, was Ulster King at Arms, called by Ware venerandce antiquitatis cultor. A Thomas Molyneux was Chancellor of the Exchequer in Ireland in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. 20 Life and Letters of Berkeley, [ch. return to Dublin, he devoted himself to optics and philosophy, and to the social questions of Ireland. His Dioptrica Nova appeared in 1692 and was warmly praised by Halley. In the same year he was chosen to represent the University of Dublin in the Irish Parliament, a position which he held till his death in 1698. In politics he was a champion for the independence of his native country, and published in 1697 his celebrated Case of Ireland being bound by Acts of Parliament in England. His cordial cor- respondence with Locke, from 1692 till his death in 1698, suggested some important additions to the Essay on Human Under- standing, and occasioned the interesting visit to Oates in the month before he died. Partly through the influence of William Molyneux, the Essay on Human Understanding found its way into the hands of reading men in Dublin before the end of the seventeenth century. It was translated into Latin, in 1701, by Ezekiel Burridge, a native of Cork, and a member of Trinity College. The name of Locke, as well as that of Des Cartes, must have been tolerably familiar there in March 1700. The Recherche of Malebranche too, the contemporary rival of the Essay in the philosophical world, cannot have been unknown ; and curious readers may have en- countered the Ideal or Intelligible World of John Norris, the English Malebranche, soon after it appeared in 1701 — 4. At the same time the rivalry between the natural philosophy of Des Cartes and the natural philosophy of Newton was going on, and both were drawing attention away from the natural philosophy of Aristotle. The Principia of Newton was published thirteen years before Berkeley entered Trinity College. The method of Fluxions was beginning to be employed, and was struggling for mastery with the Calculus of Leibnitz. The Dioptrics of Molyneux was soon followed by the Optics of Newton. Wallis and the Oxford mathematicians, with the works of the founders and leaders of the Royal Society, then forty years old, might have been common talk in the academic circle of Dublin in the opening years of the century. Berkeley, in short, entered an atmosphere, in the College of Queen Elizabeth, which was beginning to be charged with the elements of reaction against traditional scholasticism in physics and in metaphysics. During the greater part of these thirteen years, the archbishopric ii. ] Trinity College, Dublin. 2 1 of Dublin was held by a prelate who takes a distinguished place among the philosophical theologians of his time. William King, already known as the author of the treatise Be Origine Mali which employed the controversial pens of Bayle and Leibnitz, was translated from Derry to Dublin in 1 703. He was the sagacious, witty, and sarcastic ecclesiastical governor of that province for twenty-six years. The personal appearance and discourses of the philosophic Archbishop cannot have been unknown to the undergraduates and graduates of Trinity College of those years. Traces of intercourse between the subtle Berkeley and King, the discreet and dignified politician, if any ever existed, are now lost. Browne as Provost, and King as Archbishop, must have been known to each other. And references to the philosophical theology of the other two are to be found in the subsequent writings of all the three. The year in which Berkeley matriculated in Dublin was also the year in which Swift was settled at Laracor, about twenty miles north-west of the city. Laracor was his home during the thirteen years of Berkeley's residence in Trinity, and it was at the end of the thirteen years that Swift became Dean of St. Patrick's. It was in those years that he was planting his willows, and making his canal, and enjoying, as much as his frequent visits to London would permit, c the garden, and the river, and the holly and the cherry trees, and the river walk.' Before he went to London in 1 7 10, to spend three years there, the intimate of Earls and Ambassadors, he had probably heard of Berkeley, one of the Junior Fellows of Trinity College, then the author of a remark- able book. Among his undergraduate compeers, Berkeley found his old Kilkenny schoolfellow, Thomas Prior. Samuel Madden, the founder, with Prior, of the Royal Irish Society, some thirty years after, was also an undergraduate in those days. William Palliser, son of the Archbishop to whom Trinity College is indebted for its Blbllotheca Palliseriana, seems to have been also a College chum. Later on in Berkeley's course, Edward Synge, afterwards Bishop of Ferns and of Elphin, was an intimate associate, and so too might have been Barry Hartwell, afterwards brother-in-law of the Dean Gervais, who was the friend and correspondent of Berkeley's old age. 22 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. Conterini 7 , the good uncle of Oliver Goldsmith, another of his chums, is connected by a characteristic story with Berkeley's early years at College. Curiosity, it is said, led the young student from Kilkenny to go to see an execution. He returned pensive and melancholy, but inquisitive about the sensations experienced by the criminal in the crisis of his fate. He informed Conterini of his eccentric curiosity. It was agreed between them that he should himself try the experiment, and be relieved by his friend on a signal arranged, after which Conterini, in his turn, was to repeat the experiment. Berkeley was accordingly tied up to the ceiling, and the chair removed from under his feet. Losing consciousness, his companion waited in vain for the signal. The enthusiastic inquirer might have been hung in good earnest, — and as soon as he was relieved he fell motionless upon the floor. On recovering himself his first words were — c Bless my heart, Conterini, you have rumpled my band.' After this his friend's curiosity was not enough to induce him to fulfil the original agreement. If not true in the letter, this story is at least true to the spirit of Berkeley's ardent psychological analysis, and brave indifference even to life in the interest of truth. This among other eccentric actions, we are told, made Berkeley a mystery. Ordinary people did not understand him, and laughed at him. Soon after his entrance, he began to be looked at as either the greatest genius or the greatest dunce in College. Those who were slightly acquainted with him took him for a fool ; but those who shared his intimate friendship thought him a prodigy of learning and goodness of heart. When he walked about, which was seldom, he was surrounded by the idlers, who came to enjoy a laugh at his expense. Of this, it is said, he sometimes complained, but there was no redress ; the more he fretted the more he amused them. 7 The Rev. Thomas Conterini, or Con- terine, as I find by the College Register, entered Trinity College October 2, 1 702, in his eighteenth year — ' Alius Austin Conte- rine, Coloni, natus Cestuae, educatus Wrexom, in Wallia.' He was descended from a mem- ber of the noble family of Conterini in Venice, who took refuge in England, and was for a time settled in Cheshire. Thomas was born there, and went thence to school at Wrexham, in Denbighshire. Removing to Ireland in 1 701, he entered Trinity College, where he was distinguished for intelligence and goodness of heart, and for his intimate friendship with Berkeley. He long held the living of Oran in Roscommon. He married Goldsmith's aunt, and it was by his kindness that the poet was enabled to pursue his studies at college. It is to him that Gold- smith alludes in his Deserted Village — 1 Near yonder copse, where once the garden smiled,' &c. II.] Trinity College, Dublin. 23 In spite of these impediments, he pursued his studies, in those first years at Trinity, according to report, with extraordinary ardour, c full of simplicity and enthusiasm.' He was made a Scholar in 1702 8 . In the spring of 1704 (the year Locke died) he became Bachelor of Arts Q . He took his Master's degree in the spring of 1707. After the customary arduous examination of that University, conducted in presence of nobility, gentry, and high officials, he passed with unprecedented applause, and was admitted to a Fellowship, June 9, 1707 10 , c the only reward of learning that kingdom has to bestow,' as one £>( his biographers curtly says. The c Berkeley Papers' throw fresh and interesting light upon his employments,, and upon the occupation and progress of his thoughts, in the seven years between his matriculation and his election as Fellow. One academical enterprise which these Papers record deserves to be mentioned. Early in 1705, it seems that Berkeley and some of his College friends formed a Society to promote their investigations in the New Philosophy of Boyle, Newton, and Locke. The manuscript commences with these words in Berkeley's own handwriting: — 'Mem. The following Statutes were agreed to and signed by a Society consisting of eight persons, January 10, a.d. 1705.' The c Statutes' are then given, as follows, in the handwriting of another : — * That the Officers of this Society be a President, Treasurer, Secretary, and Keeper of the Rarities. That these Officers be elected out of the Members by the majority of voices. 8 The emoluments of a Scholar in those days seem not to have exceeded £3. 9 The following extract from Temple's Statutes, which were then virtually in force, throws light on the necessary qualifications of a Bachelor of Arts : — ' Cap. VII. De Graeci et Hebraici Idiomatis cognitione, quanta esse debeat in iis qui Bacchalaureatum in Artibus voluit assumere. Ut ilium Bacchalaurei nomine in- dignam putemus, qui non possit totius Novi Testamenti textum Grsecum Latine inter- pertari. Quod vero ad Hebraicse linguae cognitionem attinet satis erit ad Baccha- I laurei titulum consequendum, si quis Hebrai- ca? Grammatical praecepta sic intelligat, ut eorum ductu possit voces Hebraeas, sive nomina sint sive verba, expedite flectere, et primum secundumque Psalmum in Hebraeo in Latinam convertere.' 10 For the following entry or note occurs in the records of Trinity College regarding Berkeley : — ' In 1706 no Fellowship vacant, but in September Mr. Mullart resigned on a living. In 1707, Mr. Berkeley, who had entered in yf^§, under Dr. Hall, was elected a Fellow.' 24 Life and Letters of Berkeley, [ch. That every Member when he speaks address himself to the President. That in case of equality the President have a casting-voice. That when two offer at once the President name the person that shall speak. That the Assembly proceed not to any business till the President give orders. That in the absence of the President the Assembly choose a Chairman. That no new Member be admitted before the 9th of July, 1706. That the Treasurer disburse not any money but by order of the House, signed by the President, and directed by the Secretary. That he shall make up his accounts quarterly, or upon resignation of his office. That the notes signed by the President and directed by the Secretary make up the Treasurer's accounts. That the Treasurer may disburse money for public letters without a note from the President, but shall acquaint the Assembly with it next meeting and then get a note. That the Secretary have the charge of all papers belonging to the Society. That the Keeper of the Rarities attend at the Museum from 2 to 4 on Friday, or the person whom he shall depute. That at the request of any of the Members the Keeper of the Rarities attend in person, or send the key to the Member. That no one interrupt a Member when he is speaking. That no one speak twice to the same matter before every one who pleases has spoken to it. That no one reflect on the person or opinions of any one whatever. That if any one uses an unwary expression he may have leave to explain himself. That no Member reveal the secrets of the Assembly. That when any of the Members bring in a paper, the President appoint any three he pleases to examine it against next meeting, and give in their opinion of it in writing. That the time appointed for meeting be 5 of the clock every Friday evening. That whoever is absent from the meeting be fined sixpence, and he that comes after six of the clock threepence. That the punishment for the transgression of any other Statute be determined by the Assembly. ii.] Trinity College^ Dublin. 25 That these punishments be paid the Treasurer either before or at next meeting. That the Assembly may repeal or alter these Statutes or make new ones. That everything not provided for otherwise be determined by majority of voices. That the Elections of Officers be made at the last meeting of every quarter, and that the Officers then elected continue for, the three fol- lowing months. That whoever leaves the Assembly before it's broken up pay threepence. That every meeting the majority appoint a subject for next conference. That first the President speak concerning the matter to be discoursed on, and after him the next on his right hand, and so on every one that pleases in order as they sit, and that such member stand up as he speaks. That when these more solemn discourses are over, and not till then, every one may talk freely on the matter, and propose and answer what- ever doubts or objections may arise. That when the subject of the conference has been sufficiently dis- cussed the members may propose to the Assembly their inventions, new thoughts, or observations in any of the sciences. That the conference continue for three hours at least, or longer if the Assembly think fit. That the conference begin at three in the afternoon on Friday and continue till eight/ The following queries and other memoranda in Berkeley's writing, obviously connected with Locke's Essay, follow in the Common-place Book immediately after the Statutes, but whether they were to be considered at any of the meetings of the Society does not appear : — ' Qu. Whether number be in the objects without the mind. L. [Locke] b. 2. c. 8. s. 9. Why powers mediately perceivable thought such, immediately per- ceivable not. b. 2. c. 8. s. 19. Whether solids seen. b. 2. c. 9. s. 9. Whether discerning, comparing, compounding, abstracting, &c, remembering, knowing simple or complex ideas — the same with, or different from perception ? Whether taste be a simple idea, since it is combined with existence, unity, pleasure, or pain ? 26 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. Whether all the last mentioned do not make a complex idea as well as the several component ideas of a Wherein brutes distinguished from men? Wherein idiots from madmen ? Whether any knowledge without memory ? God space, b. 2. c 13. s. 326 and 15. 2. Rotation of a fire-brand, why makes a circle ? Why men more easily admit of infinite duration than infinite expansion ? Demonstration in numbers, whether more general in their use for the reason? L. qu. b. 2. ch. 10. Inches, &c, not settled, stated lengths against, b. 2. c. 13. s. 4. Qu. Whether motion, extension, and time be not definable, and there- fore complete ? Qu. Whether the clearness or distinctness of each greater mode of number be so verified ? Qu. Why Locke thinks we can have ideas of no more modes of number than have names ? Not all God's attributes properly infinite. Why other ideas besides number be not capable of infinity ? Not rightly solved. Infinity and infinite. No such thing as an obscure, confused idea of infinite space. Power is not perceived by sense. Locke not to be blamed if tedious about innate ideas, soul always thinking, tension not essence of body, tune can be conceived and measured when no motion, willing not force, &c. A thing may be voluntary though necessary. Qu. Whether it can be involuntary ? Things belonging to reflection are for the most part expressed by forms borrowed from things sensible.' One other record, either of the same or of a similar Society, immediately follows these queries and notes : — ' December the seventh, in the year one thousand seven hundred and six, Agreed — That we the under written persons do meet on every Thursday, at five of the clock in the evening. That the business of our meeting be to discourse on some part of the New Philosophy. That the junior begin the Conference, the second senior speak next, and so on. "■] Trinity College, Dublin. 27 That at the close of every Conference, we appoint a Subject for the following/ The 'underwritten' names unfortunately are not given. We are left in the dark about Berkeley's associates at these Thursday evening meetings, for the discussion of the c New Philosophy •' and also very much as to the questions they discussed, and the con- clusions (if any) which they reached. The office of c Keeper of the Rarities' probably implies that observation and experiment were as much in vogue among them as the mathematical and metaphysical speculations of the hitherto unpublished Common- place Book in which the memorials of this Society appear. The other contents of that Book, written by Berkeley's own hand, and now published in another part of this volume, may perhaps exemplify some of the questions which engaged these Trinity College inquirers in the two years before he obtained his Fellowship. The promotion of Societies, literary and philosophic, was a work in which through life Berkeley seemed fond of engaging. We find instances of this afterwards. The Common-place Book, to a stray page in which we owe our information about this academical reunion, represents Berkeley's studies, and the course of his thoughts, apparently from about his eighteenth till about his twenty-second year — the years immediately before he presented himself to the world as an author. It is a biographical document of great value to those whose conception of biography comprehends analysis of the progressive unfolding of individual human mind. It contains thoughts, self-originated, or immediately occasioned by reading, partly in natural philosophy and mathematics, chiefly in psychology, metaphysics, ethics, and theology. The prevailing tendency of the whole is to the banishment of scholasticism from philosophy, as well as all talk about things which cannot be resolved into living experience of concrete matter of fact, — called by him idea or sensation. He is everywhere eager to simplify things and make knowledge practi- cal, to bring men back to facts, and to expel empty abstractions from philosophy, as the bane of religion and morality not less than of physical science. There is also a disposition towards the 28 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. intellectual independence which rebels against the bondage of words, and an enthusiastic straightforwardness of character, apt to be regarded as eccentricity by the multitude — but with a desire to conciliate too. What he writes plainly flows from himself, if ever any writing did flow from the mind of the writer. The mathematical observations contained in the Common- mon-place Book do not suggest a high standard of proficiency ; but it must be remembered that they are the work of one hardly beyond the age of a schoolboy. In the early parts, infinite divisi- bility and incommensurables recur. These Berkeley exclaims against as examples of the unmeaning verbal abstractions which might, he thought, be banished from science by an all-comprehen- sive purgative Principle which he was then beginning to see, and in the first indistinct recognition of which he indulges in successive outbreaks of intellectual enthusiasm. It may be alleged perhaps, by mathematicians, that Berkeley in these memoranda contrasts with indivisibles only infinite divisibility, and not the continuous flow which is at the bottom of Newton's theory of Fluxions. He would probably have denied that an idea of con- tinuity is possible. But we find no distinct allusion to Newton and Fluxions till we advance pretty far into the Common-place Book, where he returns to mathematics through optics. The re- marks on optics are at first very elementary. Berkeley's obvious inclination exclusively to the metaphysical side of mathematics, in these juvenile speculations and after- wards, probably indisposed him to a minute study of the details, or even of the professed theory, of Fluxions and of the Calculus. His own psychological theory of physical points {minima sensibilid) must have obscured Newton's Fluxions, which rest on a doctrine of continuity that is hard to reconcile with Berkeley's sensible indi- visibles. Perhaps neither then nor afterwards did he sufficiently appreciate the radical antagonism between Newton and himself in their whole way of regarding sensible quantity. He looked at it, so to speak, statically; Newton, dynamically. Besides this, Newton, writing for practical purposes, leaves his own not very lucid metaphysical theory in the background, which may in part explain why Berkeley did not directly criticise, or even recognise it. At any rate, determined by his abhorrence of scholastic ver- II.] Trinity College, Dublin. 29 balism and empty abstractions, he rejects infinite divisibility, and the whole mathematical doctrine of incommensurables, as ex- pressive of nothing that can be resolved into idea of sense and imagination. In the memoranda which deal with Optics there seems to be a mixture of the mathematical and physiological with the psycho- logical. This shows that Berkeley was at that time only working his way to the purely psychological method which at last formed the one basis of his New Theory of Vision. Internal consciousness of what is experienced in the mental state of seeing, as distinguished both from physiological observation of the eye, and from mathe- matical reckoning about lines and angles, was the field within which he restricted himself at last. The non-mathematical speculations, which occupy by far the larger portion of the Common-place Book, are mostly concerned with Matter and its Qualities, Space and Time, Existence, Soul, God, and Duty. The nature of visible extension, and its relations to tangible extension are often remarked upon, with occasional hesitation about details. But Berkeley's mind everywhere labours under the inspiration of a new thought, with which it is evidently charged, and the consciousness of which calls out ever and anon the flash of philosophical enthusiasm. A new Principle is once and again referred to as what his soul was labouring with; and this, notwithstanding the opposition and ridicule it and its applications might occasion among impatient thinkers and the thoughtless, he was resolved soon to discharge himself of through the press, but in as conciliatory a way as he could — with some politic art, in short. Now what is this new Principle ? It dawns upon us in the Common-place Book by degrees. When we compare one expression of it with another, we find that it implies neither more nor less than this : — a conception of the impossibility of anything existing in the universe that is independent of perception and volition ; that is not either percipient and voluntary, or perceived and willed. This is Berkeley's dualism. He vacillates in the abstract ex- pression of it, but it generally approaches this. All so-called existence that cannot be resolved into this, is, he is beginning to see, only c abstract idea,' and therefore absurd — to be swept 30 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. away as sophistry and illusion. He is gradually discovering that the pressure of this new Principle, in its various phases, delivers Science from abstract or unperceived Matter (as dis- tinguished from sensible things) ; from abstract or unperceived Space (as distinguished from sensibly extended things); from abstract or unperceived Time (as distinguished from perceived changes); from abstract or unperceived Substance (as distinguished from our personal consciousness); and from abstract or un- perceived Cause (as distinguished from free voluntary agency). It is the same Principle which in mathematics, with a dim con- ception of it, he found to press hard against incommensurability and infinite divisibility. At times he is in awe of its tremendous consequences, and of the shock which these may occasion when it is proclaimed to a learned world which had long tried to feed itself upon abstractions. But he is resolved, nevertheless, to employ it for purging science and sustaining faith. Here, more intensely, but not more really, than in Berke- ley's mathematical jottings, one feels the presence of the spirit of scientific independence, the parent of all discovery, in which only a few can sympathise, and which is ever in antagonism to the unintelligent mediocrity, by which discovery has been crushed or retarded. It was the same spirit as that which moved Des Cartes, and Spinoza, and Locke, in the time preceding, or Hume and Kant in time that followed, and which moves all who leave their mark on the course of human thought. A few examples of the philosophical remarks in the Com- mon-place Book, taken from the chaos in which the reader finds them there, and arranged in groups, may help to show the state of Berkeley's mind about this time. The reader may enlarge the size of each of the following groups, and add some new ones, by a study of the Common-place Book itself, in another part of this volume. There is a freshness in the very immaturity of the thoughts. Here are some regarding the im- portance of his new Principle : — ' The reverse of the Principle I take to have been the chief source of all that scepticism and folly — all those contradictory and inex- tricable puzzling absurdities, that have in all ages been a reproach to human reason; as well as of the idolatry, whether of images II.] Trinity College, Dublin. 3i or of God, that blind the greatest part of the world ; as well as of that shameful immorality that turns us into beasts. ..... I know there is a mighty sect of men will oppose me I am young, I am an upstart, I am vain. Very well, I shall endeavour patiently to bear up under the most lessening, vilifying appellations the pride and rage of men can devise. But one thing I know I am not guilty of. I do not pin my faith on the sleeve of any great man. I act not out of prejudice or prepossession. I do not adhere to any opinion because it is an old one, or a revived one, or a fashionable one, or one that I have spent much time in the study and cultivation of If in some things I differ from a philosopher I profess to admire, it is for that very thing on account of which I admire him, namely, the love of truth.' Then we have glimpses of the Principle itself, more distinct as it takes fuller possession of him, while he revolves it in his thoughts : — ' Mem. Diligently to set forth that many of the ancient philosophers run into so great absurdities as to deny the existence of motion and those other things they perceived actually by their senses. This sprung from their not knowing what Existence was, or wherein it consisted. This is the source of their folly. 'Tis on the discovery of the nature and meaning and import of Existence that I chiefly insist. This puts the wide difference betwixt the Sceptics and me. This I think wholly new. I am sure this is new in me I take not away Substances. I ought not to be accused of discarding Substance out of the reasonable world. I only reject the philosophic sense, which is in effect nonsense, of the word Substance. Ask a man, not tainted with their jargon, what he means by corporeal Substance, or the Substance of body. He shall answer — bulk, solidity, and suchlike sensible qualities. These I retain. The philosophic nequid, nequantum, nequale, whereof I have no idea, I discard — if a man may be said to discard that which never had any being, was never so much as imagined or conceived. In short/ he adds, (as it were in a soliloquy of agonised earnestness), 'be not angry. You lose nothing, whether real or chimerical, whichever you in any wise conceive or imagine, be it never so wild, so extravagant, so absurd. Much good may it do you. I am more for reality than any other. Philosophers, they make a thousand doubts, and know not certainly but we may be deceived. I assert the direct contrary The philosophers talk much of a distinction 'twixt absolute and relative things, and 'twixt things considered in their own nature and the same things considered with 32 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. respect to us. I know not what they mean by " things considered in themselves." This is nonsense, jargon Thing and idea are much-what words of the same extent and meaning. ... By idea I mean any sensible or imaginable thing Time a sensation; therefore only in the mind. . . . Extension a sensation; therefore only in the mind A thing not perceived is a contradiction Existence is not conceivable without perception or volition. . . . Let it not be said that I take away existence. I only declare the meaning of the word, so far as I can comprehend it. . . . What means cause, as distinguished from occasion ? Nothing but a being which wills, when the effect follows the volition There is nothing active but spirit. . . . Existence is perceiving and willing, or being perceived and willed. Soul is the will only, and is distinct from ideas Existence not conceivable without perception or volition, not distinguishable there- from. . . . Every idea has a cause, i. e. is produced by a will. . . . Say you, there must be a thinking substance — something unknown, which perceives, and supports, and ties together the ideas. Say I, Make it appear that there is any need of it, and you shall have it for me. I care not to take away anything I can see the least reason to think should exist.' And so the Principle is turned round and round in Berkeley's musings. He finds himself, under its pressure, resolving Sub- stance and Cause, Space and Time, into modifications and rela- tions of living perception, and of what is sensibly perceived by a living percipient- or into the volitions of a conscious agent, and into their sensible effects. The Principle banishes scepticism, he thinks, because it means that the real things themselves, and not their supposed effects, or the representations (possibly fallacious) of an unperceived archetypal Something, are what we are conscious or percipient of in the senses : — ' Ideas of sense are the real things or archetypes. Ideas of imagina- tion — dreams, &c, are copies, images of these. . . . Say Des Cartes and Malebranche : God both gives us strong inclinations to think our ideas proceed from bodies, and that bodies do exist. What mean they by this ? Would they have it that the ideas of imagination are images of, and proceed from, the ideas of sense ? This is true, but cannot be their meaning ; for they speak of ideas of sense proceeding from, being like unto — I know not what I am the farthest from scepticism of any II.] Trinity College, Dublin. 33 man. I know with an intuitive knowledge the existence of other things as well as my own soul. This is what Locke, nor scarce any other thinking philosopher, will pretend to.' The common supposition that we actually see things existing without us in an ambient space is likely, Berkeley anticipates, to be one great obstruction to an acceptance of the Principle. This obstruction he encounters in these soliloquies, as one might call them, in an endless variety of ways : — ' The common error of the opticians, that we judge of distance by angles, strengthens men in their prejudice that they see things without, and distant from, their mind. . . . Extension to exist in a thing void of perception a contradiction Extension, though it exist only in the mind, is yet no property of the mind ; the mind can exist without it, though it cannot without the mind. . . . Tangible and visible extension heterogeneous, because they have no common measure, and also because their simplest constituent parts are specifically different, i. e. punctum visibile and tangibile. . . . Extension seems to be perceived by the eye as thought by the ear. ... I saw gladness in his looks ; I saw shame in his face. So I see figure or distance.' Then we have allusions to the theory that thought or meaning pervades the whole sensible world, that an interpretable language is given especially in all visible phenomena: — ' Were there but one and the same language in the world, and did children speak it naturally as soon as born, and were it not in the power of men to conceal their thoughts or deceive others, but that there were an insuperable connexion between words and thoughts, Qu. Would not men think that they heard thoughts as much as that they see extension?' But the antithesis to the Principle, and in Berkeley's eye, the great root of intellectual evil, is the phantom of Abstract Ideas. In abstractions and their scholastic verbiage, all the absurdities and contradictions which retard science and nourish scepticism seemed to him to find cover. ' The chief thing I do, or pretend to do, is only to remove the mist or veil of words. This has occasioned ignorance and confusion. This VOL. IV. D 34 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. has ruined the schoolmen and mathematicians, lawyers and divines. . . . If men would lay aside words in thinking, 'tis impossible they should ever mistake, save only in matters of fact/ And then, in the more advanced parts, in reviewing what his thoughts have led him to : — ' My speculations have the same effect as visiting foreign countries. In the end I return where I was before ; yet my heart at ease, and en- joying myself with more satisfaction. . . . The philosophers lose their matter ; the mathematicians lose their insensible sensations ; the profane lose their extended Deity. Pray what do the rest of mankind lose ? As for bodies, we have them still. The future metaphysic and mathematic gain vastly by the bargain. . . . The whole directed to practice and morality, as appears — i. From making manifest the nearness and omni- presence of God; 2. From cutting off the useless labour of sciences and so forth.' The Common-place Book, from which these examples are arranged, is among the most interesting revelations which philosophical biography affords of the rise of reflection in a mind of extraordinary ingenuity and intrepidity. No candid reader will forget that in these records of Berkeley's inner history, at or about the age of twenty, we have the miscellaneous out- pourings of an ardent youth, in rapid intellectual growth, placing on paper, for the writer's own further consideration, the random speculations of the hour, without a thought of their meeting the public eye nearly a hundred and seventy years afterwards. That this mathematical and philosophical Miscellany is in all its parts consistent with itself, only vulgar ignorance could anticipate. Those who at all understand the struggles of one young in years, loving truth for its own sake, pregnant with a great thought by which the whole of life and existence seem to be simplified, will pardon some real, as well as some seeming, inconsistency in casual memoranda of temporary results reached by the labouring mind. We have the rudiments of the more orderly, if less fresh and outspoken, revelation which was made through the press in the years immediately following. The Common-place Book helps us also to trace some of Berkeley's reading in his early years at College. His central thought was indeed essentially self-originated. There is internal evidence of "•] Trinity College, Dublin. 35 this. But we also see that Locke was the prevailing external influence in putting him, as it were, into position for reflection, and that he proceeded in his intellectual work on the basis of postulates which he partly borrowed from Locke, and partly as- sumed in antagonism to him. In his early philosophy he was Locke's successor, somewhat as Fichte was the successor of Kant. In criticising the 'Essay on Human Understanding, he makes Locke more consistent with himself, and occupies a position which is partly the immediate consequence of the one his predecessor had taken. That human knowledge may be analysed into ideas or personal experiences of things, and that the secondary qualities of matter, being relative or mutable, are only ideas or personal experiences, was the position of Locke. That the primary as well as the secondary qualities of Matter, together with Space and Time, all in like manner relative and mutable, are sensations, or relations of sensations j and that, thus, Matter, Time, and Space are ideal or phenomenal in their very essence, was the first con- clusion reached by Berkeley. He was feeling his way to it in his Common-place Book, and treating Locke as a patron of scholastic verbalism because he did not receive it. Many other names as well as Locke's meet us in the Common- place Book. Des Cartes, Malebranche, Hobbes, and Spinoza, occur often; Newton, Barrow, and Wallis, now and then; Leibnitz, Le Clerc, De Vries, Sergeant, Bayle, Molyneux, and others, once or twice ; seldom the ancients or the schoolmen. Berkeley's ardour and earnestness of purpose, joined to his vivacious imagination, disposed him to become an author at an early age, and to expose to the criticism of the world the con- ception with which he was struggling in these early years at Trinity College. He first appeared in print in a modest way, a short time before he took his Master's degree. Early in 1 707, two tracts— one an attempt to demonstrate arithmetic without the help of Euclid or of algebra, and the other consisting of thoughts on some questions in mathematics, both written in Latin, and published at London — were attributed on the title-page to a Bachelor of Arts in Trinity College, Dublin. Ever since, and without dispute, they have been assigned to Berkeley, They are contained in all the editions of his collected works. And this d 1 36 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. evidence is now confirmed by various coincidences and corre- sponding passages in the Common-place Book. One source of more than mathematical interest in these two tracts is the illustration they give of Berkeley's constitutional tendency to what is novel and eccentric — a tendency inseparable, in some degree, from every genuine discoverer in science, but which his characteristic impetuosity was sometimes apt to carry to an extreme that frustrates discovery. They are interesting too for the enthusiasm they show in mathematical studies, and as an index of Berkeley's knowledge of that science when he was not twenty years of age. Though published in 1707, they were written, as the Preface informs us, nearly three years before — perhaps at an early stage in his studies for a Fellowship. The allusions to Bacon, Des Cartes, Malebranche, Locke, Newton, Sir W. Temple, and the Philosophical Transactions, confirm what we now know from other sources of the direction of his early reading. The Arlthmetka is dedicated to William Palliser, and the Miscellanea Mathematica to his young friend Samuel Molyneux, the son of Locke's friend and disciple. Three other years elapsed before Berkeley was prepared to announce to the world the great thought with which we have found him labouring for years. He presented it at first under cover, in a one-sided way — unsatisfactory, even so far as it went. The Essay towards a New Theory of Vision, with Berkeley's name on the title-page, appeared early in 1709. It was an attempt towards the psychology of our sensations, but directed immediately to the most comprehensive sense of all, and intended to eradicate a deeply-rooted prejudice. If it halts in its metaphysics, and if its physiology is defective, it proclaims in psychology what has since been accepted as a great discovery, which involves subtle applications of the laws of mental association in the formation of habits. The analytic parts of the Essay show the absolute hetero- geneity of what we see and what we touch. The explanation of the synthesis of these heterogeneous elements by means of arbitrary association is its constructive part. In this analysis and theory Berkeley is original in the rigour of his distinction II.] Trinity College, Dublin. 37 between the seen and the felt, and also in the extent to which he carries subjective and objective association as a solvent of the unity which we make and find in individual stones, trees, tables, and other sensible things. The book is much occupied in illustrating the arbitrariness of association among percepts in sight and touch. It is inferred from this arbitrariness that these associations, commonly called laws of nature, are founded in Supreme Will, and not in materialistic necessity. That the various natural laws, of which physical science is the discovery, are the sensible expression of an intending Will is its domi- nant conception. Further, that sensible phenomena — those ele- ments of which sensible things are the associated aggregates, and of which we are assumed to be immediately percipient — may be analysed into minima sensibilia^ which are connected into aggre- gates, not by unperceived substances and causes, but in mind, and by means of voluntary agency, is undoubtedly the philosophy which underlies the Essay. A distinct expression of the philo- sophy is needed, however, in order to make the Essay obviously consistent with itself. Now, this implied philosophy is neither more nor less than the new Principle already privately expressed in the Common-place Book. In the Essay of 1709, the Berkeleian Principle is applied to sight but not to touch. Tangible phenomena are left in undisturbed possession of a kind of reality that is inconsistent with it, while visible phenomena are subjected to its sway. The reason for this partial application of what, if applicable at all, was to be universally applied, lay probably in Berkeley's unwillingness to shock the world with a conception of its own existence against which he anticipated a storm of opposition. Its actual effect has been to expose the New Theory of Vision to criti- cisms not in all cases undeserved. This reserve of a foregone conclusion makes Berkeley's first essay on philosophy his least artistic. Its main conclusion cannot be fully comprehended without the New Principle, and yet the New Principle is held in reserve. Hence the acute reasoning is apt to lose itself in a chaos of details, unrelieved by the ultimate constructive thought required to form them into a philosophy. The question of the Essay comes to this : — What is really meant by our seeing things in ambient space ? Berkeley's answer, when 3« Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. developed, may be put thus: — What, before we reflected, we had supposed to be a seeing of real things, is not seeing really extended things at all, but only seeing something that is con- stantly connected with their extension : what is vulgarly called seeing them is in fact reading about them : when we are every day using our eyes, we are virtually interpreting a book : when by sight we are determining for ourselves the actual distances, sizes, shapes, and situations of things, we are simply translating the words of the Universal and Divine Language of the Senses. It is of course difficult fully and constantly to realise this, to dissolve the prejudice which obscured it, and to distinguish what we see from the meaning of what we see. But then this difficulty is not peculiar, Berkeley would say, to the visual, or to any other sensible language. It is common to the language of nature with all artificial languages. For instance, it is not found easy to read an intelligible and interesting sentence in a book, in the state of mental vacancy one is in when one reads a sentence in an unknown language. Yet the connection between visible or audible signs, and their meanings, in any artificial language, is not a constant and universal association. There are hundreds of artificial languages in the world. There is only one visual or natural language. We find it difficult to disentangle the mere signs from their meanings in any of the artificial languages we are acquainted with. We may therefore expect it to be impos- sible (as we find it to be) to separate a visual sign from the signification which universal experience and habit have wrapped up in it. Berkeley's Essay invites us to recognise the differ- ence between the visual sign and its meaning, even when we cannot actually make a separation between them in imagina- tion. It sets before us the visible signs on the one hand, and their meanings on the other. Throughout it is an appeal to reflection and mental experiment. Varieties of colour or coloured extension are the only proper objects of sight. Nothing else can be seen. Now extended colours, together with certain muscular affections in the eye, are, under the arbitrarily estab- lished system of nature, the signs of varieties of felt extension. That is to say, they are signs of what are usually called the real distances, sizes, shapes, and situations of things. Now, our visual experience of quantities and qualities of colour, and of the II.] Trinity College, Dublin. 39 organic sensations in the eye, is what enables us to foresee, with more or less accuracy, what our experience in feeling and in moving our bodies is to be in any particular case. Real dis- tance from the eye outwards, as well as real size, shape, and situation, are absolutely invisible : we can see their signs only. All this, according to Berkeley, may be proved intuitively to those who take the trouble to reflect. He announced the dis- covery as one founded on a strict analysis of the facts, the whole facts, and nothing but the facts to which we are conscious in our sense perceptions. The only difficulties he could find connected with it were, the difficulty of separating what invariable experience has united in our thoughts, and the difficulty of finding artificial lan- guage pure and precise enough to express his meaning. Till we have apprehended this analysis by reflection, however, we have not learned our first lesson in the psychology of the senses. When we have done so, he is ready with a theory which treats vision as a Divine Book that contains more surprising and profound lessons than any human book can contain. When we seem to be seeing, we are really reading an illuminated Book of God, which, in literal truth, is a Book of Prophecy. This, I think, is the outcome of this juvenile Essay. But its want of artistic unity and completeness, and its dispro- portioned digressions and applications — resulting partly from Berkeley's inexperience as an author, and partly from the cir- cumstance that the Theory is sustained by a Principle in the expression of which the author is, I think, restraining himself — make this psychological Essay, in its actual form, an inconvenient introduction to the metaphysical philosophy, for one who is ignorant of Berkeley's great central thought. It is not here that any critical observations should be offered upon the Theory of Vision, which indeed in 1 709 was only partly developed by Berkeley. One is here looking at this and his other early writings, only as an unfolding of his intellectual life, in modes which must be understood before its ulterior evolutions can be well comprehended by the analyst of his intellectual character. I have tried elsewhere, in prefatory observations and subse- quent annotations, to explain the logical structure of the Essay on Vision. The reader will find that a great part of it is taken 4-0 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. up in determining what are the true visible and felt signs of the real distances, signs, and situations of things, in contrast to so-called c sights' which are not seen at all, but are merely c suggestions' occasioned by what is visible. That the Essay towards a New Theory of Vision attracted some attention on its appearance, we may infer from its reaching a second edition before the end of the year. With this pioneer in 1709, Berkeley, in 1710, in a Treatise concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge^ boldly announced the great conception of which for years he had been full. This book is a systematic assault upon scholastic abstrac- tions, especially upon abstract or unperceived Matter, Space, and Time. It assumes that these are the main cause of confusion and difficulty in the sciences, and of materialistic Atheism. The new Principle, in its various phases and applications, is offered as the effectual means of cleansing the human mind from these abstractions. He finds philosophers all taking for granted the existence of a dead, unperceived, and unimagin- able Something, of indefinite power and capability. They had concealed the intrinsic absurdity of the supposition, by calling its object an abstract idea— something that, as an c idea,' must be knowable in sense and imagination; but that, as 'abstract,' could only be known with difficulty. Accordingly, as it was with abstract ideas that philosophy was held to be concerned, philosophers invented a number of abstract words, and these words got into general circulation. Then, to this unknown Something, under the name of Matter, they attributed indefinite powers, and under cover of its powers, some of them pretended to explain the human mind, and supposed that all the conscious life in the universe might be accounted for by the dark abstraction. Thus, under the abstractions of Space, Time, and Number, the mathe- maticians, he thought, had lost themselves in doctrines about infinite divisibility, and other forms of words without meaning. Locke's imperfect reformation from Scholasticism, as Berkeley regarded it, added the sanction even of modern philosophy to the hypothesis that unperceived Matter is the cause of our perceptions. He complains, accordingly, that Locke sanctions abstract ideas ; that he recognises substance, or, as we might II.] Trinity College, Dublin. 4* say, the thing-in-itself ; and that he distinguishes this from the perceived things which alone we see and touch. With Locke, as with philosophers generally, the thing-in-itself was the real thing : what we see and touch only an ideal substitute for the real thing. The reality, he tells us, we can never reach. Reason itself, Berkeley now proclaims, is at war with these assumptions. They are empty words. Reason requires us to return to what is concrete and to abide there. Beyond this we can find nothing, because beyond this nothing exists. All that exists, or can exist, is the mental experience of persons. It must consist of living persons, the ideas or phenomena of which they are conscious, the voluntary activity which they exercise, and the effects of that activity. The actual universe must be made up of that. Human knowledge of the actual universe is all at last resolved into that. Whatever is not so resolvable, must be an abstraction, and therefore a delusion. The common convic- tion of scientific, and also of unscientific, men about the need for causes, and for an ultimate cause, of all actual changes in the world are acknowledged by Berkeley as they were before. But he asks us to reflect that the universe, regarded as a con- geries of effects, and in its ultimate cause, consists, and can consist only of living persons, the ideas or phenomena which they have, and the voluntary activity which they exercise. It follows that the universally acknowledged ultimate cause cannot be the empty abstraction called Matter. There must be living mind at the root of things. Mind must be the very substance and consistence and cause of whatever is. In recognising this wondrous Principle, life is simplified to him; light finds its way into the darkest corner. The sciences are relieved from the abstractions which choked them. Religious faith in Universal Mind becomes the highest expression of reflective reason. This supreme Principle virtually becomes Berkeley's Method of Thought. His first step in philosophy is to form the habit of thinking the universe under its regulation. But how do we know that it is true ? This, Berkeley plainly supposes, is not so much to be argued from premisses as accepted through inspiration — through its own intuitive light. c Some truths there are so near and obvious to the mind,' he says, c that a man need only open his eyes to see them.' c Such,' he adds, c I take this 42 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. important one to be — that all the choir of heaven and furniture of the earth, in a word, all those bodies which compose the mighty frame of the world, have not any subsistence without a mind ; that their esse is to be perceived or known ; that, con- sequently, so long as they are not actually perceived by me, or do not exist in my mind, or that of any other created spirit, they must either have no existence at all, or else subsist in the mind of some Eternal Spirit; it being perfectly unintelligible, and involving all the mystery of abstraction, to attribute to any single part of them an existence independent of a spirit/ That the universe must be the personal experience of living mind is thus proclaimed with all the light and evidence of an axiom. That the actual phenomena, or ideas (as Berkeley calls them) of which the external universe consists are all determined in their co-existences and successions by more or less reasonable volitions ; that voluntary activity is the only possible cause of whatever happens ; and that the ideal world present in our senses cannot itself contain power or causality, is a phase of the Principle which is less clearly dealt with by him than the former. It, too, seems, like the other, to be accepted as an intuition of reason, which, on reflection, flashes upon us by inspiration. But here Berkeley avoids an exact statement. The reader who wants to watch the young Fellow of Trinity College defending and applying his new conception in the presence of the public must study the 'Principles. It would be difficult to name a book in ancient or modern philosophy which contains more fervid and ingenious reasoning than is here employed to meet supposed objections, or to unfold possible applications to religion and science. An eager spirit glows beneath the calm surface, hardly restrained from undue expression. The book of Principles published in 1710 is called c Part I;' c Part II ' never appeared. We can only conjecture what the unfinished design was. Neither the book itself, nor any of Berke- ley's other writings informs us. As c Part V was dropped from the title-page and the running titles in the later editions, it appears that the design, at least in this form, was abandoned. There is, however, philosophical room for a Second Part, Berkeley's book, as we now have it, unfolds his central thought II.] Trinity College, Dublin. 43 in its applications to what he calls ideas — in short, to sensible things. But the theory of mind and its notions — concerned with sensible things, yet distinguished from them — is not made so distinct: it has hardly been expressed, and it is certainly not worked out. Finite minds, and their personal identity; their relations to one another, and to Supreme Mind in which they seem to participate ; the notions of pure intellect — as distin- guished from the original ideas of sense, and the subjective ideas of imagination — are left unexamined. Berkeley's whole doctrine of abstraction, and of the distinction between notions and ideas, is, in 1 710, left in an unsatisfactory state. Whether there are uncreated necessities of thinking, according to which all mental experience of ideas must evolve itself in every mind, is a ques- tion hardly entertained. That the universe must be substantiated and caused, that cause and substance are relations of knowledge for all minds, and that to say c all changes must be caused, 5 is one way of saying that all changes must, by an absolute, uncreated necessity 3 be referred to an intending Will, are assumptions which perhaps Berkeley virtually makes, but without criticism, or the scientific insight which criticism gives. That Space and Time may also be uncreated necessities of sense perception he does not contemplate, for he reduces Space to arbitrary relations of our visual and tactual sensations, and he makes Time (about which his thoughts were first of all employed, he afterwards says) literally consist in changes. He does not inquire critically whether all sensible phenomena must not, by an uncreated ne- cessity, emerge as it were in the form of extended things, and whether all changes must not by a like necessity emerge in the form of successive events. But it is not fair to apply thought and language which Europe in the nineteenth century owes to Kant, to the state of mind in which Berkeley was in 17 10. And after all deduction has been made, the Principles of Human Knowledge anticipate later thoughts, found in Hume, or in the Scotch and German reaction against him. Berkeley's theory of physical causation anticipates Hume, while it consummates Bacon, and opens the way to the true conception of physical induction. In his account of sense perception, he anticipates the spirit of the presentative psychology of Reid and Hamilton. And in his 44 Life and Letters of Berkeley, [ch. new central conception itself, he more than anticipates the Coper- nican point of view of Kant. But in 1710, the book was too far in advance of an un metaphysical generation to draw general attention 11 m We have no data for determining how long Berkeley was engaged in preparing his psychological Essay on Vision, and his metaphysical book of Principles. His Common-place Book is a sort of magazine of the thought which was gradually worked into the two. This Book, and the manuscript of portions of the Prin- ciples, which I have given in another volume, show successive variations of phrase through which his thought passed before it was given to the printer. The date written on the margin of the rough draft of the Introduction to the Principles, seems to imply that he was working at this in November 1708. Fragments in the Common-place Book were no doubt written years before. 11 Yet we have dim anticipations both of Berkeley and of Kant — rather of Kant than of Berkeley, whose new conception is missed — in a hardly remembered work, An Essay upon Reason, and the Nature of Spirits, by Richard Burthogge, M.D., London, 1694. The de- sign of this work, announced in the Dedica- tion ' to Mr. John Lock, author of the Essay upon Humane Understanding,' is ' to show the true way of Human Knowledge, and, by showing that it is real notional, to unite and reconcile the experimental or mechanical with the scholastic method.' The union of objects and universals is implied when it is said (pp. 561, &c.) that ' in every conception there is something that is purely objective, purely notional ; insomuch that few, if any, of the ideas which we have of things are properly pictures; our conceptions of things no more resembling them in strict propriety than our words do our conceptions for which they do stand, and with which they have a kind of correspondence and answering ; jnst as figures do stand for numbers, yet are nowise like them As the eye has no perceivance of things but under colours that are not in them (and the same, with due alteration, must be said of the other senses), so the understanding apprehends not things, or any habitudes or aspects of them, but under cer- tain notions, that neither have their being in objects, or that being of objects that they seem to have ; but are in all respects the very same to the mind or understanding that colours are to the eye .... It is certain that things to us men are nothing but as they do stand in our analogy; that is, in plain terms, they are nothing to us, but as they are known to us ; and as certain, that they stand not in our analogy, nor are known by us, but as they are in our facul- ties — in our senses, imagination, or mind ; and they are not in our faculties, either in their own reality, or by way of a true re- semblance or representation, but only in respect of certain appearances or sentiments, which, by the various impressions that they make upon us, or cause, or (which is most probable) concur in causing with our facul- ties. Every cogitative faculty, though it is not the sole cause of its own immediate (apparent) object, yet has a share in making it In sum, the immediate objects of cogitation, as it is exercised by men, are entia cogitationis, all phenomena ; appear- ances that do no more exist without our faculties in the things themselves than the images that are seen in water, or behind a glass, do really exist in those places where they seem to be In truth, neither accident nor substance hath any being but only in the mind, and by the virtue of cogitation or thought.' See Chap. III. V. n.] Trinity College, Dublin. 45 The design of the Principles and the Essay, either as parts of one and the same work, or as separate treatises, was probably in his mind when he obtained his Fellowship in 1707. Berkeley's leading thought and method were published when he was young. Some of his philosophical predecessors and successors resemble him in this, but none to the same degree. Des Cartes pro- duced his great philosophical writings soon after he was forty. Spi- noza announced his philosophy still earlier, and died soon after he was forty. Hume's greatest work of speculation appeared when he was twenty-seven. Berkeley offered his philosophy at an earlier age than any of these. In fact, his is the most extraordinary instance of original reflective precocity on record. Locke, in contrast with this, was hardly known as an author till he was almost sixty, and Kant was about the same age when he published the first of the three great critical works which contain his philosophy. The qualities of the precocious philosophers are obviously different from those of the others. If ardent precocity has succeeded in burning its way more into the heart of things, the more tardy, phlegmatic, and sober are usually more attentive in their reasonings to the limitations and compromises of our human condition. Berkeley's book of Principles was a sort of challenge to the philo- sophical world. Dublin contained few who were likely to listen to it. The austere theological philosopher who had governed Trinity College, was translated to the diocese of Cork and Ross about the very time the book appeared. If he read it he was not converted by it. The judicious philosophical divine who was then Archbishop of Dublin was not likely to adopt the paradoxically expressed and revolutionary conception of a Junior Fellow. Ber- keley's ardour as a discoverer made him anxious to gain a hearing. Not satisfied with the provincial audience of Ireland, he courted the opinion of the great men in London. He sent copies of his new book to Samuel Clarke, the most eminent contemporary philosophical theologian, and to Whiston, the friend of Newton, who then occupied Newton's chair at Cambridge. Whiston has fortunately commemorated the circumstance in his Memoirs of Clarke. c Mr. Berkeley,' he says, c published, in 17 10, at Dublin, this metaphysick notion— that Matter was not a real thing ; nay, 46 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. that the common opinion of its reality was groundless, if not ridiculous. He was pleased to send Dr. Clarke and myself each of us a book. After we had both perused it, I went to Dr. Clarke, and discoursed with him about it to this effect : That I [being not a metaphysicianj was not able to answer Mr. Berkeley's [subtle] premises, though I did not believe his [absurd] conclusion. I therefore desired that he, who was deep in such subtleties, but did not appear to believe Mr. Berkeley's conclusion, would answer him. Which task he declined.' (p. 133.) The challenge of the young Dublin philosopher was not ac- cepted. The mathematical Whiston treated it as a mere mathematician might be expected to do, except that he had more candour than most of his class, in supposing that it de- served an answer, and more modesty in seeing that he could not answer it himself. What Clarke's answer, if he sent one to Berkeley, might have been, we may suppose from the only rele- vant passage in his writings. Seven years later, in his 'Remarks on Collins on Human Uberty^ Clarke writes thus, and we may take what he writes as the substitute for a lost letter to Berkeley in acknowledgment of his book : — c The case [the fact of free agency] is exactly the same as in that notable question, Whe- ther the World exists or no. There is no demonstration of it from experience. There always remains a bare possibility that the Supreme Being may have so framed my mind, as that I shall always be necessarily deceived in every one of my perceptions, as in a dream, though possibly there be no mate- rial world, nor any other creature existing, besides myself. Of this I say there always remains a bare possibility. And yet no man in his senses argues from thence, that experience is no proof to us of the existence of things The bare physical possi- bility of our being so framed by the Author of nature, as to be unavoidably deceived in this matter by every experience of every action we perform, is no more any just ground to doubt the truth of our Liberty, than the bare natural possibility of our being all our lifetime as in a dream deceived in our belief of the existence of the Material World is any just ground to doubt of the reality of its existence.' {Remarks^ pp. 20, 24.) In short, the principle which Berkeley had applied to illustrate how immediate our knowledge of sensible things is, and the impos- II.] Trinity College, Dublin. 47 sibility of scepticism about them, was construed by Clarke into a dogmatic assumption that our whole experience in the senses is a lie. The New Principle had a sorry prospect in that eighteenth century, when its application to the material world was thus reversed at the outset by the most metaphysical English author of the time. Whether Malebranche, the great contemporary French metaphysician, also received c a book' we are not informed. If Clarke's deification of space in his famous work of metaphysical theology was a bar to his candid entertainment of the conception that space is only a part of the sensible creation of God, we could hardly expect the aged French philosopher to surrender the reasonings of a life in behalf of an unperceived external world, or to forego his resolution of all power — human as well as physical — into Divine, on the suggestion of a juvenile essay which accepted the existence of sensible things without proof, by simply explain- ing what their existence means, and in which the free agency of men was a fundamental principle. The year in which the Essay on Vision was published was the year in which its author first appeared in a new character. On the i st of February, 1709, Berkeley received ordination as Deacon in the old chapel of Trinity College. He was ordained by Dr. St. George Ashe, Bishop of Clogher, of whom we shall hear again. He was presented by Nicholas Forster, a Senior Fellow (after- wards Bishop of Raphoe, and the uncle as it happened of his future wife), who vouched for his learning and good character. Six other candidates were ordained on the same Sunday. I have not discovered when or where Berkeley received Priest's orders. As there is no record of this in Dublin, it may be sup- posed that it was not within that province. We have no account of what his thoughts were in becoming an official teacher of religion. It would be interesting to discover them. Unobtrusive practical piety is apparent throughout his life, and few in the annals of the Christian ministry have preserved themselves freer from ecclesiastical and professional bias, or have more successfully maintained, among many temptations, the love of truth as a c chief passion' from the beginning to the end of this mortal life. The Christian ministry, ancient, mediaeval, and 48 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. modern, has engaged more than one of those who rank in the bright chapters of the history of philosophy — with whom theology is the highest form of philosophy, and the reverential spirit of religion its noblest consecration. We have Origen and St. Augustin, Abelard and Aquinas, according to the light of their own times ; Malebranche and Fenelon, Cudworth and Berkeley in the full tide of modern life. The last is perhaps the most distinct example. Berkeley's ecclesiastical service about this time was confined to an occasional sermon in the College Chapel. He seems to have delivered there what is called a common-place more than once even before he was ordained, a custom permitted in that University. As a preacher his discourses were care- fully reasoned, and in beautifully simple language they occa- sionally present great thoughts, without any marked theological bias. Three characteristic common-places, delivered probably in 17 11, and published in the following year, as a Discourse of Passive Obedience, constitute something to our knowledge of the history of Berkeley's mind. This tract is a closely argued defence of the Christian duty of not resisting the supreme civil power, wherever placed in a nation. We have found Berkeley working as a reflective analyst of human knowledge, with a view to its purification, and to its being re-animated with religious trust and reverence. We now see him as a Christian teacher of political morals, working out logically his own notion of the constructive or conservative prin- ciple in society. The fervid consecutiveness which in the Prin- ciples of Human Knowledge applied Berkeley's conception of what external Existence means, is here not less conspicuous in unfolding his conception of the basis of Society, and of our duty as members of a social organism. Locke's two treatises on Government turned his attention to the subject, in its connection with the general principles of morals, which his Common-place Book shows that he had long been ruminating. In this Discourse, Berkeley is a philosophical advocate of high Tory principles. In the supreme civil power he sees more than the mere creature of popular desires: it is not the result of an arbitrary compact among the governed. There is some- thing deeper and truer than this unhistorical fiction in the II.] Trinity College, Dublin. 49 heart of every Nation. There is a law of order and justice, which originates in the conception of the happiness of the living persons who constitute the universe, and belongs to the uncreated constitution of the Supreme, while it is shared by his creatures. This conception, thus derived, forms with him the principle of moral obligation. Our obligations in particular cases are discovered by an induction of the tendencies of actions to pro- mote the general welfare of men; and, among the general rules so established, non-resistance to the ultimate depository of civil authority is, he argues, one of the chief. The fluctuating popular desire is not that depository ; nor is it necessarily to be found in the claims of an arbitrary monarch. The particular nature of the government and constitution in each nation is foreign to his inquiry. The thought which runs through his words is, that the supreme power in every society lies deeper than these accidents, and is something before which people and king alike should pause reverentially: it is the ordinance of God : Government is of divine right. If the intellectual philosophy of Berkeley when he was at Trinity College was a Theological Sensationalism, his moral and social phi- losophy was a Theological Utilitarianism — each in curious analogy with the other, and both the expressions of the same deeply religious spirit. The Discourse on Passive Obedience leaves room for plenty of casuistry about individual duty in revolutionary times. But it illustrates Berkeley's inclination to determine questions on broad grounds of reason and conscience, and not by local and ephemeral considerations. It points to a philosophical field above Toryism and Liberalism, where those superior to party on either side may meet. And it suggests one of Berkeley's own latest thoughts — c Whatever the world thinks, he who hath not much meditated upon God, the human mind, and the summum bonum^ may possibly make a thriving earthworm, but will most indubitably make a sorry patriot and a sorry statesman 12 . 5 These common-places on political morality gave rise to a notion that Berkeley was in the interest of the exiled Stuart family. Non-resistance and passive obedience were then asso- ciated with Jacobitism, and supported in Queen Anne's reign in Nonjurist tracts and pamphlets. Two years before he delivered 12 Siris, sect. 350. VOL. IV. E 50 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. his common-places in the College Chapel at Dublin, Sacheverell had preached his notorious sermons at Derby and in St. Paul's. SacheverelFs trial had raised a hot controversy and turned out a Whig ministry. It is not very surprising that the Dublin sermons should in these circumstances have given rise to suspicion. The c false accounts that were gone abroad' regaromg their meaning were mentioned by him as a reason for publishing the Discourse. The publication does not seem to have put an end to the rumours. Years afterwards his political opinions were referred to by Lord Gal way as an objection to his claim for ecclesiastical promotion, and the sermons on Passive Obedience were vaguely mentioned in confirmation. But Berkeley could not be a mere party politician, and his loyalty to the House of Hanover was attested by Samuel Molyneux, who is said to have first introduced him to the Princess of Wales, and to have produced the Discourse, as a proof that its author taught nothing disloyal. It kept him, however, for a while in the shade 13 . 13 The Berkeley Papers contain what seems to be a draft or sketch of a letter written by Berkeley to a friend. It is entitled Thoughts on Alliances in War. Its tone is not that of the Jacobite party, about this time, on the subject of which it treats ; and while its poli- tical morality is lofty, its diplomatic tact is deficient. It does not appear who the friend was for whom it was intended. It seems to have been written, however, about 1 71 2. It refers to the ' Union with Hanover ' as future ; and the question with which it deals was one discussed in the years which pre- ceded the Peace of Utrecht. The following are some passages : — 'Sir, I do not wonder that you or any true Englishman should be no less jealous for the honour than for the safety of his country, and offended at anything which has the face of baseness or treachery, however advan- tageous it may be thought to the Public ; nor, by consequence, that you should scru- pulously inquire into the justice of a separate Peace, as being apprehensive the necessity of our affairs, together with the backwardness of the allies, may oblige our Ministry to enter upon some such measures. . . . [ Berkeley then, after deprecating the task of giving an opinion on a subject he is not acquainted with, and saying that he feels himself obliged to comply with the com- mands of his friend a , adds that he will give all the satisfaction he is able by laying down some general theorems and reasonings upon the sacredness of Treaties and Alliances, and considering when, or on what accounts they may be broken without guilt.] . . . I lay it down in the first place for a funda- mental axiom, that no Law of . . . ought to be violated either for the obtaining any advantage or [escaping any] inconvenience whatever. . . . From these principles it clearly follows that Public Faith ought not to be sacrificed to private regards, nor even lo the most pressing wants of a whole People. The violation therefore of a compact with foreign nations can never be justified on any pretext of that kind. Hence one nation having solemnly entered into articles of alliance with another, in case they afterwards per- ceive it highly for their advantage to break these articles ; yet a breach upon that score must certainly be looked upon as unjust and dishonourable. Nor doth it alter the case that the Alliance having been made under a former Ministry is disliked and condemned by the succeeding. For though the admini- stration of affairs pass through several hands, yet the Prinre and the nation continue still the same ; every Ministry therefore is in duty a He says this friend had an exact knowledge of our engagements and interests. He was therefore probably connected with the Ministry. II.] Trinity College, Dublin. 5< After this publication, Berkeley again becomes almost invisible for a time. He had been nominated a Sub-Lecturer in i7io 14 , and was elected Junior Dean in November of that year, and again in bound to preserve sacred and entire the faith and honour of their Prince and counlry by standing firm to all alliances contrac ed under former Ministries. But with this dif- ference, that in case the evils attending such an alliance shall appear to be fortuitous, or such as, at the making of it, could not have been foreseen, then the conditions of that disadvantageous alliance ought to be fulfilled at the public charge ; whereas if the Treaty shall appear originally and in itself preju- dicial to the Public, then the fortunes of those ministers who made it ought to go to- wards defraying the expenses which, through rashness or treachery, they had engaged their country in. Hitherto I have proceeded on the sup- position that the foundations of the Alliance were just, or included nothing contrary to the laws of Nature and Religion. But in case several States enter into an agreement for commencing and carrying on war upon unjust motives, no sooner shall any of those States be satisfied of the injustice of the cause on which the alliance is grounded, but they may with honour look upon themselves as disengaged from it. For example, sup- pose a parcel of Popish Potentates should, out of a pretence of doing right to the Pre- tender, engage in a war for placing him on the throne of Great Britain, and some one of them was afterwards convinced. . . . [Here the MS. is defective and almost illegible.] It is also to be esteemed an unwarrantable procedure in case divers Potentates enter into a confederate war against an adjacent State for no other reason but because they apprehended it may otherwise become too powerful, and consequently too formidable a neighbour. For examp'e, suppose the Dutch, jealous of that accession of strength to the British nation which will follow upon its union with Hanover, should engage them- selves or friends in a war in order to force us to alter our Succession ; we would, I pre- sume, think this unlawful, and that it was the duty of any one of the confederates, so soon as he became sensible of the injustice of his cause, to cease from all hostilities, and (in case his allies were for continuing them) to enter into a separate peace with us. The truth of these positions is plain from the two principles at fiist laid down. Further, it cannot be denied that one party may, without consent of the rest, break off from an alliance in war originally founded on honourable molives, upon con- viction that the ends for which the war was begun are sufficiently answered ; although his allies, whether blinded by passion or find- ing their advantage in carrying on the war, should not concur with him in the same judgment. For it is no excuse for a man/s acting against his conscience that he made a bargain to do so. You'll demand what must be thought in case it was a fundamental article of the alliance, that no one party should hearken to proposals of peace without con- sent of the rest. I answer that any such engagement is in itself absolutely void, for- asmuch as it is sinful, and what no Prince or State can lawfully enter into, it being in effect no less than binding themselves to the commission of murder, rapine, sacrilege, and of violence, so long as it shall seem good to . . . what else I beseech you is war ab- stracted from the necessity . . . but a com- plication of all these ' [MS. defective.] In a P.S. Berkeley adds — ' Another indis- putable case there is which absolves a party from fulfilling the conditions of any contract, namely, when those with whom the con- tract was made fail to perform their part of it. Lastly, in case two or more States, for their mutual security, enter into a league to deprive a neighbouring Prince of some part of his possessions and add them unto those of another in order to constitute a ballance of Power. Allowing the grounds whereon the war is founded to be just, yet if, during the progress of the war, the Prince whose territories were to be enlarged shall, by some unexpected turn, grow far more great and powerful than he was at the making of the treaty, it should seem the affore^aid States are disengaged from their contiact to each other, which, having been originally by all parties introduced and understood only as a means to obtain a ballance of Power, can never be of force to oblige them to act for a diiect contrary purpose.' 14 Berkeley's name is last on the list of those nominated Sub-Lecturers, from which we may infer that he had to kcture the First Class, now called ' Junior Freshmen.' A principal part of his duty would be to expound Porphyry's Introduction, and to examine Students on the text, as well as to lecture his own pupils privately. The duties of Sub-Lecturers and Tutors were defined by Statute. E 2 52 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. November 171 1. Though all who have written about him seem unaware of it, he visited England in 1712, apparently for the first time. The College Registry records that in March of that year 1 Mr. Berkeley's health and necessary business requiring his longer stay in England, the Vice-Provost and Fellows have thought fit to continue his leave of absence for two months longer/ In May, c Mr. Berkeley being still in England for the recovery of his health, his leave of absence is continued. 5 He must have returned before winter, for in November he was elected Junior Greek Lecturer, and the entries show that he borrowed a book from the Library 15 in December lfi . Berkeley was a Tutor in Trinity College from 1707 to 1724, though only nominally after 171 1 or 1712. According to Stock, Samuel Molyneux was one of his pupils. That this youth, who took his Bachelor's Degree in 1708, was one of his intimates, is proved by the Dedication of the Miscellanea Mathematical But I do not find in the College Records that he was a pupil of Berkeley's, who seems to have had only five pupils while he was Tutor — three Fellow Commoners and two Sizars 17 . Their names, with the dates of their entrance, are as follows: — Nov, 17, 1709, Thomas Bligh, F.C.; May 29, 1710, David Bosquet, Siz.; Jan. 18, 17 1 1, Arthur Dawson, F.C. ; June 29, 1711, Michael Tisdal, F.C. ; June 14, 1714, Michael Wall, Siz. None of these names are known to fame, nor can we tell how Bligh and Bosquet, Dawson and Tisdal, long since forgotten, were affected by daily inter- course with one who was then producing thoughts which have since determined the course of European speculation. In 1 71 2, Berkeley had been for five years a Junior Fellow and M It is interesting to note the names of 171 2, Dec. Vossius, Be Historicis Latinis. books borrowed by Berkeley from the Li- 16 He is marked • non-co.' on the Buttery brary in these years, recorded in the Loan Books from 1711 to 1721. This mark is Book : — not absolute proof of absence, for in those I 707 A Treatise on Human Reason. days the Provost sometimes exerted his pre- 1709 Grotius, Be Jure Belli et Pads. rogative of giving Junior Fellows and 1 71 2, Jan. Philip de Comines. Scholars the money compensation for their Elemens de Mathematique. commons, even when they were resident in Quinctilian. College. But it is singular that Berkeley Hebrew Bible. should have been elected Junior Dean, when Cartesii Geometria. so marked, because a part of the Dean's Ludovici Grammatici Condones. duty is to dine in Hall. iEschines, &c, Latine. 17 The Sizars were at that time nominated Barrow's Sermons. by the Tutors. The last entry is no proof Hebrew Bible, Tom. III. that Berkeley was resident in College in /Eschines, &c, Crationes. 1 7M- II.] Trinity College, Dublin. 53 Tutor, besides holding, during part of that time, the offices of Sub-Lecturer, Junior Greek Lecturer, and Junior Dean. His con- sequent duties were considerable, and besides, he occasionally "officiated in the College Chapel. His academical emoluments, nominally small, are not to be measured by the present value of money. The salary of a Junior Fellow was then ten pounds, and of a Junior Dean eight pounds. As Sub-Lecturer he had eight pounds more. But, including his fees as Tutor, his emoluments probably did not exceed forty pounds a-year, a sum which may be translated into perhaps a hundred and forty when estimated by our standard. His private resources were, 1 should think, scanty, and his philosophical publications cannot have added much to them 18 . Some of Berkeley's time in J712 was given, we may surmise, to preparing the beautiful Dialogues in which, in the following year, he sought to recommend his new conception of sensible things to the literary world and to common readers, who might be repelled by the systematic form, and the unrelieved reasonings of the Principles of Human Knowledge. He was now to enter a wider world of life, with which the tranquil speculations of philosophy were perhaps less in harmony than the one described in this chapter. 58 I am favoured by the Rev. Dr. Dickson, Senior Dean 1600 400 the learned Librarian, with the following note Junior Dean 800 200 of Salaries in Trinity College, Dublin, in 1676 and 1 722 : — Senior Lecturer Sub-Lecturer Bursar Auditor Librarian 16 o o 800 400 12 O O 30 O O 23 6 8 700 Augmenta- Salaries in tions made 1676. July 19, T722. 1000 800 U 15 6 o 2 12 5 Provost £200 o o £176 o o Senior Fellow 30 o o 18 6 8 Junior Fellow 10 o o 500 Native Scholar 300 1200 Other Scholar 150 150 Catechist 20 o o 46 13 4 for each Scholar f 3 11 6 2 4 5 The annual fee paid by Fellow Commoners to the Tutor was £4. Sizars paid nothing. CHAPTER III. ENGLAND, FRANCE, AND ITALY. 1713— 1 721. On an April Sunday, in 17 13, Berkeley appeared at the Court of Queen Anne in the company of Swift. The Journal to Stella^ that curious revelation of Swift's brilliant connection with the political and literary world of London from September 17 10 till June 1713, contains the following entry : — c April r2, [1713] — I went to Court to-day on purpose to present Mr. Berkeley, one of our Fellows of Trinity 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 towards helping forward men of worth in the world/ It is probable that before Swift left Ireland, in 1710, Berkeley was not unknown to him, though from the way in which he is here mentioned one can hardly suppose that he had been a fre- quent visitor at Laracor. The origin of their acquaintance, which helped in several ways to shape Berkeley's course, can only be conjectured. Swift was a generous and steady friend, though his c severe sense' could scarcely appreciate the peculiar merit of this c great philosopher's' writings. Berkeley's c Passive Obedi- ence,' and his c duty of not resisting the supreme civil power,' however, were no unwelcome watchwords for the political friend and adviser of Oxford and Bolingbroke. Perhaps, too, the memory of long past days on the bank of the Nore, in the c famous school ' of Kilkenny, might have had its influence with Swift. At any London. 55 rate, he now took the lead in introducing the young Dublin Fellow to the great in letters and in rank. On the 1 6th of April, four days after Berkeley was presented at Court to his kinsman, Lord Berkeley of Stratton, his name again appears in Swift's diary. Swift had been visiting Lady Masham in the morning, and receiving her condolences on his approach- ing banishment to St. Patrick's, the only reward the Tories could give him in return for his perversion and his pen. He was c never more moved than to see so much friendship.' He would not stay with her that day, but c went and dined with Dr. Ar- buthnot, and with Mr. Berkeley, one of your Fellows, whom I have recommended to the doctor, and to Lord Berkeley of Stratton.' And on the 31st of April, amid Swift's fluctuations of feeling about the deanery of St. Patrick's, he c dined in an alehouse with Parnell and Berkeley ; ' not being in humour to go among the ministers, though Lord Dartmouth had invited him to dine with him, and Lord Treasurer was to be there. He had told them he would do so if he were c out of suspense.' Swift was put out of suspense a few days after. Early in June he was at Chester, c after a ride of six days from London, pre- paring to proceed to Holyhead and Dublin, condemned again to live in Ireland, but intending to return to London c before winter.' His enforced residence afterwards in his native island left him free to apply his early principles of liberty, and his strong patriotic feeung, to rouse resentment against the wrongs of his country. The Journal to Stella^ in that spring of 1713, reveals in its minute details the London life into which Swift introduced Berkeley. Let us look through this faithful medium a little at what was then going on. A few days before Berkeley's name appears, Swift was f at the rehearsal of Mr. Addison's play called Cato,' where his friend Dr. Ashe, Bishop of Clogher, was too, but c privately in a gallery.' On the 1st of April he records that c Steele has begun a new daily paper called the Guardian } they say good for nothing. I have not seen it.' In March, c Parnell's poem was mightily esteemed, but poetry sells ill. Mr. Pope has published a fine poem called Windsor Forest.' On one day he walked to Chelsea to see Dr. Atterbury, then Dean of Christ Church; on another day he saw the Bishop of Clogher at 56 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [CH, Court. Again, he dines with the Duke of Ormond and Sir Thomas Hanmer. Sir Thomas was the most considerable man in the House of Commons. He was, it seems, much out of humour with things, and thought the Peace was kept off" too iong, and was full of fears and doubts. People thought he was designed for Secretary of State, instead of Lord Dartmouth. An evening is spent with Dr. Pratt and the Bishop of Clogher, and they c play at ombre for threepence.' On another day, while he is at dinner at Lord Treasurer's, with some of the Sixteen Brothers, a servant an- nounces that Lord Peterborough is at the door. Lord Treasurer and my Lord Bolingbroke go out to meet him, and bring him in. He is just returned from abroad, where he has been for above a year. When he sees Swift, he leaves the Duke of Ormond and the other lords, and runs and kisses him before he speaks to them. He is at least sixty, and has more spirits than any young fellow in England. After church, on another Sunday, Swift showed the Bishop of Clogher at Court c who is who.' The Bishop, it seems, had taken his lodgings in town for the winter. There were in town abundance of people from Ireland — 'half a dozen Bishops at least.' 'Poor Master Ashe has a redness in his face; it is St. Anthony's fire.' Then he dines with Lady Oxford, and sits with Lord Treasurer, who shows him a letter from an unknown hand, relating to Dr. Peter Browne, Bishop of Cork, recommending him to a better bishopric somewhere else. But the Bishop of Cork remained where he was. Again, after a Sunday at Court — c I make no figure at Court, where I affect to turn from a lord to the meanest of my acquaintance. I love to go there on Sundays to see the world. But, to say the truth, I am growing weary of it. I presented Pratt to Lord Treasurer, and young Molyneux would have had me present him too, but I directly answered him, I would not, unless he had business with him. He is the son of Mr. Molyneux of Ireland. His father wrote a book. I suppose you know it/ On another day he meets c Mr. Addison and pastoral Philips on the Mall,' and takes a turn with them; but they both looked terribly dry and cold. c A curse of party.' Then Dr. Cog- hill and he dine by invitation at Mrs. Van.'s. After a dinner somewhere else, the company parted early, but Freind, Prior, and Swift sat a while longer and c reformed the State.' Again at Court, but nobody, it seems, invited him to dinner, except one or HI.] London. 57 two whom he did not care to dine with. So he dined with Mrs. Vanhomrigh. He had been living thus through months and years of political intrigue among the Sixteen Brothers, and of literary gossip at Button's, or now in the Scriblerus Club. It was some time in the wet and dreary spring of 1713 1 that the philosophical enthusiast of Trinity College found his way from Dublin, probably through Holyhead and Chester, to London. We can only conjecture the motives of his journey. The College minute reports ill health. Perhaps, too, he wanted to see the world. He may have been moved by literary ambition; or by the zeal of a philosophical missionary, bent on getting people to conceive the material universe according to his own new way of thinking about it. We have no record of his arrival, or how he looked at London, which was then speculating about the Peace of Utrecht, or admiring its new cathedral of St. Paul's. His arrival may have been a month or two before the April morning on which, in Swift's company, he made his appearance at the Court of Queen Anne. Before April came he was writing essays against the Free-thinkers, in the c new paper called the Guardian] and he seems already to have found his way into some of the free- thinking clubs as an observer. Steele commenced the Guardian on the 12th of March in that year, soon after the temporary cessation of the Spectator , and the new paper was abruptly dropped in a little more than six months. Berkeley's connection with it as a con- tributor seems to have extended from the 14th of March to the 5th of August, when he contributed fourteen essays. These essays are now contained for the first time in an edition of Berkeley's works. Probably the Junior Fellow of Trinity was not unwilling to earn bread by his pen, as well as to tell the world what was deep in his thoughts. Each essay brought him a guinea, and also a dinner from his countryman Steele, perhaps among the wits at Button's, 1 By report that spring in London was a very wet one. Swift, among others, records it. 4 Terrible rain all day ' (March 29). ' I have fires still, though April is begun, against my old maxim ; but the weather is wet and cold. I never saw such a long run of ill weather in my life ' (April 2). 'It rained all day' (April 4). 1 It is rainy again ; never saw the like ' (April 6). 'It rains every day' (April 10). And on July 20, Pope writes to Addison, ' I am more joyed at your return than I should be at that of the sun, so much as I wish for him in this melancholy wet season.' (Aiken's Life of Addison, vol. II. p. 92.) 58 Life and Letters of Berkeley. or in his country cottage on Haverstock Hill. Berkeley, we are told, never spoke or thought highly of Steele's ability. But he regarded him as c a man of uncommon good nature, and more witty in conversation than any person he had ever seen 2 / About the time of Berkeley's arrival in London, Anthony Collins, a gentleman of good family in Essex, under forty years of age, had attracted the talk of the town, and roused the theo- logical world, by a Discourse of Pree -thinking, occasioned by the rise and growth of a Sect called Free-thinkers, which was published in Feb- ruary, 1713. Ten years before, Locke, then at Oates in Essex, was in affectionate correspondence with this Essex gentleman, in whom the venerable philosopher thought he found a candour and ingenuousness superior to almost any of his contemporaries. Soon after Locke's death, Collins got involved in theological con- troversy. He supported Dodwell against Clarke, by reasonings which Swift has preserved for ridicule in Martinus Scriblerus. In 1709 he published a tract against priestcraft; and in the follow- ing year he attacked King, the Archbishop of Dublin, for his sermon on predestination and foreknowledge. And now, in this Discourse, he boldly took for granted that all believers in supernatural revelation must be hostile to free inquiry. Berkeley may have met Collins in the course of this season in London. In the society of that time, Steele and Addison, and all who mixed freely with the wits and politicians, might be found in their private hours in familiar intercourse with persons who openly avowed that they had abandoned Christianity. Berkeley is reported to have said that, being present in one of the deistical clubs in the pretended character of a learner, he was informed that Collins had an- nounced himself as the discoverer of a demonstration against the existence of God ;) . The exclusive claim to free inquiry made by the c Free- thinkers ' roused the indignation of Berkeley. In those essays in the Guardian he appears as a free-thinking Anti-free-thinker. His simplicity and earnestness, as well as his subtle imagination, refined humour, and sarcasm, are seen in his contributions. The author of the Principles of Human Knowledge, and of the Discourse of Passive Obedience appears in the new character of a 2 Biographia Iiritannica, vol. III. — 'Ad- 3 Chandler's Life 0/ Johnson, p. 57. denda and Corrigenda.' III.] London. 59 contributor to popular periodical literature, trying to describe the believer in God and immortality by contrasts with the un- believer in both. It was his first act in a controversy to which he long afterwards returned. Through Swift and Steele, Berkeley soon found his way among other men of Queen Anne's time. In this summer of 1713, Pope was still living at Bin field, among the glades of Windsor, but he was no doubt to be found in the neighbourhood of St. James's, or in his favourite coffee-house at Covent Garden. Berkeley and the young poet must have been soon brought together, and we find them in correspondence in the following winter. Swift had intro- duced him to his kinsman the Earl of Berkeley, and by the Earl he was sometime after introduced to Atterbury. The story of their meeting is well known 4 . Atterbury, having heard much of Berkeley, wished to see him. Accordingly he was intrcauced to the Bishop by the Earl. After some time the other quitted the room, and when Lord Berkeley said to the Bish^D, c Does my cousin answer your lordship's expectations?' Atterbury, lifting up his hands in astonishment, replied, c So much under- standing, so much knowledge, so much innocence, and such humility, I did not think had been the portion of ar~ T but angels till I saw this gentleman.' Berkeley now met the serene and cheerful Addison, as well as the warm and impulsive Steele, and the sensitive, fastidious poet of Binfield. Nor was he confined to poets. At the instance of Addison, a meeting, Stock says, was arranged with Clarke, the metaphysical divine, to discuss the reality of the existence of sensible things. Berkeley was believed to profess the monstrous paradox that sensible things do not exist at all ; and his philosophy, naturally, was becoming an object of ridicule to the wits 5 . Great hopes were entertained of the issue of this meeting. But the parties separated without coming nearer than when they met; and Berkeley is reported to have complained that his anta- gonist, though he could not answer his arguments, had not the candour to acknowledge himself convinced. * See Hughes' Letters, vol. II. p. 2. Essay on Satire occasioned by the death of 5 So Brown, long after this — Mr. Pope (1. 224). By J. Brown, A.M. 'And coxcombs vanquish Berkeley with a grin.' 6o Life and Letters of Berkeley, [ch. In 1713, Clarke was preaching, in the parish church of St. James's, Westminster, those discourses of clear and strong argumentative texture many volumes of which have descended to us in print. Nine years before, he had delivered, in the cathedral church of St. Paul, that famous Demonstration of the Being and Attributes of God, with which Berkeley must have been acquainted, and which attracted the ablest thinkers of his time. In the autumn of 17 13, the Demonstration brought Clarke into contact with young Joseph Butler, afterwards author of the Analogy, whose letters, with Clarke's rejoinders, form a correspondence unmatched in its kind in English philosophical literature. Perhaps on some Sunday, not long after his arrival in London, the Dublin Junior Fellow might have been found in the parish church of St. James's. We do not know when or where Clarke and Berkeley first met. The meeting, said to have been arranged by Addison, may have occurred in 1713, or in either of the two following years. It cannot have been later, for Addison died in 1719, when Berkeley had been for years abroad. Among his other occasional associates in the summer of 1713 were Arbuthnot, the London wit and Scotch doctor at the Court of Queen Anne, the poets Gay and Parnell, Dr. John Freind, the eminent English physician, and his brother Dr. Robert Freind, the learned head master of Westminster School. Matthew Prior, the poet and diplomatist, was most of this year at the Court of Versailles, or employed in negotiations about the Peace. But Thomas Prior of Dublin, the companion of Berkeley's boyish days at Kilkenny, and of his undergraduate years at Dublin, was in London in November, if not sooner. They may have come over together from Ireland, or the one may have preceded the other, and perhaps induced his friend to follow him. It was probably in the spring or summer of this year, too, that a dinner occurred at Mrs. Vanhomrigh's house, which, recollected years after, strangely affected Berkeley's fortune. He may have been carried there by Swift, on one of those many occasions, some of which are recorded in the Diary for the entertainment of poor Stella. It was not merely as a subtle satirist of the Free-thinkers that Berkeley addressed the world through the press in the course of this year. He wanted to produce, in a form more suited to the III.] London. 61 wits and to the mass of mankind, the great thought contained in the Principles of Human Knowledge, some of the minor applications of which may be found in his essays in the Guardian. This was attempted in his Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous, which are concerned with the metaphysical meaning of the material world. In the Preface to this charming work Berkeley describes his philosophy as intended c to divert the busy mind of man from vain researches .... to conduct men back from paradoxes to Common Sense, in accordance with the design of Nature and Providence — that the end of speculation is practice, and the improvement and regulation of our lives and actions .... to counteract the pains that have been taken [by scholastic metaphysicians] to perplex the plainest things, with the consequent distrust of the senses, the doubts and scruples, the abstractions and refinements that occur in the very entrance of the sciences .... to lay down such Principles as, by an easy solu- tion of the perplexities of philosophers, together with their own native evidence, may at once recommend themselves for genuine to the mind, and rescue philosophy from the endless pursuits it is engaged in ; which, with a plain demonstration of the Immediate Providence of an All-seeing God, should seem the readiest prepa- ration, as well as the strongest motive, to the study and practice of virtue. 5 c If the Principles, 5 he adds, c which I endeavour to propagate are admitted for true, the consequences which I think evidently follow from them are, that Scepticism and Atheism will be utterly destroyed, many intricate points made plain, great difficulties solved, several useless parts of Science re- trenched, speculation referred to practice, and men reduced from paradoxes to common sense. 5 The spirit of the Berkeleian philo- sophy is nowhere more distinctly expressed than in these words. Probably, as I have already said, his last year at Dublin was given to preparation of these immortal Dialogues, which, with little dramatic versatility, contain the most pleasing passages of fancy to be found in English metaphysical literature. It is not unlikely that a desire to publish them with good effect may have been a motive of his visit to London. I have not discovered the month in 17 13 in which the book appeared. We may conclude that it was after the Sunday in April when Berkeley was presented to the Lord Berkeley of Stratton, to whom it is dedicated. 62 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. It is difficult at this distance of time to ascertain the immediate influence upon philosophical opinion of this attempt to popularize the new conception of the material world, which is said to have made some influential converts in England, among others, Dr. Smallridge, the well-known Bishop of Bristol. But even the educated mind was not then ripe for the due appreciation of a doctrine so paradoxical in its sound. More than twenty years were to elapse before it found an intellectual audience in David Hume and other Scotchmen and Americans fi . The simple and transparent beauty of Berkeley's style is not less remarkable than the ingenuity of his reasonings. He emerged in provincial Ireland the most elegant writer of the English language for philosophical purposes who had then, or who has since, appeared, at a time too when Ireland, like Scotland, was in a state of provincial barbarism. The greatest master of nervous English prose then living was no doubt also an Irishman. But Swift had been in England, and was for years in the family of Sir William Temple, who brought English style to perfection, and was accustomed to employ language that is less antiquated at the present day than that of any of his contemporaries. The case of Berkeley is unique. In the same year in which the Dialogues were published at the Half Moon in St. Paul's Church-yard, a small volume, entitled Clavis Universalis^ or a Demonstration of the Non-existence and Impos- sibility of an External World^ written by Arthur Collier, Rector of Langfoid Magna, near Old Sarum, was printed by Robert Gosling, at the Mitre and Crown, against St. Dunstan's Church in Fleet Street. The coincidence is among the most curious in the history of philosophy. There is no evidence that either author drew his thought from the other. Berkeley, at least, can- not have borrowed from Collier, for the Principles of Human Know- ledge had been in circulation for three years when Collier pub- lished his Clavis. So far as the speculation of the English Rector agrees with that of the Dublin Fellow, the agreement may be refeired to the common philosophical point of view at the time. The scientific world was preparing for that reconstruction of its conception of what sensible things and externality mean, which ,; In the Acta Eruditorum for August 1727 there is a short account of the Dialogues. III.] London. 63 has since clarified and simplified physical research. Collier, in his own way, was not wanting in force; but he expressed his acute thoughts in awkward English, with the pedantry of a school- man, and wanted the sentiment, and imagination, and constant recognition of the relation of speculation to human action, which in the course of time made the contemporary writings of Berke- ley an influence that has left its mark upon all later thought. The theory of sense symbolism, which connected Berkeley with the Baconian movement, and also with religion, is wanting in Collier, whose arid reasonings are divorced from the living in- terests of men. The starting-point of Berkeley was more in the current philosophy of Locke; Collier produced the meditative reasonings of a recluse student of Malebranche and the schoolmen. Collier too, like Butler and Berkeley, addressed Clarke, c the metaphysical patriarch of his time,' as he is called by Sir James Mackintosh. A letter from Collier to Clarke, printed in Ben- son's Life of Collier, may interest the reader who wishes to com- pare his thoughts with those of Berkeley regarding the metaphysical meaning of a material world. The letter contains an allusion to the author of Principles of Human Knowledge. It is much to be regretted that we have no extant letters from Clarke either to Berkeley or to Collier. And so Berkeley's first spring and summer in London passed away. In autumn we find him amidst other scenes. He had been introduced by Swift to Mordaunt, Earl of Peter- borough, then one of the most extraordinary characters in Europe, who a few years before had astonished the world by the rapid splendour of his movements in the war of the Succession in Spain, and since, by his restless versatility as a diplomatist. A scholar and a man of the world, an enemy to religion who nevertheless is said to have written sermons to rival christian preachers; haughty, yet fond of popularity ; of frugal habits, and possessed of large estates, yet always to appearance poor and in debt ; the rival of Marlborough in war, but who, in none of his campaigns, brought solid advantages to his country; this eccentric peer con- densed in his own very varied personal experience much of the experience of his generation. We have his picture about this time 64 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. — a small well-shaped thin man, with a brisk look, endowed with a supernatural activity, and more than fifty years of age. In Hol- land, nearly a quarter of a century before, he formed an intimate friendship with Locke. Their correspondence proves the wit and keen intellect of Peterborough not less than their mutual regard 7 . Berkeley, with his eyes open to what was going on, was now brought in contact with this strange and contradictory character. Notwithstanding the distrust in his discretion, the Earl of Peter- borough was, in November 17 13, appointed Ambassador Extraor- dinary to Victor Amodeus, King of Sicily, who had then obtained from Spain the crown of that island. At Swift's recommendation, he took Berkeley with him, as his chaplain and secretary. The Ambassador remained a fortnight in Paris on his way, and went from thence to Toulon, parting from his chaplain, who entered Italy by another route. At Toulon, he took ship for Genoa and Leghorn, where he again left his chaplain and the greater part of his retinue, embarking in a Maltese brig for Sicily with only two servants. Having remained there for a time incognito, he returned to Genoa, and awaited the arrival from England of a yacht in which his equipage was embarked. When it came, he returned to Sicily and made his appearance in state. He was recalled from his embassy in August 17 14 — one of the many changes which followed the death of the Queen — after a mission unattended with any more advantageous result, according to his biographer, than that of relieving the ministry from the embarrassment either of his opposition or his support. Ten months in France and Italy with Lord Peterborough must have been life in a new world to the subtle analyst who had so lately been introduced to the wits of London. It does not seem, however, after all, that he saw much of this inscrutable personage. But it was to Berkeley the beginning of a career of wandering, 7 Peterborough was afterwards commemorated by Pope, among the other companions of his Tusculum — • There, my retreat the best companions grace, Chiefs out of war, and statesmen out of place. There St. John mingles with my friendly bowl The feast of reason and the flow of soul : And he whose lightning pierced the Iberian lines, Now forms my quincunx, and now ranks my vines, Or tames the genius of the stubborn plain, Almost as quickly as he conquered Spain.' Imitations of Horace, Sat. I. 125. HI.] France. 65 which, with little interruption, lasted for many years, during which philosophy and the printing press were in the background. He left the thought, of which he had now delivered himself to the world, to do its work, and, with the ardour of manly youth, directed his inquiring eye to nature and human life on the Con- tinent of Europe. By the statutes of Trinity College, Dublin, a Junior Fellow can obtain leave of absence for sixty-three days with the consent of the Provost. For a longer absence, a dispensation must be ob- tained from the Crown. The following Queen's Letter to the Provost and Fellows, which I have obtained from the Register, gives the reasons for which a leave of absence for two years was now granted to Berkeley : — Anne R. Trusty and well beloved, we greet you well. Whereas by y e statutes of that our College, the Fellows thereof are not permitted to be absent from thence above sixty-three days in any one year without our Royal Dispensation in that behalf. And whereas humble suit hath been made unto us in behalf of our trusty and well beloved George Berkeley, one of y e Junior Fellows of that our College, that we would give him leave to travel and remain abroad during y e space of two years, for y e recovery of his health and his improvement in learning ; we being graciously pleased to condescend thereunto, have thought fit to dispense with y e said Statutes of residence, and all other Statutes, on behalf of y e said George Berkeley. And our will and pleasure is that y e said George Berkeley, during y s aforesaid time of two years, have, receive, and enjoy all profits, priviledges, and advantages to his Fellowship belonging, and that such his absence shall in no wise prejudice him in y e right and pre- tensions to his said Fellowship, whereof we have thought fit hereby to give you notice, that due obedience be paid to our pleasure herein imme- diately. And so we bid you farewell. Given at our Castle at Windsor, y e ninth day of September 17 13, in the twelfth year of our reign. By Her Majesty's command. BOLINGBROKE. Berkeley's arrangements with Lord Peterborough were probably made in August. His leave to travel and live abroad for two years was recorded by the College on the 6th of November. We have already had a revelation of Berkeley's intellectual VOL. IV. f 66 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. activity, in his own words — some of them published by him, and others not written for publication. Now, for the first time, we have an account, also in his own words, of some of his move- ments from place to place. The earliest of his letters that has been preserved is addressed to Thomas Prior. It was written at Paris a few days after his departure from England. He left London, it seems, on the 1 3th, and arrived there on the 20th of November. This is his account of the journey, and of his first impressions of France : — Paris, November 25, 17 13, N.S. Dear Tom, From London to Calais I came in the company of a Flamand, a Spaniard, a Frenchman, and three English servants of my Lord. The three gentlemen being of those different nations obliged me to speak the French language (which is now familiar), and gave me the opportunity of seeing much of the world in a little compass. After a very remark- able escape from rocks and banks of sand, and darkness and storm, and the hazards that attend rash and ignorant seamen, we arrived at Calais in a vessel which, returning the next day, was cast away in the harbour in open daylight, (as I think I already told you). From Calais, Colonel du Hamel left it to my choice either to go with him by post to Paris, or come after in the stage-coach. I chose the latter; and, on November 1, O. S, embarked in the stage-coach with a company that were all perfect strangers to me. There were two Scotch, and one English gentleman. One of the former happened to be the author 8 of the Voyage to St. Kilda, and the Account of the Western Isles. We were good company on the road ; and that day se'ennight came to Paris. I have been since taken up in viewing churches, convents, palaces, colleges, &c, which are very numerous and magnificent in this town. The splendour and riches of these things surpasses belief ; but it were endless to descend to particulars. I was present at a disputation in the Sorbonne, which indeed had much of the French fire in it. I -saw the Irish and the English colleges. In the latter I saw, inclosed in a coffin, the body of the late king James 9 . Bits of the coffin, and of the cloth that K Murdoch Martin, a native of the Isle of Skye, born about 1665. He travelled much, and was induced by his friends in the Royal Society to explore the Western Islands of Scotland. Some of his observations ap- peared in the Transactions of the Society. His Voyage to St. Kilda was published in 169S, and his Description of the Western Islands of Scotland in 1 703. The latter contains a curious account of the Second Sight. Martin is referred to in Johnson's Journey to the Western Islands. 9 James II, who died in 1701, at St. Ger- mains. III.] France. 6 7 hangs the room, have been cut away for relics, he being esteemed a great saint by the people. The day after I came to town, I dined at the ambassador of Sicily's ; and this day with Mr. Prior 10 . I snatched an opportunity to mention you to him, and do your character justice. To- morrow I intend to visit Father Malebranche n , and discourse him on certain points. I have some reasons to decline speaking of the country or villages that I saw as I came along. My Lord is just now arrived, and tells me he has an opportunity of sending my letters to my friends to-morrow morning, which occasions my writing this. My humble service to Sir John Rawdon 12 , Mrs. Rawdon, Mrs. Kempsy, and all other friends. My Lord thinks he shall stay a fortnight here. I am, dear Tom, your affectionate humble servant, G. BERKELEY. I must give you the trouble of putting the inclosed in the penny-post. To Mr. Thomas Prior, Pall Mall Coffee House. A month was spent in Paris. Another fortnight carried Berkeley, and two companions, Colonel du Hamel and Mr. Oglethorpe 13 , by the route into Italy which they preferred, through Savoy. They crossed Mount Cenis on New Year's Day, in 17 14. Here is Berkeley^ narrative of the formidable journey, in a letter to Prior from Turin : — Turin, Jan. 6, N.S. 1713-4. Dear Tom, At Lyons, where 1 was about eight days, it was left to my choice whether I would go from thence to Toulon, and there embark for Genoa, or else pass through Savoy, cross the Alps, and so through Italy. 10 Matthew Prior, the diplomatist and poet His origin was obscure, and I trace no connection with Thomas Prior. 11 This is the only allusion by Berkeley to personal intercourse with Malebranche. 12 Father of the first Earl of Moira. He married, in 1 71 7, a daughter of Sir Richard Levinge, Bart., Speaker of the Irish House of Commons. 13 It has been asserted and denied that this was James Oglethorpe (afterwards General), the philanthropist, and founder of Georgia, in America. General James Oglethorpe was born in Westminster in 1689, and entered the army as ensign ( according to his latest biographer) in 1710. In 1714, he is said to have been in the suite of the Earl of Peterborough, Ambassador from the F 2 Court of Great Britain to the king of Sicily. See Nichol's Lit. Anec. vol. II. p. 19. But Berkeley, in the following letter, calls his companion 'Adjutant-General of the Queen's forces,' which, at this time, James Ogle- thorpe could hardly have been. His brother Theophilus (who about 1714 retired to Sicily) was, in the opinion of Mr. Wright (a biographer of the General), the Mr. Ogle- thorpe mentioned by Berkeley. The Ame- rican biographer of James Oglethorpe sug- gests that this supposed companionship with Berkeley may have afforded opportunity for concerting philanthropic plans, the effects of which were afterwards apparent in the life of each. James Oglethorpe died in 1785. In his old age he was a companion of Johnson and Boswell. 68 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [CH. I chose the latter route, though I was obliged to ride post, in company of Colonel du Hamel and Mr. Oglethorpe, Adjutant-General of the Queen's forces, who were sent with a letter from my Lord to the King's mother at Turin. The first day we rode from Lyons to Chambery, the capital of Savoy, which is reckoned sixty miles. The Lionnois and Dauphine* were very well ; but Savoy was a perpetual chain of rocks and mountains, almost impassible for ice and snow. And yet I rode post through it, and came off with only four falls ; from which I received no other damage than the breaking my sword, my watch, and my snuff-box. On New Year's Day we passed Mount Cenis, one of the most difficult and formidable parts of the Alps which is ever passed over by mortal men. We were carried in open chairs by men used to scale these rocks and precipices, which in this ' season are more slippery and dangerous than at other times, and at the best are high, craggy, and steep enough to cause the heart of the most valiant man to melt within him. My life often depended on a single step. No one will think that I exaggerate, who considers what it is to pass the Alps on New Year's Day. But I shall leave particulars to be described by the fire-side. We have been now five days here, and in two or three more design to set forward towards Genoa, where we are to join my Lord, who em- barked at Toulon. I am now hardened against wind and weather, earth and sea, frost and snow ; can gallop all day long, and sleep but three or four hours at night. The court here is polite and splendid, the city beautiful, the churches and colleges magnificent, but not much learning stirring among them. However, all orders of people, clergy and laity, are wonderfully civil, and everywhere a man finds his account in being an Englishman, that character alone being sufficient to gain respect. My service to all friends, particularly to Sir John and Mrs. Rawdon, and Mrs. Kempsy. It is my advice that they do not pass the Alps in their way to Sicily. I am, dear Tom, yours, &c, G. B. At the end of six weeks more we find Berkeley at Leghorn, where he lived for three months, while Lord Peterborough was in Sicily. The circumstances are thus reported to Prior, in a letter which contains a reference to the condition of France, in the last year of Lewis XIV: — Dear Tom, Mrs. Rawdon is too thin, and Sir John too fat, to agree with the English climate. I advise them to make haste and transport themselves in.] Italy. 6g into this warm clear air. Your best way is to come through France; but make no long stay there; for the air is too cold, and there are instances enough of poverty and distress to spoil the mirth of any one who feels the sufferings of his fellow-creatures. I would prescribe you two or three operas at Paris, and as many days amusement at Versailles. My next recipe shall be, to ride post from Paris to Toulon, and there to embark for Genoa ; for I would by no means have you shaken to pieces, as I was, riding post over the rocks of Savoy, or put out of humour by the most horrible precipices of Mount Cenis, that part of the Alps which divides Piedmont from Savoy. I shall not anticipate your pleasure by any description of Italy or France ; only with regard to the latter, I can- not help observing, that the Jacobites have little to hope, and others little to fear, from that reduced nation. The king indeed looks as he neither wanted meat nor drink, and his palaces are in good repair ; but through- out the land there is a different face of things. I staid about a month at Paris, eight days at Lyons, eleven at Turin, three weeks at Genoa ; and am now to be above a fortnight with my Lord's secretary (an Italian) and some others of his retinue, my Lord having gone aboard a Maltese vessel from hence to Sicily, with a couple of servants. He designs to stay there incognito a few days, and then return hither, having put off his public entry till the yacht with his equipage arrives. I have wrote to you several times before by post. In answer to all my letters, I desire you to send me one great one, close writ, and filled on all sides, containing a particular account of all transactions in London and Dublin. Inclose it in a cover to my Lord Ambassador, and that again in another cover to Mr. Hare at my Lord Bolingbroke's office. If you have a mind to travel only in the map, here is a list of all the places where I lodged since my leaving England, in their natural order : Calais, Boulogne, Montreuil, Abbeville, Poix, Beauvais, Paris, Melun, Ville Neufe le Roi, Vermonton, Saulieu, Chalons, Macon, Lyons, Cham- bery, St. Jean de Maurienne, Lanebourg, Susa, Turin, Alexandria, Campo Maro, Genoa, Lestri di Levante, Lerici, Leghorne. My humble service to Sir John, Mrs. Rawdon and Mrs. Kempsy, Mr. Digby, Mr. French, &c. I am, dear Tom, your affectionate humble servant, G. BERKELEY. Leghorn, Feb. 26, JV.S. 17 13-4. An amusing incident of this Leghorn residence was authenti- cated long after Berkeley's death, in the Gentleman's Magazine 14 . Basil Ken net, the well-known author of the Roman Antiquities, a 14 Vol. XLVl. p. 569. 70 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. brother of Bishop Kennet, and a friend of Addison, happened to be chaplain at the English factory at Leghorn during Berkeley's stay. He had been sent there in 1706, and maintained a difficult position with moral courage. Leghorn was the only place in Italy at which the English service was then tolerated by the Government, a favour obtained from the Grand Duke at the particular instance of Queen Anne. Kennet asked Berkeley to officiate for him one Sunday. The day after, a procession of priests in surplices, with sundry formalities, entered the room in which he was sitting, and without taking any notice of its wondering occupant, marched round it, uttering certain prayers. His fears at once suggested a visit from the Inquisition. As soon as the priests were gone, he ventured cautiously to ask the cause of the sudden invasion, and was amused by the information that this was the season appointed by the Church for blessing the houses of Catholics, that they might be relieved of rats and other domestic vermin. Berkeley's imagined offence on the Sunday in question was not his only one. He preached several times in the factory chapel at Leghorn. In May he addressed a more famous correspondent than Prior. The following complimentary letter was sent to Pope, on occasion of the Rape of the Lock, an enlarged edition of which, with the author's name, had appeared in the spring of the year : — Leghorn, May 1, 17 14. As I take ingratitude to be a greater crime than impertinence, I chose rather to run the risk of being thought guilty of the latter, than not to return you my thanks for the very agreeable entertainment you just now gave me. I have accidentally met with your Rape of the Lock here, having never seen it before 15 . Style, painting, judgment, spirit, I had already admired in your other writings ; but in this I am charmed with the magic of your invention, with all those images, allusions, and in- explicable beauties which you raise so surprisingly, and at the same time so naturally, out of a trifle. And yet I cannot say that I was more pleased with the reading of it, than I am with the pretext it gives me to renew in your thoughts the remembrance of one who values no happiness beyond the friendship of men of wit, learning, and good nature. u The poem was at first published (anonymously) in 171 2. III.] Italy. 7> I remember to have heard you mention some half formed design of coming to Italy. What might we not expect from a muse that sings so well in the bleak climate of England, if she felt the same warm sun, and breathed the same air with Virgil and Horace. There is here an incredible number of poets that have all the inclina- tion, but want the genius, or perhaps the art of the ancients. Some among them, who understand English, begin to relish our authors ; and I am informed that at Florence they have translated Milton into Italian verse 16 . If one who knows so well how to write like the old Latin poets came among them, it would probably be a means to retrieve them from their cold trivial conceits, to an imitation of their predecessors. As merchants, antiquaries, men of pleasure, &c, have all different views in travelling, I know not whether it might not be worth a poet's while to travel, in order to store his mind with strong images of nature. Green fields and groves, flowery meadows and purling streams, are nowhere in such perfection as in England ; but if you would know light- some days, warm suns, and blue skies, you must come to Italy ; and to enable a man to describe rocks and precipices, it is absolutely necessary that he pass the Alps. You will easily perceive that it is self interest makes me so fond of giving advice to one who has no need of it. If you came into these parts, I should fly to see you. I am here (by the favour of my good friend the Dean of St. Patrick's) in quality of chaplain to the Earl of Peterborough, who about three months since left the greatest part of his family in this town. God knows how long we shall stay here. I am yours &c. The death of the Queen on the ist of August 17 14 suddenly transformed the whole aspect of things in England. It probably shortened Berkeley's stay on the Continent. On the arrival of George I from Hanover, the Tory ministry was dissolved, and Oxford and Bolingbroke were impeached. Peterborough was re- called. He returned indignant at a want of confidence with which he now believed that he had been treated throughout the negotia- tions which preceded the Peace of Utrecht. Bolingbroke, who had at once withdrawn into France to avoid the storm in England, met the ex-ambassador, lingering on his homeward journey, on 16 Apparently this was a translation of lished. See Todd's Milton, vol. IV. p. 535 Paradise Lost by the Abbe Salvini, which (ed. 1852). Rolli's version, published at was seen in manuscript at Florence by the London in 1735, is the earliest Italian trans- younger Richardson, but has not been pub- lation of Milton known to be in print. 72 Life mid Letters of Berkeley. the road between Paris and Calais. Peterborough, it is said, took the opportunity of showing his resentment, by passing him without exchanging a word. Berkeley returned to London in August J 7 14. It is difficult to follow his movements for some time after this. We have a glimpse of him in illness in one of Arbuthnot's chatty letters to Swift : — * Poor philosopher Berkeley has now the idea of health, which was very hard to produce in him ; for he had an idea of a strange fever upon him, so strong that it was very hard to destroy it by intro- ducing a contrary one.' This letter is dated October 19, 17 14. It is hardly necessary to refer to its equivocal use of the term c idea.' The death of the Queen destroyed Berkeley's chance of Church preferment through Swift or Lord Peterborough. The Tories were now out of power. It is not unlikely, however, that an effort was made soon after his return to London to find a place for him in the Irish establishment. The suspicion of Jacobitism, raised by his common-places on Passive Obedience y is said to have now met him again. He was presented, it seems, to the Prince and Princess of Wales by Samuel Molyneux, who was secretary to the Prince: he was then recommended by the Princess to Lord Galway for promotion in the Church. Lord Galway, having heard of the sermons, alleged a rumour of Jacobitism. Mr. Molyneux produced the Discourse, and proved that what Berkeley maintained was, the divine right of Government, and not the divine right of the Stewart Kings 17 . We are not told when this incident occurred. It might have been in 17 15, when the Duke of Grafton and Lord Galway were Lords Justices in Ireland, and the Prince of Wales Chancellor of the University of Dublin. I have not found, how- ever, that Berkeley visited Ireland in that or the preceding year. The following scrap, an extract preserved from a letter from Berkeley to Pope, can hardly have been written in London : — July 7, 1715. .... Some days ago three or four gentlemen and myself, exerting that right which all the readers pretend to over authors, sat in judgment upon the two new translations of the first Iliad 18 . Without partiality to my 17 The incident is mentioned by Stock. other version referred to is Tickelfs, whose 18 The first volume of Pope's Homer was translation of the First Book of the Iliad issued to subscribers in June i 7 1 5. The appeared in the same year. It was the oc- III.] England and France. 73 countrymen, I assure you they all gave the preference where it was due ; being unanimously of opinion that yours was equally just to the sense with Mr. 's, and without comparison, more easy, more poetical, and more sublime. But I will say no more on such a threadbare subject as your late performance at this time It was probably in 17 15 that Dr. Ashe, the Bishop of Clogher, Swift's friend, by whom Berkeley was admitted to holy orders, asked him to accompany his only son, St. George Ashe, who was heir to a considerable property, in a tour on the Continent, as his travelling tutor. The Register of Trinity College informs us that, c oii the 19th of November 1715, leave of absence was granted for two years longer to George Berkeley, Junior Fellow, to travel and remain abroad.' Before November we hear of him in France. Father Malebranche died at Paris on the 13th of October 17 15, in his 77th year. If we are to believe the common story of his last illness, Berkeley and young Ashe must have been there in the autumn of that year, for Berkeley, according to the story, was the c occasional cause' of the death of Malebranche. He had proposed to visit the aged philosopher of France nearly two years before, when he was in Paris with Lord Peterborough 19 . Here is the account given by Stock of a meeting during this second visit to Paris : — ' Having now [17 15 ?] more leisure than when he first passed through that city [November 17 13], he took care to pay his respects to his illustrious rival in metaphysical sagacity 20 . He found the ingenious Father in a cell, cooking, in a small pipkin, a medicine for a disorder with which he was then troubled — an inflammation on the lungs. The conversation naturally turned on Berkeley's system, of which he had received some knowledge from a translation just published 21 . But the issue of the debate proved tragical to poor Malebranche. In the heat of the disputation, he raised his voice so high, and gave way so freely to the natural impetuosity of a man of parts and a Frenchman, that he brought on himself a violent increase of his disorder, which carried him off a few days after 2 V casion of Pope's quarrel with Addison, the latter having given the preference to Tickell's version. 19 Cf. letter to Prior, p. 67. 20 This almost implies that he did not see Malebranche in 1 71 3. 21 I have no trace of a translation into French of any of Berkeley's own writings so early as 1 71 5. 22 See also Biog. Brit. art. ' Berkeley,' and Advocat's Diet. Hist. Port. There is a ver- sion of the story by De Quincey, in his quaint essay, Murder considered as one of (be Fine Arts. 74 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. That the most subtle metaphysician in the British Islands should encounter the profound and eloquent French mystic in such circumstances, and with an issue so tragical, is one of those incidents upon which imagination likes to exercise itself. It is unfortunate that we have no authentic account of the meeting, especially one by Berkeley himself, nor any authority that I can find, except the biographers, for its having occurred at all. The biographers of Malebranche do not refer to any visit of Berkeley to the Oratoire 23 . They do not even name him. We can however conjecture what some of the points in dis- pute might have been. Malebranche nowhere criticises Berkeley. But we know many of Berkeley's objections to Malebranche. In his published, and in his hitherto unpublished writings, he is fond of insisting upon differences between their respective doctrines. The individualities of men, and the imperfection of language, make it impossible, indeed, for one independent thinker to enter perfectly into the thinking of another. Speculative per- sons, in their conferences and controversies, are inevitably at cross purposes ; and such collisions, though they sometimes aggravate the apparent antagonism, are found in the end, in the case of those who are eclectically disposed, to diminish it. But there was more room than usual for irrelevant reasoning in a dispute between an eloquent mystic, who had been accustomed during a long life to speculate under the inspiration of Des Cartes, reinforced by St. Augustin and Plato, and a young ardent thinker, who valued thought mainly as a means of regulating human actions, and whose origin- ality and ingenuity had been at first exercised within the atmosphere of Locke. Locke himself professed not to be able to understand Malebranche 24 , and Berkeley says nearly as much, when he alludes to the favourite formula of contemporary French philosophy — that things are thought by men in the Ideas of God. But enough of real difference remained for more than a verbal dispute. The Cartesian antithesis of extended being and thinking being, mutually opposed, and incapable of being brought into the relation of sense-knowledge except through the medium of representative 23 The learned Abb<$ Blampignon, author of the Etude s?/r Malebranche, d'apres des Documents Manuscripts suivie dune Cor- respondance iurdite (Paris, 1H62), is unable to give me any light or confirmation. ' H See Locke's Examination of Male- branche, passim. III.] France. 75 ideas of some sort, adopted by Malebranche, could not be fully reconciled with Berkeley's account of perception. Malebranche, assuming this antithesis, tried to determine what the ideal medium is, through which the antithesis is converted into a synthesis in knowledge. The representations of things which the soul receives in sense cannot, he argued, be passive impressions pro- duced by the external thing itself, as the Peripatetics supposed ; they cannot be effects of the internal activity of the human mind that is conscious of them ; nor can they have been created with us and in us ; and, further, external things cannot be perceived by men in the way they are conscious of their own sensations and passions. He concluded, accordingly, that what we are said to know in sense is really known in and through God's relation to us as finite spirits. God contains us and the universe in Him- self, and all external things are discernible in their true meaning in His intellectual acts. So far as the sensible world is an in- telligible world, God is the sensible world. Supreme Mind is the place of finite spirits, in the same way as Space is the place of sensible things; and our spirits receive from this relation to the One Spirit all their true thoughts about things. Our volitions as well as our ideas of sensible things emanate from Him in whom we live and move and have our being. Sense-perception is no excep- tion to the law. In perceiving external things in the senses, we are participating, more or less adequately, in the Thoughts of God. In this participation the antithesis of finite thought and extended thing disappears 23 . Berkeley does not require this Deus ex machina. With him there is no knot to be cut. There is not the external thing and the represent at ive Idea. The very sense-idea itself of which we are percipient Is the external thing, so far as there is an external thing at all. Sense-ideas are with Berkeley real and presenta- tive; not representative images. Being themselves the external reality, they do not require the hypothesis of an ideal medium, Divine or other, to help us to know them. C I am certain,' he says, c of that which Malebranche seems to doubt, viz. the existence of bodies/ The supposed meaning of Scrip- ture or the Church, and the bare possibility that Matter may 25 See Malebranche's Recherche de la Vcrite, liv. III. ch. 2 — 6, and his Entretiens sur la Metaphysique, passim. 76 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. exist, are the only proofs of its actual existence which Male- branche gives, unless we are to add what he calls our general propensity to believe. The supernatural revelation of the exist- ence of unperceived Matter Berkeley denies ; the supposed exist- ence of a propensity to believe in a Matter of which our senses cannot inform us is, he argues, an absurd assumption. He does not understand how any one can be inclined to believe what is absolutely inconceivable — what can have no meaning : for, Matter that is out of all relation to any real sensation is inconceivable. With him, therefore, the ideas or phenomena of sense are the real things : real, but also ideas or ideal; — because their existence for all practical purposes is dependent on a mind being percipient of them. They are the human archetypes or presentations, of which our imaginings are the representations. c They exist/ he would say, c independently of my individual mind, since I feel that I am not their author or regulator. It is out of my power, as it is out of the power of any finite spirit, to change at pleasure those real ideas or sensible things. All the sense-experience in the universe is the effect of a constant Divine energy. Sense-ideas exist always in the Divine Will, but they are occasionally mani- fested in the sense-experience of human minds, according to the divinely established natural order. 5 In a word, Berkeley's account of our perception of sensible things would be that it is presentative, and doubt about what is presented is of course impossible. With Malebranche, as understood by Berkeley, unperceived Matter serves no purpose, even if it can be proved ; the reality of the things of sense is sufficiently recognised without it : the Divine Ideas are the sensible world, as far as we can have anything to do with it. Why then, Berkeley might ask, should we assume its absolute or neutral existence at all ? A dispute in the Oratoire, in the autumn of 1715, might thus, on Berkeley's side, have turned on the real and (relatively to imagina- tion) archetypal character of our sense-ideas — on whether sense- perception is presentative, or only representative of real things. But Malebranche might have pressed him on another side. Berkeley's minima sensibllia are not things, for c things' are aggregates of minima sens'ibllia ; and a knowledge of sensible things is a knowledge of the mutual relations of the units in the aggregation, and also of the mutual relations of the physical substances formed by these aggre- III.] France. 77 gates. All perception of sensible things contains, in germ at least, a scientific knowledge of sensible things. Perceptions differ from science in degree and not in kind. In their very first beginnings they involve scientific principle or universality. We cannot even perceive without universalizing : we cannot apprehend sensible phenomena without more or less distinctly comprehending them in the unity of a principle. There can be no absolute divorce between the phenomenal and the rational. Now, what is the envelope of notion in which every, even the obscurest, act of perception tends to include its sense-phenomena? Is this envelope in its essence Divine ? If so, may it not be said, that every inter- pretation of sensible phenomena, every construction of a sensible thing, in all the degrees of such interpretation or construction, from the ordinary employment of the senses to the highest elabora- tions of science, involves a notional or rational element, in which we participate with God ; so that we may truly be said to be sen- sibly percipient of things only in Divine Ideas or Notions? The imperfection of Berkeley's doctrine of abstraction and of the relation between thought and sensatipns, and his imperfect com- prehension of Malebranche, might have appeared here. The rumour of this conference in the cell of the Oratoire is the only account we have of Berkeley's doings from the time of his departure from England with young Ashe, probably in the autumn of 171 5, till we have his own journal of his daily proceedings at Rome in January 1717, now for the first time published, in another part of this volume. The year 1716 is a blank in our records of Berkeley's life 26 . Swift wrote about him to Lord Carteret, some years after this, as having travelled over c most parts of Europe and it has been said that he once visited Cairo 27 . It is very unlikely that he was ever out of Europe, though it is possible he may have been in Switzer- land or the Empire — and perhaps in 17 16. Curiously, in contrast with the darkness of the year before, 171 7 26 In an editorial note to Swift's Parody p. 738, ed. 1843.) This is not supported of Provost Pratt's speech to the Prince by evidence, and is hardly consistent with of Wales, delivered in April 1716, it the known circumstances, or with Swift's is said — ' The Provost, it appears, was statement afterwards, that Berkeley was attended by the Rev. Dr. Howard, and absent from Ireland travelling for ' above Mr. George Berkeley (afterwards Bishop of seven years.' Cloyne), both of them Fellows of Trinity 27 Pinkerton's Literary Correspondence, College, Dublin.' (Swift's Works, vol. II. vol. II. p. 41. yS Life and Lettei's of Berkeley. [ch. is now the one year of his life in which we are best able to follow his daily movements, and with the light thrown upon them by his own pen. The dim vision of Berkeley and Malebranche in Paris, in September or October 1715, is followed by a distinct picture of Berkeley at Rome, examining the manuscripts in the Library of the Vatican, on the 7th of January 171 7, and having an interview with Cardinal Gualtieri on the following morning, along with young Ashe. We see him, with his great ardour of observation, among the pictures, statues, and architecture of new and old Rome, from day to day, in the remainder of that month, surrounded by companions of whose connection with him we can tell nothing — c Mr. Domville,' c Mr. Hardy/ c Dr. Chenion,' and others. The rough, unpolished memoranda of his journal, sometimes written in pencil, perhaps in his carriage, have the freshness which more elaborate writing wants, and the matters which attracted his attention, with his remarks upon them, illustrate his observant habits and extensive reading, and the singularity of his genius. The publication of these notes of part of his Italian tour, places Berkeley in 1717 before our eyes ; and, after groping for traces of him so long in the dim twilight, one feels like the traveller who sees in the disentombed remains of Herculaneum, with almost the vividness of reality, the departed life of ancient Italy. Berkeley sent a letter about this time to his friend Dr. Arbuthnot. It consists of observations on an eruption from Vesuvius which he witnessed when he was at Naples in April 1717. The physical cause of volcanic action was, as we shall see, a subject of specu- lation with him afterwards. The letter was communicated by Arbuthnot to the Royal Society, and is to be found in the Philosophical Transactions for October 1717. It is as follows : — Extract of a letter from Mr. Edw. [George] Berkeley, giving several cu- rious Observations and Remarks on the eruption of Fire and Smoke from Mount Vesuvio. Communicated by John Arbuthnot, M.D., R.S.S. : — April 17, 17 1 7. With much difficulty I jeached the top of Mount Vesuvius, in which I saw a vast aperture full of smoke, which hindered the seeing its depth and figure. I heard within that horrid gulf certain odd sounds, which seemed to proceed from the belly of the mountain ; a sort of murmuring, sighing, throbbing, churning, dashing (as it were) of waves, and between whiles a noise, like that of thunder or cannon, which was constantly ill.] Italy. 79 attended with a clattering like that of tiles falling from the tops of houses on the streets. Sometimes, as the wind changed, the smoke grew thinner, discovering a very ruddy flame, and the jaws of the pan or crater streaked with red and several shades of yellow. After an hour's stay, the smoke, being moved by the wind, gave us short and partial prospects of the great hollow, in the flat bottom of which I could discern two furnaces almost contiguous: that on the left, seeming about three yards in diameter, glowed with red flame, and threw up red-hot stones with a hideous noise, which, as they fell back, caused the fore-mentioned clattering. May 8, in the morning, I ascended to the top of Vesuvius a second time, and found a different face of things. The smoke ascend- ing upright gave a full prospect of the crater, which, as I could judge, is about a mile in circumference, and an hundred yards deep. A conical mount had been formed since my last visit, in the middle of the bottom : this mount, I could see, was made of the stones thrown up and fallen back again into the crater. In this new hill remained the two mounts or furnaces already mentioned : that on our left was in the vertex of the hill which it had formed round it, and raged more violently than before, throwing up, every three or four minutes, with a dreadful bellowing, a vast number of red-hot stones, sometimes in appearance above a thousand, and at least three thousand feet higher than my head as I stood upon the brink : but, there being little or no wind, they fell back perpendicularly into the crater, increasing the conical hill. The other mouth to the right was lower in the side of the same new-formed hill. I could discern it to be filled with red-hot liquid matter, like that in the furnace of a glass- house, which raged and wrought as the waves of the sea, causing a short abrupt noise like what may be imagined to proceed from a sea of quick- silver dashing among uneven rocks. This stuff would sometimes spew over and run down the convex side of the conical hill ; and appearing at first red-hot, it changed colour, and hardened as it cooled, shewing the first rudiments of an eruption, or, if I may say so, an eruption in minia- ture. Had the wind driven in our faces, we had been in no small danger of stifling by the sulphureous smoke, or being knocked on the head by lumps of molten minerals, which we saw had sometimes fallen on the brink of the crater, upon those shots from the gulf at the bottom. But, as the wind was favourable, I had an opportunity to survey this odd scene for above an hour and a half together ; during which it was very observable that all the volleys of smoke, flame, and burning stones, came only out of the hole to our left, while the liquid stuff in the other mouth wrought and overflowed, as hath been already described. June 5th, after an horrid noise, the mountain was seen at Naples to spew a little out of So Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. the crater. The same continued the 6th. The 7th, nothing was ob- served till within two hours of night, when it began a hideous bellowing, which continued all that night and the next day till noon, causing the windows, and, as some affirm, the very houses in Naples to shake. From that time it spewed vast quantities of molten stuff to the south, which streamed down the mountain like a great pot boiling over. This evening I returned from a voyage through Apulia, and was surprised, passing by the north side of the mountain, to see a great quantity of ruddy smoke lie along a huge tract of sky over the river of molten stuff, which was itself out of sight. The 9th, Vesuvius raged less violently : that night we saw from Naples a column of fire shoot between whiles out of its summit. The 10th, when we thought all would have been over, the mountain grew very outrageous again, roaring and groaning most dreadfully. You cannot form a juster idea of this noise in the most violent fits of it, than by imagining a mixed sound made up of the raging of a tempest, the murmur of a troubled sea, and the roaring of thunder and artillery, confused all together. It was very terrible as we heard it in the further end of Naples, at the distance of above twelve miles : this moved my curiosity to approach the mountain. Three or four of us got into a boat, and were set ashore at Torre del Greco, a town situate at the foot of Vesuvius to the south-west, whence we rode four or five miles before we came to the burning river, which was about midnight. The roaring of the volcano grew exceeding loud and horrible as we ap- proached. I observed a mixture of colours in the cloud over the crater, green, yellow, red, and blue ; there was likewise a ruddy dismal light in the air over that tract of land where the burning river flowed; ashes continually showered on us all the way from the sea-coast : all which circumstances, set off and augmented by the horror and silence of the night, made a scene the most uncommon and astonishing I ever saw, which grew still more extraordinary as we came nearer the stream. Imagine a vast torrent of liquid fire rolling from the top down the side of the mountain, and with irresistible fury bearing down and consuming vines, olives, fig-trees, houses ; in a word, every thing that stood in its way. This mighty flood divided into different channels, according to the inequalities of the mountain : the largest stream seemed half a mile broad at least, and five miles long. The nature and consistence of these burning torrents hath been described with so much exactness and truth by Borellus in his Latin treatise of Mount ./Etna, that I need say nothing of it. I walked so far before my companions up the mountain, along the side of the river of fire, that I was obliged to retire in great haste, the sulphureous stream having- surprised me, and almost taken III.] Italy. 8i away my breath. During our return, which was about three o'clock in the morning, we constantly heard the murmur and groaning of the mountain, which between whiles would burst out into louder peals, throwing up huge spouts of fire and burning stones, which falling down again, resembled the stars in our rockets. Sometimes I observed two, at others three, distinct columns of flames ; and sometimes one vast one that seemed to fill the whole crater. These burning columns and the fiery stones seemed to be shot iooo feet perpendicular above the summit of the volcano. The nth, at night, I observed it, from a terrass in Naples, to throw up incessantly a vast body of fire, and great stones to a surprising height. The 12th, in the morning, it darkened the sun with ashes and smoke, causing a sort of eclipse. Horrid bellowings, this and the foregoing day, were heard at Naples, whither part of the ashes also reached. At night I observed it throwing up flame, as on the nth. On the 13th, the wind changing, we saw a pillar of black smoke shot upright to a prodigious height. At night I observed the mount cast up fire as before, though not so distinctly, because of the smoke. The 14th, a thick black cloud hid the mountain from Naples. The 15th, in the morning, the court and walls of our house in Naples were covered with ashes. The 16th, the smoke was driven by a westerly wind from the town to the opposite side of the mountain. The 17th, the smoke appeared much diminished, fat and greasy. The 18th, the whole ap- pearance ended; the mountain remaining perfectly quiet without any visible smoke or flame. A gentleman of my acquaintance, whose window looked towards Vesuvius, assured me that he observed several flashes, as it were of lightning, issue out of the mouth of the volcano. It is not worth while to trouble you with the conjectures I have formed concerning the cause of these phaenomena, from what I observed in the Lacus Amsancti, the Solfatara, &c, as well as in Mount Vesuvius. One thing I may venture to say, that I saw the fluid matter rise out of the centre of the bottom of the crater, out of the very middle of the moun- tain, contrary to what Borellus imagines ; whose method of explaining the eruption of a volcano by an inflexed syphon and the rules of hydro- statics, is likewise inconsistent with the torrent's flowing down from the very vertex of the mountain. I have not seen the crater since the eruption, but design to visit it again before I leave Naples. I doubt there is nothing in this worth shewing the Society : as to that, you will use your discretion. E. (it should be G.) BERKELEY. Berkeley was at Naples in April. For May and June, we have VOL. IV. g 82 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. the notes of his excursions in the south of Italy, now published in his Journal. In the progress of his tour, his curiosity led him into several unfrequented places in Apulia and Calabria. The tarantula dance, and the singular phenomena of tarantism, here engaged his attention. The tarantula is a large spider, found near Taranto, and in other parts of Italy, especially in Apulia and Calabria. Its bite, followed sometimes by frightful pathological symptoms, was said to be cured by music, which moved the patient to dance, often for hours. It has been said that some persons not cured by music, have danced till they died. This mania is supposed to originate in an animal poison, which produces an epidemic nervous disease that affects the imagination. Besides sympathy with music, a passion for red and green colours, and an aversion for blue and black, are among the symptoms of tarantism. This was a subject which, as might be expected, he was fond of investigating ; and it is often referred to in his journals, which contain some curious evidence in confirmation of the alleged disease and its cure 28 . We have some notes of his journal in September 1717. In October he was again at Naples, where he wrote the following interesting letter to Pope : — Naples, Oct. 22, N. S. 17 17. I have long had it in my thoughts to trouble you with a letter, but was discouraged for want of something that I could think worth sending fifteen hundred miles. Italy is such an exhausted subject that, I dare say, you 'd easily forgive my saying nothing of it ; and the imagination of a poet is a thing so nice and delicate that it is no easy matter to find out images capable of giving pleasure to one of the few, who (in any age) have come up to that character. I am nevertheless lately returned from an island where I passed three or four months ; which, were it set out in its true colours, might, methinks, amuse you agreeably enough for a minute or two. The island Inarime is an epitome of the whole earth, containing within the compass of eighteen miles, a wonderful variety of hills, vales, ragged rocks, fruitful plains, and barren mountains, all thrown together in a most romantic confusion. The air is, in the hottest M See various entries in May and June The discharge of the inflammatory fluid, "1717. He sent Dr. Friend an account of produced by dancing, was Dr. Mead's ex- tfie nervous dance caused by the tarantula. planation of the physical cause of the cure. HI.] Italy. 83 season, constantly refreshed by cool breezes from the sea. The vales produce excellent wheat and Indian corn, but are mostly covered with vineyards intermixed with fruit-trees. Besides the common kinds, as cherries, apricots, peaches, &c, they produce oranges, limes, almonds, pomegranates, figs, water-melons, and many other fruits unknown to our climates, which lie every where open to the passenger. The hills are the greater part covered to the top with vines, some with chesnut groves, and others with thickets of myrtle and lentiscus. The fields in the northern side are divided by hedgerows of myrtle. Several fountains and rivulets add to the beauty of this landscape, which is likewise set off by the variety of some barren spots and naked rocks. But that which crowns the scene, is a large mountain rising out of the middle of the island, (once a terrible volcano, by the ancients called Mons Epomeus). Its lower parts are adorned with vines and other fruits ; the middle affords pasture to flocks of goats and sheep ; and the top is a sandy pointed rock, from which you have the finest prospect in the world, surveying at one view, besides several pleasant islands lying at your feet, a tract of Italy about three hundred miles in length, from the promontory of Antium to the Cape of Palinurus : the greater part of which hath been sung by Homer and Virgil, as making a considerable part of the travels and adventures of their two heroes. The islands Caprea, Prochyta, and Parthenope, together with Cajeta, Cumae, Monte Miseno, the habitations of Circe, the Syrens, and the Lgestrigones, the bay of Naples, the promontary of Minerva, and the whole Campagnia felice, make but a part of this noble landscape; which would demand an imagination as warm and numbers as flowing as your own, to describe it. The inhabitants of this delicious isle, as they are without riches and honours, so are they without the vices and follies that attend them ; and were they but as much strangers to revenge as they are to avarice and ambition, they might in fact answer the poetical notions of the golden age. But they have got, as an alloy to their happiness, an ill habit of murdering one another on slight offences. We had an instance of this the second night after our arrival, a youth of eighteen being shot dead by our door : and yet by the sole secret of minding our own business, we found a means of living securely among those dangerous people. Would you know how we pass the time at Naples ? Our chief enter- tainment is the devotion of our neighbours. Besides the gaiety of their churches (where folks go to see what they call una Bella Devotiojie, i. e. a sort of religious opera), they make fireworks almost every week out of devotion; the streets are often hung with arras out of devotion; and (what is still more strange) the ladies invite gentlemen to their houses, G 2 8 4 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. and treat them with music and sweetmeats, out of devotion : in a word, were it not for this devotion of its inhabitants, Naples would have little else to recommend it beside the air and situation. Learning is in no very thriving state here, as indeed nowhere else in Italy ; however, among many pretenders, some men of taste are to be met with. A friend of mine told me not long since that, being to visit Salvini 29 at Florence, he found him reading your Homer: he liked the notes extremely, and could find no other fault with the version, but that he thought it approached too near a paraphrase ; which shews him not to be sufficiently acquainted with our language. I wish you health to go on with that noble work ; and when you have that, I need not wish you success. You will do me the justice to believe, that whatever relates to your welfare is sincerely wished by your, &c. From an allusion elsewhere 30 , he seems to have visited the Grotto del Cane, near Naples. References to his Italian experi- ence and friends, and to the ancient and modern literature of Italy, may be found in various places in his writings. In August 1717 we have a sign of an intention to prolong the tour, in a renewal of his leave from Trinity College, c to travel and remain abroad. 5 The Queen's letter was on this occasion signed by Joseph Addison, then Secretary of State. In the pre- ceding month he had been elected a Senior Fellow in his absence, when Dr. Baldwin, the Vice-Provost, was made Provost. We have some of the notes of his movements in Italy in 1718. He appears to have been also in Sicily in that year, when it is said that he travelled over the island on foot 31 . Sicily attracted his attention very much. He collected materials for a natural history of the island, which, with his journal there, were unfortunately lost in the passage back to Naples. The rare union of subtle and original speculation, with extraordinary inquisitiveness about the minute phenomena of nature and industrial life, so conspicuous in Berkeley, deepen our regret for the loss of documents which might have further illustrated his disposition, though they probably con- 39 Cf. note 16, p. 71. Salvini was fond of English literature, and translated Addison's Calo, among other works. ' M Cf. Sirii, sect. 144. 31 In a letter, in 1 745, he mentions having felt an earthquake at Messina, ' in 1718/ The pedestrian journey is mentioned by Dr. Blackwell in his Memoirs of the Court of Augustus, vol. II. pp. 277 — 278. See also Warton on Pope, vol. II. p. 261. III.] France. »5 tained few scientific facts that are not now common -place, or novel inferences that modern science would be ready to accept. Bishop Ashe, the father of his pupil, died on the 27th of February 1 7 18, but it does not appear that this affected Berkeley's move- ments 32 . Berkeley is invisible during 17 19. The Register of Trinity College, records that on the 5th of June 1719, a renewed leave of absence for two years was granted to him. He was, we may assume, still in Italy. Before he left it, he met for the first time Martin Benson, afterwards Bishop of Gloucester, who was for nearly thirty years one of his most loved friends. Benson was then travelling in Italy, as Lord Pomfret's chaplain. Berkeley returned through France on his way back to England, apparently in 1720. One incident in the homeward journey shows that he con- tinued to unfold the philosophy which absorbed his thoughts some ten years before, at Trinity College, and at the commence- ment of his wanderings in France and Italy. He set out on his travels immediately after he had published the Three Dialogues on the nature of the material world. He was about to end them when he published a Latin work, De Motu, which is actually an essay on Power and Causation. According to the earlier treatise, ideas of sense, in the first place, and at last Divine Ideas, are the archetypes of our knowledge ; according to the later, Divine and other voluntary activity is the one efficient cause of motion in the world of the senses. The De Motu is an application to sensible changes and causation of one phase of Berkeley's implied Principle ; in the same way as the Dialogues are an application of the same Principle, in another phase, to sensible qualities. The former was intended for the scientifically initiated, and was written in Latin. The Dialogues were for the multitude, and were written in graceful English. The philosophy of physical science was considered in the De Motu, which also recommended a distribution of the sciences. It shows more learned research than his earlier writings. 52 Young Ashe, Berkeley's pupil, died in 1 72 1. 86 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. This Latin disquisition was prepared at Lyons — one of Berke- ley's resting-places, we may conjecture, on his way home. The subject had been proposed in 1720 by the Royal Academy of Sciences at Paris. The essay may have been presented when he arrived there. Unfortunately, in this case, as in that of the interview with Malebranche, documentary evidence which might supply inter- esting details is wanting. I am indebted to M. Alfred Maury, and to the Abbe Rabbe, for researches made at my request among the manuscript remains of that learned Society, which even in Berkeley's time could boast of some of the most eminent names in Europe. Many of the papers, especially the Memoirs, disap- peared, it seems, at the Revolution. The record that remains of the proceedings about the year 1720 is very meagre. The collection of pieces which carried off the prizes of the Academy commences, however, in that year. The prize for 1720 was con- ferred on M. Crousaz (afterwards author of the well-known work on Logic, and Professor of Philosophy at Lausanne), for the Discours sur la Nature^ le Trinctpe et la Communication du Mouvement 33 . The second prize was awarded to M. Massy. Berkeley's name is not mentioned. His failure in this competition (if indeed his disser- tation was actually presented for competition) need not surprise us, when we consider the characteristic boldness with which, in his De Motu^ he subverts received notions of causation, and makes war on ontological theories then in great strength in France. To represent mechanics as a science of divinely constituted signs, not of proper causes — to maintain that God is the Mover in the sensible universe — and to resolve space (so far as it has any positive existence) into relations of our concrete sensations — thus denying that it has necessary uncreated existence — was too foreign to the then established conceptions of a conclave of mathema- ticians and natural philosophers to find favour in their eyes. The vigorous, but rather commonplace, good sense of Crousaz, un- distinguished by original speculative ability, was more adapted to the circumstances. After an absence of about five years, Berkeley returned to England. The precise date does not appear, but it may have 33 Crousaz (1663 — 1749) was llear 'y s ' xt y years old when this Discourse was written. in.] England. «7 been towards the end of 1720. It is not likely that he had then any intention of soon returning to Dublin, as his leave of absence was renewed, for the fourth time, on the 24th of June 1721. He found London and all England in the agitation and misery consequent upon the failure of the South Sea Scheme. This occa- sioned one of his most characteristic productions as an author. He now addressed himself for the first time publicly to questions of social economy. If I am not mistaken, the deep impression which the English catastrophe of 1720 made upon him was connected with the project of social idealism which, as we shall see, filled and determined his life in its middle period. The conduct and failure of this South Sea Scheme was one of several symptoms of a dangerous declension in the tone of public morals in England. On credible report, it seems that the state of society, at least in London, soon after the accession of the House of Hanover, was hardly less corrupt than in the period which followed the Restoration, while it wanted the literary and scien- tific brilliancy which shed lustre on the reign of Charles II. Political corruption and contempt of religion were common among the wealthy and fashionable. The South Sea proposals raised ex- travagant expectations of a secular millennium. The c growth of atheism, profaneness, and immorality,' was the formula among Bishops and other ecclesiastics ; and the language Was adopted by leading members in both Houses of Parliament. This great commercial enterprise brought latent evils to a visible crisis, and disease in the body politic could not be concealed. It revealed a morbid eagerness to share in the possible pro- fits of hazardous speculation, intense and wide-spread to an extent that England had never before seen. Trusting to the greed for gain, and pushing credit to its utmost extent, the Com- pany, in the spring of 1720, undertook the responsibility of the National Debt, at that time amounting to above thirty millions sterling. The proposal was accepted by both Houses of Parlia- ment, by large majorities, in the month of April, against the remonstrances of Walpole. The Company's stock rose to 330 in the course of that month. In May it reached 550, and in June 890. It attained its maximum of 1000 in the beginning 88 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. of August, when the Chairman and principal Directors sold out. An unprecedented panic followed. The shares fell rapidly. A collapse of social credit was imminent. Parliament was hastily summoned in November. A financial adjustment was at last made, and credit slowly returned with the new year. Berkeley found himself in this national turmoil. He was shocked by the tone of social morality, which so appallingly greeted him on his return. Probably his active imagination and en- thusiastic temperament exaggerated the symptoms. We know more about these things now : commercial speculation was then a novelty in the nation. His ardent thoughts found vent in the "Essay towards preventing the Ruin of Great Britain^ which was pub ished in London in 17 21 34 . The Essay is the lamentation of an ardent social idealist over the effete civilisation of England and the Old World. We are undone, is the spirit of his language, and lost to all sense of our true interest. If we are to be saved at all, it must be by the persons who compose society becoming individually industrious, frugal, public spirited, and religious. This, and not any royal road, is the way to safety, if there is any way at all. Sumptuary laws, he thought, might do something. Public amusements might be regu- lated. Masquerades might be prohibited. The drama, which was a school of morals and good sense to the ancient world, and to England in a former generation, might perhaps be reformed. The fine arts might be made, as in other countries, to inspire the com- munity with great thoughts and generous feelings. But till selfish- ness and sensuality were superseded in individuals by public spirit and religious love and reverence, mere legislation appeared to him hopeless. In the South Sea affair he saw, not the root of the evil, but merely one of many external symptoms, resulting from those tendencies to social dissolution, which for a generation had been sapping the strength of society in Western Europe, and espe- cially in these islands. Though this tract is but a fragment in Berkeley's miscellaneous writings, it should have an important place in a study of the 34 Cf. Swift's verses on the South Sea Project. Several of Berkeley's set were in- volved in South Sea speculation ; among others, Gay the poet, who lost his fortune and his health, and retired to Hampstead in 1722, where he was restored by the care of Arbuthnot. III.] England. 8 9 growth of his character and social conceptions. ' Let us be industrious, frugal, and religious, if we are to be saved at all/ is its advice. c There is little hope of our becoming any of these,' is its prediction. It is the Cassandra wail of a sorrowful prophet, preparing to shake the dust from his feet, and to transfer his eye of hope to other regions, and to a less deliberately corrupted society. The summer of 1721 found Berkeley still in England. His travels had added to his social charms, and he found ready admis- sion to the best society in ondon. The London of 1721 was of course changed from the London of 17 15. Addison had passed away in 1719, and Matthew Prior in 1721. Swift was in Dublin, and Steele was broken in health and fortune. But Pope was at Twickenham, Arbuthnot was in town, and Atterbury was at his deanery in Westminster or among the elms at Bromley. Clarke, as formerly, was preaching sermons in the parish church of St. James's, and Sherlock was Master of the Temple. One likes to linger looking at them all. The following letter from Pope to Berkeley 35 is without a sufficient date. Perhaps it belongs to the spring of 1721. At any rate, it illustrates his friendly relations with the poet, and with the c turbulent' Atterbury, who had Exhausted hyperbole' in his praise. Sunday. Dear Sir, My Lord Bishop 36 was very much concerned at missing you yesterday ; he desired me to engage you and myself to dine with him this day, but I was unluckily pre-engaged. And (upon my telling him I should carry you out of town to-morrow, and hoped to keep you till the end of the week) he has desired that we will not fail to dine with him next Sunday, when he will have no other company. I write this to intreat that you will provide yourself of linen and other necessaries sufficient for the week ; for, as I take you to be almost the only friend I have that is above the little vanities of the town, I expect 35 See Letters, &c , including the Cor re- 36 Atterbury, who was banished in 1722; spondence of John Hughes, Esq., vol. II. but much of his correspondence with Pope p. I. was about this time. Cf. p. 59. 90 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. you may be able to renounce it for one week, and to make trial how you like my Tusculum, because I assure you it is no less yours, and hope you will use it as your own country villa in the ensuing season. I am, faithfully yours, A. POPE. It was about this time that Berkeley became familiar with persons whose intimacy and correspondence in later years were among the consolations of his advancing life. His friendship with Martin Benson, who was afterwards Bishop of Gloucester, and with Seeker, who was afterwards successively Bishop of Bristol and Bishop of Oxford, and who ended a sagacious old age on the archi- episcopal throne at Lambeth, probably dates from 1721. Rundle, afterwards bishop of Derry, was an intimate of all the three. They are conjoined in Pope's well-known lines :J 7 — ' Even in a Bishop I can spy desert ; Seeker is decent, Rundle has a heart : Manners with candour are to Benson given, To Berkeley every virtue under heaven.' Benson, as already mentioned, he met in Italy. Benson and Seeker became intimate in Paris in 1720, and both returned to England early in the following year. Seeker was ordained in 1722, and he mentions 38 that a short time before his ordi- nation he became acquainted with c Dr. Clarke of St. James's, and with Berkeley afterwards Bishop of Cloyne.' Seeker and Butler were trained together in the Dissenting Academy at Tewkesbury, where Butler wrote the letters to Clarke which Seeker carried to the post-office at Gloucester. Butler, too, was now in London, delivering, at the Rolls Chapel in Chancery Lane, those profound moral discourses, so full of penetrating practical wisdom, which have formed an era in the history of ethical specu- lation in England, and have been studied by successive genera- tions of young moral philosophers. Berkeley was thus again brought into connection with Clarke, and met with the grave and weighty moral preacher at the Rolls — the two most notable English philosophical thinkers of the time. 37 Epilogue to the Satires, Dial. II. 70 permission to examine which I am indebted (published in 1 738). to the kindness of the Archbishop of Can- :iH In his MSS. preserved at Lambeth, for terbury. III.] England. 9* It may have been during this stay in England that he met the Earl of Pembroke 30 , to whom, more than ten years before, he had dedicated his Principles of Human Knowledge. The Earl was the friend of Swift; and in the latter part of his life he was the friend of Berkeley, who was a welcome visitor at his magnificent seat at Wilton. It was at this time, too, that he was introduced by Pope to Boyle, Earl of Burlington and Cork, cele- brated as the architectural nobleman, to whose professional taste so many good buildings in London and in the country are due — who designed Burlington House in Piccadilly, and who repaired St. Paul's in Covent Garden, the design of Inigo Jones — ' Who plants like Bathurst, or who builds like Boyle ? ' The name of Boyle is illustrious in the history of human pro- gress, the architectural Earl of Burlington inherited the ancestral love of science and of art. Berkeley's kindred taste and skill, fostered in Italy, was a bond between them. According to Warton 40 , he gained the patronage and friendship of this noble- man c not only by his true politeness and the peculiar charms of his conversation, which was exquisite, but by his profound and perfect skill in architecture ; an art which he had very particularly studied in Italy, when he went abroad with Mr. Ashe, son of the Bishop of Clogher, and where, with an insatiable and philosophic attention, he surveyed every object of interest/ By the Earl of Burlington, Berkeley was recommended to Charles, second Duke of Grafton. In August 1721, the Duke was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. Berkeley went in his suite as one of his chaplains, and returned once more to the Irish capital. 39 Thomas, eighth Earl of Pembroke, the Ireland. He succeeded his brother Philip in friend of Locke, who dedicated his Essay to 1683, and died in I 733. him. He held high offices in England and 40 Essayon Pope, vol.11, p. 260; also p. 235. CHAPTER IV. IRELAND AND ENGLAND. ACADEMICO-PHILOSOPHICAL ENTHUSIASM ABOUT AMERICA. 1721 — 1728. Berkeley was now in his thirty-seventh year. Without pre- ferment in the Church, and with leave of absence from his College, he had been a wanderer out of Ireland for more than eight years. He now returned for a time to the scenes of his youth, soon to leave them again. A new ideal was about to kindle and sustain an enthusiasm which shaped his course in several following years. At an age when ordinary men try to have their places settled in the routine of the social system, we find him a knight-errant of academic life and religious civi- lisation in America, ready to sacrifice the intellectual refinement and conventional dignities of the Old World in which he had grown into manhood. Berkeley's return to Dublin seems to have been sudden. On the 24th of June 1721, his leave of absence from College, as we have seen, was prolonged for two years. Yet about two months afterwards we find him in Ireland, which there is no evidence that he had visited since he left it in the spring of 17 13. Berkeley's place of residence in 1721, and the two following years, has hitherto been doubtful and disputed. In the Gentleman's Magazine for December 1776, it is denied that Berkeley c ever went to Ireland as Chaplain to the Duke of Grafton, or any other Lord Lieutenant.' That there is no ground for the denial is proved by the following letter 1 , hitherto unpublished, and now printed according to the original : — 1 For this valuable letter I am indebted to Mr. Malcomson, of Carlow, who now possesses the original manuscript. The heraldic Berkeley seal is used. The year is not given, but, from internal evidence, there can be no doubt that it was writ- ten in 1 721. It is addressed, 'For Robert Nelson, Esq., at Berkeley House in St. John's Dublin. 93 From y e Court of Ireland, October 6, [17 21]. I thanke you for your kind letter, Deare Brother Nelson, though you and y e postmaster did not agree in y e date, ther being 20 days differ- ence. This hath puzled me a little as to y e time of your housekeeping ; but I hope you keepe your old quarters, and are now settled at St. James to your content. I have bin a fortnight in y e Castle : but excepting a little difference in y e hangings of my chamber, and its being seated upon y e first story, I find Jack Hafe and George Berkeley are Brother Chaplains, and equally considered. We both rise at 6 o'clock, in our waiting week, to pray with y e family. At 1 1 we give his Grace solemne Prayers, and at 9 after supper the bell rings againe. Besides ourselves, there is another Chaplaine, who not living in y e house, we are faine to rise for him and supply his turne in y e morning. I have y e honour to sit at y e lower end of my L d ' s table (w n . is no great matter), as also to sup always with y e Steward when I am not in waiting, and often dine there. But a good Deanry will easily make amends for y e lessening my quality; though I could wish his Majesty had told me his mind of removing Church Preferment from y e Commissioners before I came out of England. But as it is, God's will be done. My L cl Duke and I are at a great distance here, so not many words passe between us. He made me once a very low cringe at St John's, but if he will stoope now to do me a reale kindnesse it will be much better. Thus you have a short account of my affairs. I never drunk or saw any usquebah since I came into Ireland, though I have bin at many tables and civilly used in a sober way without impoting : if any thing material doth happen in my concerns, I will send you word. In y e meane while, I am, Most affectionately, Your humble Servant, GEORGE BERKELEY. My kind love to your wife and y e rest of your friends. The same writer in the Gentleman s Magazine asserts, in opposition to the author of the book he is reviewing, that c Berkeley never took the degrees of Bachelor and Doctor of Divinity, though Lane, neare Smithfield, London.' It may be conjectured that Berkeley's correspondent was a son, or other near relative, of the pious Robert Nelson, author of the Festivals and Fasts, and of the Life of Bishop Bull, who married Theophila, widow of Sir Kingsmill Lucy, and daughter of the Earl of Berkeley, and who died in 1715. 94 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. here [i.e. in the anonymous life of Berkeley which appeared in 1776] the very day is mentioned, viz. Nov. 14, 17 21. The fact is, he was elected D.D. by his College per saltum in 17 17, during his absence in Italy 2 / Now, the Registry of Trinity College informs us that c on November 14, 172 \, Mr. Berkeley had the grace of the House, for the Degree of Bachelor and Doctor of Divinity.' Other academical appointments followed, according to the academical record. On the 20th of November 172 1, c Dr. Berkeley was nominated Divinity Lecturer 3 (on Archbishop King's founda- tion) ; and on the same day he was appointed University Preacher/ As already mentioned, he was Junior Greek Lecturer in 1712, and now the record bears that on c November 2T, 172T, Dr. Berkeley having resigned the office of Senior Greek Lecturer, Mr. Delany was chosen thereto.' Thus, at the commencement of 1722 Berkeley was Chaplain to the Lord Lieutenant, and a Senior Fellow, in official employ- ment at Trinity College as Lecturer in Divinity and as University Preacher. Although the ordinary biographies of Berkeley have been chiefly a record of his ecclesiastical preferments, they have omitted one recorded promotion. In February 1722, it seems that he was nominated to the Deanery of Dromore. The Patent is dated on the 10th day of that month, in the Record of Royal Presentations in the Patent Rolls of Chancery in Ireland ; and on the 16th February, in the same Record, we have c George Berkeley, Dean of Dromore.' It is curious that this preferment does not seem to have affected Berkeley's Fellowship or his other University offices, which he retained as before. It does not appear that he ever went to Dromore, nor can I find any contemporary recognition of him as holding the ecclesiastical rank of Dean during these years. The Duke of Grafton must have left Dublin for some months in 1722, for in February the Archbishop of Dublin, Viscount Shannon, and William Connolly, Esq., were sworn Lords Justices ; and Berkeley 2 See Gent. Mag. vol. XLVI. p. 569. :i It) 1722 — 23, the annual salary of Archbishop King's Lecturer in Divinity was the interest of £500, which may be taken at six per cent. It was probably about £30. In 1 76 1 the office was made a Regius Pro- fessorship. IV.] Dublin. 95 may thus have lost his temporary chaplaincy at a time when this vacant Deanery offered itself. His connection with it is, on the whole, however, rather puzzling. It was an office which imposed no statutory labour, however, not even residence. The Cathedral of Dromore was a parish church, and no Dean resided there. The endowments were from the rectoral tithes of several parishes. About fifty years ago, the income was about fourteen hundred pounds, and we may suppose that in Berkeley's time it was proportionally lucrative 4 . On the 4th of June, 1722, c the places of Catechist and Hebrew Lecturer in Trinity College becoming vacant by the resignation of Dr. Walmsley, Dr. Delany was chosen Catechist, and Dr. Berkeley Hebrew Lecturer/ This Hebrew Lectureship, which he held for nearly two years, added about forty pounds to Berkeley's income 5 . In November 1722, he was also made Senior Proctor. In 1722, accordingly, Berkeley seems to have been chiefly employed in College work, having an income as Hebrew Lecturer, as Senior Proctor, and as one of the Senior Fellows 6 . We may imagine that he was at this time occasionally in the society of his old and steady friend at the Deanery of St. Patrick s. That he revisited England we learn from a letter of Gay to Swift, dated London, December 22, 1722. 'Whomsoever I see that comes from Ireland,' Gay writes, c the first question I ask is after 4 As to the duties of the Dean of Dro- more, the following extract from the Parlia- mentary return for 1834 may suffice : — ' The Deanery of the Cathedral Church of Christ the Redeemer of Dromore There are no duties, neither is there any house of resi- dence assigned to this dignitary.' It can hardly have been one of the ' hedge deaneries' of which Swift writes in one of his letters. ' We have several of them,' he says, ' in Ireland.' It appears from Cotton that there was some question about the patronage of the Dromore deanery. 5 From the Library Register it seems that Berkeley borrowed a Hebrew Bible 1 711 — 12, which shows he was then working at Hebrew. 6 A Lecture in Hebrew was established in the University at a very early period, but there was no foundation or endowment for its permanent maintenance, although an exami- nation in Hebrew was at that time necessary for the Degrees of Bachelor and Master of Arts. The original statutes of Trinity Col- lege imposed the duty of lecturing in Hebrew and Greek upon the same person. For the history of the Chair, see Dublin University Commission Report, p. 56. The salary in Berkeley's time was about forty pounds. The Senior Proctor received a portion of the fees paid for the higher Degrees. His share in 1722 — 23 seems to have been about forty-five pounds. Berkeley's sources of College income during these years were thus : — (1) Salary as Senior Fellow ; (2) The emoluments of the above-mentioned offices ; (3) Commutation granted for commons and other indulgences ; (4) Special premium voted for satisfactory discharge of offices. In all, perhaps he had about a hundred and fifty pounds, equivalent to four or five hundred now. Though no- minally Tutor, he does not appear to have taught pupils in that capacity after 171 2. The deanery of Dromore must have added considerablv to his emoluments. 96 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. your health; of which I had the pleasure to hear very lately from Mr. Berkeley V A romantic incident, with which Swift is closely connected, belongs to Berkeley's history in 1723. It might have severed him from Swift, but it did not. It added fortune to the prefer- ment of which he was already in possession, and it strengthened his resources for carrying out philanthropic plans in which he was then indulging in imagination. The circumstances in which the fortune came to him show his power of permanently touching even those who met him casually with a sense of the extraordinary beauty of his character. The name of Mrs. Vanhomrigh occasionally occurs, it may be remembered, in Swift's Journal to Stella. She was the widow of Bartholomew Vanhomrigh, a Dutch merchant 8 . Her daughter Esther was the celebrated Vanessa, whose relation to Swift is one of the mysteries of that strange life. It seems that in the spring of 1713, when Swift was opening Berkeley's way into London, he carried him one day incidentally to dine at the house of Vanessa. He was certainly not a frequent visitor there. We have the evi- dence of Mrs. Berkeley, in the Bwgraphia Britannha, that c her husband never dined but once at the house of Mrs. Vanhomrigh, and that was only by chance.' This too, he has been heard to say, was c the first and last time in his life in which he ever saw Vanessa.' Vanessa died in May 1723. Some years before her death, having lost her mother, she removed with her sister from London to Ireland, and in 1 717 took up her abode on her little property of Marley Abbey, near Cellridge, a pleasant village ten miles west of Dublin, probably in the hope of enjoying the society of the man to whom her heart was given. Swift had attracted her in London; he now tried to repel her by indifference in Ireland. Her impetuous temper and active imagination drove her to desperation, when she discovered the Dean's connection with Stella, to whom he had been privately married by Dr. Ashe, Bishop of Clogher, in the garden of the Deanery, in the spring of 1716 9 . The death of her sister in 1720 seems to have 7 Swift's Correspondence. Life of Dean Swift' (p. xxxvi), in the 8 A certain ' Bart. Vanhomrigh ' was Lord Literary Relics, where this incident is re- Mayor of Dublin in 1697 — 98. lated on the authority of Bishop Berkeley. tt See Monck Berkeley's • Inquiry into the IV.] Dublin. 97 added force to her unfortunate passion, and at the same time to have increased Swift's reserve. But she brought the matter to a crisis when she wrote to ask Stella the nature of her connection with Swift. Stella forwarded the letter to the Dean, and in reply informed Vanessa of his marriage. Swift hurried to Marley Abbey and flung the letter on the table. The tragical issue is known 10 . Her heart was crushed. She at once revoked a Will made in favour of Swift, and settled the reversion of her considerable fortune, which included Marley Abbey, upon Berkeley, and Mr. Marshal, who was afterwards 11 one of the Judges of the Court of Common Pleas in Ireland. They were also named as sole executors. Her succession amounted to about ^8,000, which was to be equally divided between the two. The particulars in the Will of Esther Vanhomrigh explain al- lusions in some of Berkeley's letters. Here is a copy, extracted from the Registry of the Prerogative Court in Ireland : — In the name of God, Amen. — I Esther Vanhomrigh, one of the daughters of Bartholomew Vanhomrigh, late of the city of Dublin, Esq. deceased, being of sound and disposing mind and memory, do make and ordain this my last will and testament, in manner and form follow- ing, that is to say: — First, I recommend my soul into the hands of Almighty God, and my body I commit to the earth, to be buried at the discretion of my executors hereinafter named. In the next place, I give and devise all my worldly substance, whether in lands, tenements, here- ditaments, or trusts, and all my real and personal estate, of what nature or kind soever, unto the Reverend Doctor George Berkly, one of the Fellows of Trinity College, Dublin, and Robert Marshal of Clonmel Esq. their heirs, executors, and administrators, chargeable nevertheless with, and subject and liable to the payment of all such debts of my own contracting as I shall owe at the time of my death, as also unto the payment of the several legacies hereinafter bequeathed, or which shall hereafter be bequeathed by any codicil to be annexed to this my last will and testament : Item, I give and bequeath unto Erasmus Lewis of London, Esq. the sum of twenty-five pounds sterling to buy a ring : Item, I give and bequeath unto Francis Annesly of the city of London, Esq. twenty-five pounds sterling to buy a ring: Item, I give and be- queath unto John Hooks, Esq. of Gaunts in Dorsetshire, twenty-five 10 That the catastrophe afflicted Swift seems certain. After the death of Vanessa, he left Dublin for some months. It was then that he visited the county of Cork, and composed the verses on the ' Carberry Rocks.' 11 In 1753. VOL. IV. H 98 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. pounds sterling to buy a ring : Item, I give unto the Right Reverend Father in God William King, Lord Archbishop of Dublin, twenty-five pounds sterling, to buy a ring : Item, I give and bequeath unto the Right Reverend Father in God Theop. Bolton, Lord Bishop of Clonfert, twenty-five pounds sterling, to buy a ring: Item, I give and bequeath unto Robert Lindsey of the city of Dublin, Esq. twenty-five pounds sterling, to buy a ring: Item, I give and bequeath unto Edmund Shuldam of the city of Dublin, Esq. twenty-five pounds sterling, to buy a ring : Item, I give and bequeath unto William Lingin of the castle of Dublin, Esq. twenty-five pounds sterling, to buy a ring : Item, I give and bequeath unto the Rev. Mr. John Antrobus, my cousin, the like sum of money, to buy a ring : Item, I give and bequeath unto Bryan Robinson, doctor of physic in the city of Dublin, fifteen pounds sterling, to buy a ring : Item, I give and bequeath unto Mr. Edward Cloker of the city of Dublin, fifteen pounds sterling, to buy a ring : Item, I give and bequeath unto Mr. William Marshal of the city of Dublin, fifteen pounds sterling, to buy a ring: Item, I give and bequeath unto John Finey, son of George Finey of Kildrought in the county of Kildare, and godson to my sister, the sum of twenty-five pounds sterling, to be paid to him when he shall attain the age of twenty-one years : Also I give and bequeath to his mother, Mrs. Mary Finey, the sum of ten pounds sterling, to buy mourning, and to Mrs. Ann Wakefield, her sister, of the parish of St. Andrews in the city of Dublin, the like sum to buy mourning : Item, I give and bequeath unto Ann Kindon, who is now my servant, the sum of five pounds sterling, to buy mourning ; and to her daughter, Ann Clinkokells, the like sum of money, to buy mourning : Item, I give and bequeath unto every servant that shall live with me at the time of my death half a years wages; and to the poor of the parish where I do happen to die, five pounds sterling : And I do hereby make, constitute, and appoint the said Dr. George Berkly, and Robert Marshal Esq. of Clonmel, sole executors of this my last will and testament. And I do hereby revoke and make void all former and other wills and testaments by me in anywise heretofore made, either in word or writing and declare this to be my last will and testament. In witness whereof, I, the said Esther Vanhomrigh, have hereunto set my hand and seal, this first day of May, in the year of our Lord 1723. E. VANHOMRIGH (Seal). Signed, published, and declared by the said Esther Vanhomrigh, for and as her last will and testament, in presence of us, who attest the same by subscribing our names in presence of her the said testatrix, JAS. DOYLE. ED. THRUSH. DARBY GAFNY. IV.J Dublin. 99 The last will and testament of Esther Vanhomrigh, late deceased (having, and so forth), was proved in common form of law, and probat granted by the most Reverend Father in God Thomas, and so forth, to the Reverend George Berkely and Robert Marshal, the executors, they being first sworn personally. Dated the 6th of June 1723. A true copy, which I attest, JOHN HAWKINS, Dep. Reg. Thus curiously did fortune come to Berkeley. The news naturally surprised him. Though he had been living near the lady for almost two years, after his return to Ireland in August 1721, he had not seen her once. The unexpected trust involved Berkeley in annoyances which lasted for many years. They are often referred to in his letters which follow. It is said by Stock that Vanessa on her deathbed delivered to Mr. Marshal a copy, in her own handwriting, of her correspon- dence with the Dean, with an injunction to publish it immediately after her death, as well as the well-known poem of Cadenus and Vanessa. He adds that this injunction was disobeyed at the in- stance of Berkeley, who was moved by friendship for Swift, and desire to avoid a scandal. But there is really no evidence that Vanessa ever enjoined the revenge. The poem of Cadenus and Vanessa was published soon after her death. Berkeley, we are told, destroyed the original letters of the correspondence, c not because there was anything criminal in them, but because delicacy required him, he thought, to conceal them from the public 12 / If the report of this destruction is true, a copy must have been preserved by Mr. Marshal. Soon after his death extracts found their way to the press ; and the entire c Correspondence between Swift and Miss Vanhomrigh, 5 which extends from August 17 12 till August 1722, was published in Scott's edition of the works of Swift, in 1814. c The sum of the evidence which they afford,' says Scott 13 , c seems to amount to this- — that, while residing in England for some years, and at a distance from Stella, Swift incautiously engaged in a correspondence with Miss Vanhomrigh, which probably at first meant little more than mere gallantry, since the mother, brother, 12 Stock's Life. 13 Works 0/ Swift, vol. I. pp. 255 — 59. H 2 ioo Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. and sister, seem all to have been confidants of their intimacy. After his journey to Ireland, his letters assume a graver cast, and consist rather of advice, caution, and rebuke than expressions of tenderness. Yet neither his own heart, nor the nature of Vanessa's violent attachment, permit him to suppress strong, though occasional and rare, indications of the high regard in which he held her, although honour, friendship, and esteem had united his fate with that of another The letters of Miss Van- homrigh plead in extenuation of her uncontrollable affection, the high moral character of its object Swift, under Vanessa's pen, remains a matchless model of virtue, just and perfect in everything, but in want of tenderness; the picture, in short, usually drawn by a male lover of his relentless mistress. It is the language of the most romantic attachment, but without the least tincture of criminal desire It was the unrequited passion of Vanessa, not the perfidy of Cadenus, which was the origin of their mutual misery ; for she states Swift's unhappiness as arising from her love, and declares herself at the same time incapable of abating her affection. Enough of blame will remain with Swift, if we allow that he cherished with indecisive yet flat- tering hope a passion which, in justice to himself and Vanessa, he ought, at whatever risk to her feelings and his own, to have repressed as soon as she declared it. The want of firmness which this conduct required, made every hour of indecision an act of real cruelty, though under the mask of mercy ; and while it trained his victim towards the untimely grave which it prepared, ruined at. the same time his own peace of mind.' We return from this mysterious episode to follow Berkeley out of the College of Dublin. In April 1724, according to the Register, he was nominated by the Duke of Grafton to the living of Ardtrea and Arboe, vacant by the death of the Rev. Christopher Jenney. Almost simultaneously he must have heard of his nomination to the Deanery of Derry. The records inform us that on c April 16, upon Dr. Berkeley's being made Dean of Derry, it was agreed by the Provost [Dr. Baldwin], and Senior Fellows, that his Grace the Duke of Grafton, the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, should present a clerk or clerks to the livings of Ardtrea and Arboe, vacant by the death of the Rev. Christopher Jenney; and iv.] Derry. ioi accordingly he presented the Rev. Mr. John Shadwell to Ardtrea, and the Rev. Pascanus Ducasse to Arboe.' The donation to Berkeley of the Deanery of Derry was dated May 2, 1724. He was instituted and installed on the 14th of May. On the 2nd of May the Deanery of Dromore was given to John Hamilton 11 . On the 21st of April, c Mr. Thompson was chosen Hebrew Lecturer in the room of Dr. Berkeley, who resigned that office and on the 19th of May, c Dr. Berkeley, being installed Dean of Derry, sent a resignation of his Senior Fellowship to the Provost yesterday, being the 18th of this instant, upon which Dr. Clayton was admitted and co-opted Senior Fellow 15 .' Thus Berkeley's official connection with Trinity College ends. In his fortieth year he appears before us as Dean of Derry, no c hedge deanery,' but one in which residence and ecclesiastical work were required. The Deanery of Derry was then one of the best pieces of preferment in the Irish Church. The annual income was about eleven hundred pounds 16 . Berkeley owed the pro- motion to the Duke of Grafton, whose Vice-regal reign ended in this same month of May. This Deanery was an important ecclesiastical position. It was c a great frontier against the Dis- senters.' It had c five cures in it, and the necessity of a fifth in the Isle of Inch, where there were a hundred families, and an old chapel, seven miles from the parish church, without the power of getting to any church without crossing the sea 17 .' So wrote Archbishop King, who was himself once Bishop of Derry, and the circumstances mentioned by him are alluded to in some of Berkeley's letters. I have not found when Berkeley went to reside at Derry, or whether he went there at all. He emerges from the darkness 14 See Liber Munerum. John Hamilton, Berkeley's successor in 1724 in the Deanery of Dromore, was ordained Deacon in March 1727, and Priest in June of that year — nearly three years after his presentation to the Deanery. See Cotton's Fasti, vol. III. p. 293. Was this an instance of persons allowed to hold cathedral preferments with- out being in holy orders — said to have been not uncommon in Ireland in the seven- teenth century ? 15 For these, as well as for preceding ex- tracts from the Register of Trinity College, I am indebted to the kindness of the Rev. Dr. Dickson. 16 The case of Derry was different from Dromore. The Dean of Derry was Rector of the church, and had several cures, as well as a Deanery house. The obligation of residence was thus much stronger than at Dromore, though in this matter there was at that time a customary laxity. 17 See M ant's History of the Church of Ireland, vol. II. p. 385. 102 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. of the summer of 1724 in an unexpected mood of mind — with his heart ready to break c if his deanery be not taken from him/ The history of this curious revelation of character is contained in the following sentences of a letter from Swift to Lord Carteret, the new Lord Lieutenant 18 : — [Dublin'], September 3, 1724. There is a gentleman of this kingdom just gone for England. It is Dr. George Berkeley, Dean of Deny, the best preferment among us, being worth £1100 a year. He takes the Bath on his way to London; and will of course attend your Excellency, and be presented, I suppose, by his friend Lord Burlington. And because I believe you will choose out some very idle minutes to read this letter, perhaps you may not be ill entertained with some account of the man and his errand. He was a Fellow of the University here ; and going to England very young, about thirteen years ago, he became the founder of a sect called the Immaterialists, by the force of a very curious book upon that subject. Dr. Smalridge and many other eminent persons were his proselytes. I sent him Secretary and Chaplain to Sicily with my Lord Peterborough ; and upon his lordship's return, Dr. Berkeley spent above seven years in travelling over most parts of Europe, but chiefly through every corner of Italy, Sicily, and other islands. When he came back to England, he found so many friends that he was effectually recommended to the Duke of Grafton, by whom he was lately made Dean of Derry. Your Excellency will be frighted when I tell you all this is but an introduction ; for I am now to mention his errand. 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 a 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 in the fairest way for 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-philo- sophical (I shall make you remember what you were) of a College founded for Indian scholars and missionaries ; where he most exor- bitantly proposes a whole hundred pounds a year for himself, fifty 18 John, second Lord Carteret, born in raged learning by his example and his 1690. He was Lord Lieutenant of Ireland patronage, and was one of the most con- from 1724 to 1730. On the death of his siderable of the statesmen and orators of his mother in l 744, he became Karl Granville. time. He died in 1 763. Lord Carteret encou- iv.] In London — Enthusiasm about America. 103 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 dis- posal. I discouraged 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 humbly entreat your Excellency either to use such persuasions as will keep one of the first men in the 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 en- courage. We can only conjecture when and why this now absorbing pro- ject of a Christian University for the civilisation of America took possession of the Dean of Deny, and carried him to London with his new Deanery in his hand, ready to be surrendered less than six months after it had been given to him. Swift says that the Bermuda project had been in Berkeley's mind for more than three years before he hurried to London in 1724. This takes us back to the South Sea convulsion, when he was so deeply moved by that sudden outbreak of social distemper. His despair of Great Britain and the old civilisation may have directed his eye to the West, with its vast Continent, open to half the human race, where with the ( rise of empire and of arts,' he hoped for another golden age. It is difficult for us now to see the halo of romance with which America was at first invested in the minds of many, or to feel as a sensitive poetical nature, full of ardent philanthropy, might have felt, amid the coarseness and corruption of European society, when a fair virgin soil, and ample resources for a simple virtuous people were seen across the ocean, America was in Berkeley's days partly what India is in ours, full of attractions to benevo- lence. The Christian associations of the early part of last cen- tury sent their missions to America. The Society for the Pro- pagation of the Gospel was founded in 1701 with this immedi- ately in view. Berkeley's Verses on the Prospect of planting Arts and Learning in America express his own feeling of the contrast between the c decay of Europe' and the ' happy clime?, the seat of innocence, Where nature guides, and virtue rules, Where men shall not impose for truth and sense, The pedantry of courts and schools.' 104 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. His desire, in the years that followed his return to Ireland, after his residence in England and on the Continent of Europe — where he observed the scholasticism of Universities, the debase- ment of social rank, and the professional religion of ecclesiastics — was to sacrifice the fruits of his own social advancement, in favour of a more hopeful civilisation, and a more genuine academic life, as soon as those fruits were considerable enough to supply strength for the execution. Vanessa's legacy, and then the Deanery of Derry, told him that his time was come. The opulent pre- ferment he offered to resign; the legacy, and the remainder of his life he proposed to dedicate to instructing the youth of America, as President of an ideally perfect University in the Isles of Bermuda. Such was the force of his disinterested example and eloquent enthusiasm, that, among others, three Junior Fellows of Trinity College — William Thompson, Jonathan Rogers, and James King — agreed to share his fortunes, if he should succeed in founding it, and were willing to exchange their good prospects at home for a settlement in the Atlantic ocean, at forty pounds a year. Berkeley left Dublin for London in September 1724, thus encouraged, and full of those thoughts. His immediate purpose in London was to gather associates and money, and to obtain a Royal Charter. Whether he was presented to Lord Carteret 19 , the new Viceroy, by Lord Burlington, we have no information. But we soon find him at work in London, among Doctors and Bishops and Peers, organizing means for raising money. One of his first acts after his arrival was to publish the c tract ' to which Swift alludes — A Proposal for the Better Supplying Churches in our Foreign Plantations^ and for Converting the Savage Americans to Christianity^ by a College to be erected in the Summer Islands^ other- wise called the Isles of Bermuda. Here his plan is unfolded and eloquently enforced. Various considerations induced Berkeley to choose the Ber- mudas for the College which was to be the centre and basis 19 Lord Carteret was the patron of another Irish philosopher — Francis Hutcheson ( 1 694 — 1746), afterwards Professor of Moral Phi- losophy in Glasgow, and one of the founders of the Scotch Philosophy of Common Sense. Hutcheson opened an Academy in Dublin about 172 1, and passed there the eight fol- lowing years. His Inquiry into the Original of our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue is dedi- cated to Lord Carteret. iv.] In London — Enthusiasm about America. 105 of his American operations. In his Proposal, he enumerates with the minuteness of a practical man the desirable circum- stances of place, and then finds or imagines them in those en- chanted islands. With the warmth of a poet he pictures their c genial sun ' and c virgin earth/ and an atmosphere c perpetually fanned and kept cool by sea breezes, which render the weather the most healthy and delightful that could be wished, being of one equal tenor almost throughout the whole year, like the latter end of a fine May/ The story of the adventures of Sir George Som- mers, from whom the islands took their name, had invested the seat of the proposed Great Western University with the charm of romance in the minds of his countrymen. The Summer Islands had been a fairy land of poets. Shakespeare makes his Ariel say that she had been called up at midnight c to fetch dew from the still vexed Bermoothes/ Waller found them a place of refuge, and sang the praises of their lemons and oranges, Hesperian gar- dens, pearls and corals — • For the kind spring, which but salutes us here, Inhabits these, and courts them all the year : Ripe fruits and blossoms, on the same trees live; At once they promise, and at once they give. So sweet the air, so moderate the clime, None sickly lives, or dies before his time. Heaven sure has kept this spot of earth uncurst, To show how all things were created first 20 .' Berkeley pictures to himself the inhabitants as simple and frugal, c a contented, plain, innocent sort of people,' free from avarice and luxury, as well as the other corruptions that attend these vices. It was to him a land of blue skies, rich fruits, coral strands, and a virtuous, innocent race. Bermuda he imagined to be well situated as a place of meeting for students, Colonial and native Indian, both from the Continent 20 Waller's Battle of the Summer Islands, a mock heroic description of a contest between the people of Bermudas and two whales on their coast. The muse of the nineteenth century has not forgotten the Summer Islands. Moore thus sings in his Odes to Nea : — 4 Farewell to Bermuda, and long may the bloom Of the lemon and myrtle its vallies perfume ; May Spring to eternity hallow the shade, Where Ariel has warbled and Waller has strayed.' 106 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. and from the Islands of America. The little group is distant 580 miles from Cape Hatteras, the nearest point in North America, and is about equally far away from the Islands in the Caribbean Sea. He pleased himself by reflecting upon this, as contributing to an established harmony of Bermuda with his Mission. Yet a mind less charged with subtle fanciful enthusiasm might have been apt rather to consider the distance, which exposed the c savage children' he would have to teach to the difficulty and danger of a long voyage, in addition to a long journey, as a bar to the success of the seminary. He was at first disposed to trust to voluntary liberality. In the Proposal he says that c if his Majesty would be graciously pleased to grant a Charter for a College to be erected in a proper place, it is to be hoped a fund may be raised, by the contribution of well disposed persons, sufficient for building and endowing the same.' Perhaps it might have been better for the project in the end if he had kept to the notion of contributions and subscriptions. The effects of his fervid enthusiasm upon the disposition even of those little likely to be moved were extraordinary. Warton says 21 that Lord Bathurst told him that c all the members of the Scriblerus Club being met at his house at dinner, they agreed to rally Berkeley, who was also his guest, on his scheme at Ber- mudas. Berkeley, having listened to all the lively things they had to say, begged to be heard in his turn ; and displayed his plan with such an astonishing and animating force of eloquence and enthusiasm, that they were struck dumb, and, after some pause, rose up all together with earnestness, exclaiming — "Let us all set out with him immediately/" Nor was the zeal transient. He persuaded many to help him. More than five thousand pounds was raised — a large sum in those days — which might have been largely in- creased if the author of the Proposal had continued to rely on the good will of private persons. The following list of subscriptions, in Berkeley's own hand- writing, is contained among the Berkeley Papers: — 21 Essay on Pope, vol. II. p. 254, ' . . . A committee of persons for receiving contri- butions and subscriptions was announced, in which appear the names of Arbuthnot, Ben- son, Hutchinson, Sherlock, and others among Berkeley's friends.' iv.] In London — Enthusiasm about America. 107 Subscriptions for Bermuda. Dean of York and his brother £300 Edward Harley, Esq. . . <£ioo Earl of Oxford * 200 Benjamin Hoare, Esq. . . . 100 Dr. Strafford 100 Lady Betty Hastings . . . 500 Sir Matthew Decker . . . . 100 Sir Robert Walpole .... 200 Lady, who desires to be Duke of Chandos .... 200 500 Thomas Stanhope, Esq. . . 100 Lord Bateman 100 T OO — Archer, Esq., of Soho Square 500 Dr. Pelling IOO Dr. Rundle 100 Another clergyman (added, in 100 another hand, Bp. Berkeley) IOO 300 IOO Lord Peterborough . . . 105 Lady, who desires to be 300 unknown IOO 200 Gentleman, who desires to be Archibald Hutchinson . . 200 160 TOO Berkeley's endeavour from the first was to obtain a Charter. He found a way to the ear of George I. It is said that for this he was indebted to a distinguished Venetian, the Abbe Gualteri, whom he met in Italy, and who was afterwards in Court circles in London — one of the scientific foreigners whose conversation the king occasionally found pleasure in. By Lord Egmont and other common friends he was recommended to Sir Robert Wal- pole, then in supreme power. The favourable disposition of the king, and Berkeley's own persuasive eloquence, secured the pro- fessed neutrality of the Prime Minister. As early as June 1725, c a Patent passed the seals for erecting a College in the Island of Bermudas, for propagation of the Gospel among the Indians and other Heathens on the Continent of America, and constituting Dr. Berkeley, Dean of Londonderry, Principal of the said College 22 .' Not satisfied with this, Berkeley contrived other plans. The island of St. Christopher, one of the Caribbee cluster, had for years been in dispute between the English and French, who had both established settlements upon it at the same time, in 1625. This island was at last ceded to Great Britain, by the treaty of Utrecht, in 17 13. Berkeley made a minute search of its value, and formed a plan for the improvement of the lands. He asked 22 Historical Register — ' Chronological Diary' for June, 1 725. 108 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. that part of the enhanced purchase money should be given to the Bermuda College. The king was so well pleased with this arrangement that he directed Sir Robert Walpole to propose it to the House of Commons. Berkeley threw himself into the movement with incredible ardour. He found means to address every member of the House in support of his plan, as one favoured by the king, and not opposed by the Minister. His suc- cess was such that, on the nth of May 1726, with only two dissentient voices, the House of Commons addressed the king in favour of c such a grant for St. Paul's College in Bermudas, out of the lands of St. Christopher's, as might seem to his Majesty sufficient for the purpose 23 .' Sir Robert Walpole accordingly promised ^20,000. Lord Townshend, astonished at the success of Berkeley's canvassing, expostulated with the Minister on his passivity. Walpole seems not to have anticipated the result. He took for granted, he said, that the very preamble of the Bill would have insured its rejection, and explained that only the wonderful persuasive power of the Dean of Derry could have made it otherwise. The Charter authorised the erection of a College in the Ber- mudas, to be called the College of St. Paul, and to be governed by a President and nine Fellows, who were to form the Corpo- ration. Berkeley was named the first President, and his three Dublin associates the first Fellows. They were all allowed to retain their preferments at home for eighteen months after their arrival in the Islands. Other six Fellows were to be appointed by them within three years, and the surviving members of the Corporation were to have power to elect to all future vacancies. The Bishop of London was named as Visitor, and the Secretary of State for the Colonies was appointed Chancellor. The College was declared to be for the instruction of students in literature and theology, with a view to the promotion of Christian civilisation alike in the English and in the Heathen parts of America. Berkeley spent four years in these preparations, from the autumn of 1724 till the autumn of 1728. He then was in England, chiefly 23 Historical Register. iv.] In London — Enthusiasm about America. 109 in London. It was in these years that he occasionally attended the Court of Caroline at Leicester Fields, when she was Princess of Wales, and afterwards at St. James's or at Kensington, not because he loved courts, but because he loved America. Clarke was still officiating in his parish Church in London, and Butler did not till 1725 go into the seclusion of his Durham rectory. Sherlock was Master of the Temple, and Hoadley was Bishop of Salisbury. Caroline liked now and then to hear a theo- logical debate. She had a philosophical interest in theological questions, and a political interest in the Universities and the Church. Years before, when Princess of Wales, she had acted as a royal go-between in the famous controversial correspondence of Clarke and Leibnitz. And now, when Berkeley was staying in London, she was glad to include Clarke and Hoadley, along with Sherlock and himself, in her weekly gatherings, and to hear Hoadley supporting Clarke, and Sherlock supporting Berkeley. It was from a hope of advancing the interests of his College that Berkeley was persuaded to submit to what he thought c the drudgery* of bearing a part in these fruitless debates with Clarke 24 . Some of Berkeley's anxieties and disappointments in the long negotiation which issued in the Charter, the subscriptions, and the promise of an endowment, find vent in his letters to Thomas Prior. We have lost sight of Prior since Berkeley was in Italy in 17 14. He reappears in Dublin in 1724, and he was probably there during most of Berkeley's residence in the three previous years. From December 1724, through all the four years of Bermuda negotia- tions, we have letters from Berkeley in London to Prior at Dublin. These letters form our picture of his life during this curious period. Prior seems to have been a sort oi factotum — a judicious practical friend, who interposed between him and immediate contact with some of the details of ordinary life. Berkeley's letters to him are thus naturally concerned with the vulgar more than with the ideal interests of life. The perplexities consequent upon the Vanhomrigh succession fill a larger space in them than the Bermudas. 24 See Biog. Britt. vol. III. — Addenda and Dr. Samuel Clarke before Queen Caroline, Corrigenda. Berkeley, we are elsewhere told, then Princess of Wales— had a magnificent •was idolized in England before he set off for gold medal presented to him by his late America — was offered a bishopric — used to go majesty [George II] as a keepsake.' — Pre- lo St. James's two days a week to dispute with face to Monch Berkeley, p. cxxxv. no Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. Let us look at Berkeley as he appears in a letter to Prior in December 1724 — the first of this series : — London, December 8, 1724. Dear Tom, You wrote to me something or other, which I received a fortnight ago, about temporal affairs, which I have no leisure to think of at present. The L. Chancellor is not a busier man than myself; and I thank God my pains are not without success, which hitherto hath an- swered beyond expectation. Doubtless the English are a nation ires tclaire'e. I have only time to tell you, that Robin 25 will call on you for thirteen pounds. Let me know whether you have wrote to Mr. Newman whatever you judged might give him a good opinion of our project. Let me also know where Bermuda Jones lives, or where he is to be met with. I am, yours, &c, G. BERKELEY. I lodge at Mr. Fox's, an apothecary in Albemarle Street, near St. James's. Provided you bring my affair with Partinton to a complete issue before Christmas day come twelvemonth, by reference or otherwise, that I may have my dividend, whatever it is, clear, I do hereby promise you to increase the premium I promised you before by its fifth part, whatever it amounts to. The Charter — self-restraining patience amid the delays caused by the King's absence, and by the state of public affairs — and the weary alternations of the Vanhomrigh-Partinton business, which never slacken his Bermuda zeal, succeed one another in the letters of 1725:— April 20, 1725. Dear Tom, Nothing hath occurred since my last worth writing; only Clarke affirms the jewels were part of the father's goods, to be divided as the rest. He saith they were claimed as such from Partinton by the daughters, and that this may appear by the writings. I long to hear that Mr. Marshal and you have agreed on what is due, and taken methods to pay it, &c. Pray give my service to Caldwell ; and let him know that in case he goes abroad with Mr. Stewart, Jaques, who lived with Mr. Ashe 26 , is de- ^ His brother, afterwards Dr. Robert 20 His pupil Ashe, with whom he travelled Berkeley. on the Continent. IV.] Letters from England. in sirous to attend upon him. I think him a very proper servant to travel with a gentleman ; but believing him sufficiently known to Caldwell, I shall forbear recommending him in more words. I have obtained reports from the Bishop of London [Gibson], the Board of Trade and Plantations, and the Attorney and Solicitor General, in favour of the Bermuda scheme, and hope to have the warrant signed by his Majesty this week. Yours, G. BERKELEY. Dear Tom, I have been this morning with Mr. Wogan, who hath undertaken to inform himself about the value of our South Sea stock, and what must be done in order to impower him to receive it. I have nothing more to add to my last letter ; only to desire you to transact with Marshal and Partinton so as may dispose them to terminate all matters by a speedy arbitration, I care not before whom, lawyer or not lawyer. I very much wish that we could get the reversionary lands off our hands. If Par- tinton's own inclination for them should be a stop to the sale, I wish he had them. But the conduct of all these matters I must leave to your own care and prudence : only I long to see them finished for our common interest. I must desire you to give yourself the trouble of sending me by the very next post a bill of forty pounds, payable here at the shortest sight. Pray fail not in this ; and you will oblige, dear Tom, yours sincerely, G. BERKELEY. Yesterday the Charter passed the Privy Seal. This day the new Chancellor 27 began his office by putting the Recepi to it. London, June 3, 1725. London, June 12, 1725. Dear Tom, I wrote to you some time since for forty pounds to be transmitted hither. I roust now beg you to send me another forty pounds. I have had no answer to my last ; so if you have not yet negotiated that bill, make the whole together fourscore pounds ; which sum I shall hope for by the first opportunity. Mr. Wogan hath not yet found out the South Sea stock, but hath employed one in that office to inquire about it. As soon as I am informed myself, I shall let you know. He is also to make inquiry at Doctors' Commons to know what must be done in order 27 Sir Peter King (created Lord King), be- 1733. and died in the following year. He came Lord Chancellor, June 1, 1 725, resigned was the nephew of John Locke. 112 Life and Letters of Berkeley, [ch. to prove the present property in us, and to empower him to receive it. In order thereunto, I have given him a memorial of what I knew. I hope, as soon as he sends these directions, they will be complied with on that side the water. It was always my opinion we should have such an agent here. I am sure, had he been appointed a year agone, our affairs would have been the better for it. The Charter hath passed all the seals, and is now in my custody. It hath cost me 130 pounds dry fees, besides expedition-money to men in office. Mr. Percival writes that he hath given you the bonds. I must intreat you, dear Tom, to get the residue of last year's rent, with an account stated from Alderman M'Manus. I am yours sincerely, G. BERKELEY. London, July 20, 1725. Dear Tom, I have been of late in much embarrass of business, which, with Mr. Wogan's being often out of town, hath occasioned your not hearing from me for some time. I must now tell you that our South Sea stock, &c, is confirmed to be what I already informed you, viz. 880 pounds, somewhat more or less. You are forthwith to get probates of Alderman Pearson's will, Partinton's will, and Mrs. Esther Van Homrigh's will, in which names the Exchequer annuities were subscribed, transmitted hither, together with two letters of attorney, one for receiving the stock, the other for the annuities. You will hear from Mr. Wogan by this post, who will send you more particular directions, together with a copy of such letters of attorney as will be necessary. In case Pearson refuses to sign the letter, let him send over a renunciation of any right therein, which will do as well. It may suffice, without going through all the steps, to tell you that I have clearly seen it made out how the Exchequer annuities, subscribed in the name of the three forementioned persons, came (through various mutations incident to stock) to be worth this money, and likewise to have begot other annuities ; which annuities, stock, and dividends unreceived make up the sum. But before you get Partinton and Marshal to sign the letters of attorney, or make the probates, nay, before you tell them of the value of the subscribed annuity, you should by all means, in my opinion, insist, carry and secure, two points ; first, that Partinton should consent to a partition of this stock, &c. (which I believe he cannot deny) : secondly, that Marshal should engage not to touch one penny of it till all debts on this side the water are satisfied. iv.] Letters from England. I even desire you would take advice, and legally secure it in such sort that he may not touch it if he would till the said debts are paid. It would be the wrongest thing in the world, and give me the greatest pain possible, to think we did not administer in the justest sense. Whatever therefore appears to be due, let it be instantly paid ; here is money sufficient to do it. And here I must tell that Mrs. Hill hath been with me, who says the debt was the mother's originally, but that Mrs. Esther made it her own, by giving a note for the same under her hand, which note is now in Dublin. Mr. Clarke hath likewise shewn me a letter of Mrs. Esther's (writ by him, but signed by her), acknowledging the debt for her mother's burial. And indeed it seems she must have neces- sarily given order for that, and so contract the debt, since the party deceased could not be supposed to have ordered her own burial. These things being so, I would see Marshal brought to consent to the payment of them, or good reason assigned why they should not be paid. Mrs. Philips alias Barret (a very poor woman) is in great want of her dues. She saith Clarke and Baron can attest them, besides that they appear in Mrs. Esther's accompt-book. I must therefore intreat you, once for all, to clear up and agree with Marshal what is due, and then make an end, by paying that which it is a shame was not paid sooner. Query, Why the annuities should not have been subscribed in Prat's name, if B. V. Homrigh had a share in them ? For God's sake, adjust, finish, con- clude any way with Partinton ; for at the rate we have gone on these two years, we may go on twenty. In your next, let me know what you have proposed to him and Marshal, and how they relish it. I hoped to have been in Dublin by this time ; but business grows out of business. I have wrote lately to Alderman M'Manus to clear accounts with you. I am, dear Tom, yours sincerely, G. BERKELEY. Bermuda prospers. London, September 3, 1725. Dear Tom, I suppose you have long since received the draughts of the letters of attorney, &c, from Mr. Wogan, with his letter and mine. I must now add to what I there said, that it will be necessary for me to administer here in order to obtain the money out of the South Sea. This is what Mr. Wogan tells me, and this is a step that I cannot think of taking till such time as the debts on this side the water are agreed on by Mr. Mar- shal and you; for, having once taken out an administration on this side VOL. IV. 1 U4 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch, the water, I may be liable to be put to trouble here by the creditors more than I am at present. To be short, I expect the business of the debts will be ascertained before I take any steps on my part about the stock or annuities. I must further tell you, that in case Mr. Marshal does not send orders to pay all the debts really due, with particular mention of the same, I must e'en put them all (pretenders as well as just creditors) upon attaching or securing the whole effects here, in South Sea, &c, to their own use, wherein I shall think myself obliged to be aiding to the best of my power. Clarke hath brought me from time to time the pretensions of divers creditors, all which I directed him to send to you ; and he saith he hath sent them to you. I think Mr. Wogan should be constituted attorney for paying the debts here, as well as for getting the stock. If my brother Robin calls upon you for ten pounds, you will let him have it. I am, dear Tom, yours, G. BERKELEY. I wrote long since to Caldwell about his going to Bermudas, but had no answer, which makes me think my letter miscarried. I must now desire you to give my service to him, and know whether he still retains the thoughts he once seemed to have of entering into that design. I know he hath since got an employment, &c. ; but I have good reason to think he would not suffer in his temporalities by taking one of our fellowships, although he resigned all that. In plain English, I have good assurance that our College will be endowed beyond any thing expected or desired hitherto. This makes me confident he would lose nothing by the change ; and on this condition only I propose it to him. I wish he may judge rightly in this matter, as well for his own sake as for the sake of the College, Dear Tom, It is an age since I have heard from you. You have long since received instructions from Mr. Wogan and from me what is to be done. If these are not already complied with, I beg you will lose no more time, but take proper methods, out of hand, for selling the South Sea stock and annuities. I have very good reason to apprehend that they will sink in their value, and desire you to let V. Homrigh, Partinton, and Mr. Marshal, know as much. The less there is to be expected from them, the more I must hope from you. I know not how to move them at this distance but by you; and if what I have already said will not do, I profess myself to be at a loss for words to move you. I shall therefore IV.] Letters from England. "5 only mention three points (often mentioned heretofore) which I earnestly wish to see something done in. is/, The debts on this side the water stated, if not with concurrence of Mr. Marshal, without him ; for sure this may be done without him, by the papers you have already seen, where Clarke saith they all appear. 2d, A commission of attorney sent to Wogan (who I am assured is an honest and capable man) to transact all affairs here. 3d, Matters somehow or other concluded with Partinton. You have told me he was willing to refer them to an arbitration, but not of lawyers, and that Marshal would refer them only to lawyers. For my part, rather than fail, I am for referring them to any honest knowing person or persons, whether lawyer or not lawyer ; and if Marshal will not come into this, I desire you will do all you can to oblige him, either by persuasion or otherwise : particularly represent to him my resolution of going (with God's blessing) in April next to Bermuda, which will prob- ably make it his interest to compromise matters out of hand; but if he will not, agree if possible with Partinton to force him to compliance in putting an end to our disputes. Partinton Van Homrigh, I remember, expressed a desire to purchase the reversionary lands. I beg he may be allowed to do it, or any other means be used to bring him to consent to the sale of them. I have been these five weeks in a ramble through England 28 . I came hither two or three days since, and propose leaving this place in a day or two, and being in London by the time answer may come from you ; but not being sure where I shall lodge, must desire you to direct to be left with Mr. Bindon, at the Golden-glove in Jermyn's Street, near Piccadilly. And now I must desire you to pay to my brother Robin seventeen pounds, for which his receipt will be sufficient. I am, dear Tom, yours sincerely, GEOR. BERKELEY. Flax ley, Oct. 15, 1725. December 2, 1725. Dear Tom, I am just returned from a long ramble through the country to London, where I am settled in my old lodging at Mr. Fox's, and where I have met with two letters from you, after a very long and profound silence, which made me apprehensive of your welfare. I presume you have by this time a commission for the administration 23 This is the first hint of ■ rambles through dated, is a country parish in Gloucestershire, England.' Flaxley, from which this letter is in the vale of the Severn. 1 2 n6 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. of Mr. Marshal, which was to have gone last post to you from Mrs. Wogan and Aspinwall. I do think it necessary that Mr. Marshal should act, both as he hath acted hitherto and hath right to act, and as my attention to other affairs makes it more inconvenient for me. You will therefore take care that Mr. Marshal perform his part without delay. There is another point to be managed, without which no step can be taken towards transferring the stock, and that is, a full renunciation (since he will not act) from Mr. Pearson, provided he be sole heir to his father : if not, the other heirs must concur therein. Was there any authentic paper or declaration by which it legally appeared that old Mr. Pearson was only a trustee concerned in the stock ? This alone would do ; but I knew of none such. I beg you to dispatch this affair of the stock, and the other points relating thereto, which I formerly recommended to you, and which I hope you have not forgot. I long to hear what you and Mr. Marshal have resolved about the creditors : it is a shame something is not done. The woman of St. James's coffee- house claims a debt upon the family, for coffee, tea, &c. I promised to acquaint you with it : the particular sum I do not know, but suppose you are not unacquainted with any of the debts. If this be a debt that we ought to pay, I desire it to be immediately taken care of. I must repeat to you, that I earnestly wish to see things brought to some con- clusion with Partinton, both with respect to the suit and the sale of the reversion. Dear Tom, it requires some address, diligence, and manage- ment, to bring business of this kind to an issue, which should not seem impossible, considering it can be none of our interests to spend our lives and substance in law. I am willing to refer things to an arbitration, even vote, of lawyers. Pray push this point, and let me hear from you upon it. I am your affectionate humble servant, G. BERKELEY. Dear Tom, I have not time to repeat what I have said in my former letters. I shall now only say one thing, which I beg you to see dispatched by all means, otherwise we may be great losers. There must have been heirs to Alderman Pearson (whether his son alone, or his son with others) ; but there must of necessity be heirs ; and those heirs must have adminis- tered, otherwise they could not be entitled to his effects. Now, what you are to do, is to get a full renunciation (or declaration that they and the Alderman had no concern otherwise than as trustees in the South Sea stock and annuities) from the said heir or heirs, with a proper proof that iv.] Letters from England. 117 they are such heir or heirs to Alderman Pears<5n. It is now near three months since I told you there were strong reasons for haste ; and these reasons grow every moment stronger. I need say no more — I can say no more to you. I am, dear Tom, yours, G. B. London, Dec. n, 1725. Dear Tom, I received your letters, and have desired Mrs. Wogan and Aspinwall (for they act in concert in all things) to look into the act of parliament you mention, though I doubt it cannot be to any great purpose ; for though, by the act, it should appear that Pearson was a trustee, yet as that was passed long before the South Sea subscriptions, it will not, I fear, thereby appear that the said subscriptions were part of his trust. You have informed us there will be no difficulty in obtaining Mr. Pearson's re- nunciation. If the time be expired since the old gentleman's (his father's) death that by law is limited for taking out letters of administration, then I am told such single renunciation may be sufficient, without troubling the sisters. This you will inform yourself in there. Since Mr. Marshal is averse to it, he need not act at all ; only send back the will and probate hither for me to administer by. I know not what trouble this may expose me to, but I see it is a thing must be done in justice one time or another. One thing, nevertheless, I must repeat and insist on; that is, that you must order matters so with Mr. Partinton Van Homrigh that Mr. Marshal's share and mine of the South Sea, &c, may be applied to the payment of English debts (as you formerly have assured me it should). If it were not in this view, I might incur great difficulties by administering here, and this money's lying by undivided, as the Duchess of Tyrconnel's reversion would quite disappoint this view. I have not yet been able to find Mr. Levinge at his lodgings in the Temple. I must desire you to pay the sum of fifty pounds to my brother Robin, who will call on you for it. I must also desire you to send me an account of what money is in Mr. Synge's hands and yours belonging to me, as likewise of the draughts that I have made for money upon either of you. You'll be so good as to call on Mr. Stanton, and pay his bill when in Dublin. I called several times, but could not find him, to know what it came to. You will also inform yourself whether Coll. Maccasland demands any thing for the running of my horse, and pay it ; as likewise whatever is due for the other horse belonging to me ; and I make you a present of them both. . 1 1 8 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ctf. I am exceedingly plagued by these creditors, and am quite tired and ashamed of repeating the same answer to them, that I expect every post to hear what Mr. Marshal and you think of their pretensions, and that then they shall be paid. It is now a full twelvemonth that I have been expecting to hear from you on this head, and expecting in vain. I shall therefore expect no longer, nor hope nor desire to know what Mr. Mar- shal thinks, but only what you think, or what appears to you by Mrs. V. Homrigh's papers and accounts, as stated by Clarke, and compared with the claims of creditors long since transmitted from hence. This is what solely depends on you, what I sued for several months ago, and what you promised to send me an account of long before this time. I have likewise sent you several hints and proposals, tending, as I thought, to shorten our affair with Partinton, which, at the rate it hath hitherto gone on, is never likely to have an end ; but to these points I have never re- ceived any answer at all from you. I hope you have not overlooked or forgot them. Had I more time I would repeat them to you ; but I have only time to add at present, that T am, dear Tom, your affectionate humble servant, GEOR. BERKELEY. London, Dec. 30, 1725. Passages in those letters to Prior show that Berkeley must have occasionally rambled in the rural parts of England at this period in his life. We have hardly any clue to the places which he visited. His visits to Lord Pembroke at Wilton are com- memorated. The charms of his conversation were so attractive there that it is said he had to leave the place by stratagem. Besides the letters to Prior, we have other occasional glimpses of Berkeley's life in London, in 1725 and 1726. Thus, a letter from Bolingbroke to Swift, dated London, July 24, 1725, con- tains the following: — c Ford brought the Dean of Derry to see me. Unfortunately for me, I was then out of town; and the journey of the former into Ireland will perhaps defer for some time my making acquaintance with the other, which I am sorry for. I would not by any means lose the opportunity of knowing a man who can in good earnest espouse the system of Father Malebranche, and who is fond of going a missionary to the West Indies. My zeal for the propagation of the Gospel will hardly carry me so far ; but my spleen against Europe has more than once made me think of buying the dominion of Bermudas, IV.] Loiters from England. 119 and spending the remainder of my days as far as possible from those people with whom I have passed the first and greatest part of my life. Health and every other comfort of life is to be had better there than here. As to the imaginary and artificial pleasures, we are philosophers enough to despise them. What say you? Will you leave your Hibernian flock to some other shepherd, and transport yourself with me into the middle of the Atlantic Ocean? We will form a Society more reasonable and more useful than Dr. Berkeley's College; and I promise you solemnly, as supreme magistrate, not to suffer the currency of Wood's halfpenny; the coiner of them shall be hanged if he presumes to set foot in the island 29 / On July 26, 1725, Harley, Earl of Oxford, writes to Swift from Dover Street : — c I inquire of you sometimes of Dean Berkeley : I was sorry to hear you were troubled with that melancholy distemper, the want of hearing.' On October 15, T725, Pope writes: c Dean Berkeley is well, and happy in the prosecution of his scheme -V In the spring of 1726, Swift revisited England, and was once more among his old friends, Bolingbroke, Bathurst, and Pembroke, Pope, Arbuthnot, and Gay. He lived much with Pope, at his beautiful villa, and the Irish patriot became more closely united in friendship than ever to the bard of Twicken- ham. The illness of Stella hurried him back to Ireland in July, but after her partial recovery he returned to London, for the last time, in March 1727. Swift was a frequent visitor at Leicester House, and was often with Sir Robert Walpole. Gulliver's Travels^ too, were about this time amusing and delighting all classes, and he was in consequence the talk of the town. His old friend the Dean of Derry and he sometimes met, we may imagine, in the spring of 1726, and in the spring of 1727. The following letters to Thomas Prior contain the only remain- ing record by Berkeley himself of his doings in 1726". In them there is still the tiresome, but illustrative, Vanhomrigh executor- ship affair, through all the embarrassments of which he steadfastly pursues the Bermuda negotiations, of which these letters give the history. There were besides, some transactions about the disposal 29 Swift's Correspondence. ' Wood's halfpenny' occasioned the famous Drapiers Letters, published in 1 7 24. 120 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. of the Deaneiy-house at Deny, and arrangements for church service and other matters there, during his absence. It seems from one of the letters that he hoped Prior might have gone with him to Bermuda. London, Jan. 20, 1725-6. Dear Tom, I am wearied to death by creditors: I see nothing done, neither towards clearing their accounts, nor settling the effects here, nor finishing affairs with Partinlon. I am at an end of my patience, and almost of my wits. My conclusion is, not to wait a moment longer for Marshal, nor to have (if possible) any further regard to him, but to settle all things without him, and whether he will or no. How far this is practicable, you will know by consulting an able lawyer. I have some confused notion that one executor may act by himself ; but how far, and in what case, you will thoroughly be informed. It is an infinite shame that the debts here are not cleared up and paid. I have borne the shock and importunity of creditors above a twelvemonth, and am never the nearer ; have nothing now to say to them : judge you what I feel. But I have already said all that can be said on this head. It is also no small dis- appointment to find, that we have been near three years doing nothing with respect to bringing things to a conclusion with Partinton. Is there no way of making a separate agreement with him ? Is there no way of prevailing with him to consent to the sale of the reversion? Let me entreat you to proceed with a little management and dispatch in these matters ; and inform yourself particularly, whether I may not come to a reference or arbitration with Partinton, even though Marshal should be against it ? — Whether I may not take steps that may compel Marshal to an agreement ? — What is the practised method when one of two executors is negligent or unreasonable ? In a word, Whether an end may not be put to these matters one way or other ? I do not doubt your skill ; I only wish you were as active to serve an old friend as I should be in any affair of yours that lay in my power. All the papers relating to Mrs. V. Homrigh's affairs were in the closet; and this I understand you have broke open, as likewise my bed-chamber (which last, having none of these papers in it, but only things of another nature, I had given no directions for breaking it open) ; but I do not find the effect I proposed from it, viz. a clear account of the debts transmitted hither, though, by what Clarke tells me, it would not take up an hour to do it. Mrs. Hill is very noisy : I mention her as the last that was with me. Pray let me know your thoughts of her, and all the rest of them together. Clarke IV.] Letters from England. 121 demands to be considered for service done, and for postage of letters. You know wherein, and how much, you have employed him (for I have not employed him), and will concert with Marshal and Partinton what he should have. Qu. Had not Mrs. Hill commenced a suit, and how that matter stands? But again, I desire to hear from you a distinct answer to the claim of every creditor sent over by Clarke. As to the money in the South Sea, I have already told you, that the thing to be done, is the obtaining the renunciation from Pearson, which may do in case the old gentleman be dead a year and a day (which you may inform yourself, whether it be the time after which no other body can set up for heir). I hope to have this by the next post. I must also repeat to you, that I very much desire to have my last letter answered, particularly as to the money matters ; which, depending only on Synge and you, I natter myself you will not defer. I am, dear Tom, your affectionate humble servant, GEOR. BERKELEY. By the next post I shall hope for an account of my own money, though it should require a day or two more before you can write satis- factory on the other points. My last letters I directed to the Free Mason Coffee-house, and inclosed as you ordered ; but not hearing, am in doubt whether you received them. Dear Tom, I received yours of the 13th, a little after I had wrote my last, directed to the Custom-house Coffee-house. You say the letter of attorney for sub- scribing the annuities into the South-Sea stock, show these annuities to have been old Van Homrigh's. This would make all easy. 1 beg there- fore that you would transmit that letter hither, or let us know how we may come at it. As to my administering to Pearson, I do not under- stand the consequences of it ; therefore hope it will not be necessary. You say that if you cannot prevail on Marshal to come in to an allow- ance of the just debts, you will send me your opinion of them, that I may govern myself accordingly. As to me, I know not how to act or govern myself: I depend upon your compelling Marshal by legal methods, and that you will take advice thereupon, and act accordingly. That was the advantage that I proposed by your undertaking to act for me, and as my attorney in the management of those affairs, viz. that you would see that justice was done to the creditors and to me by Mr. Marshal, to whom I was as much a stranger as to the business. I have said this and many other things to you in my last, which I suppose you have received 122 Life and Letters of Berkeley. ere now; and as I am very earnest and instant, I doubt not you will soon let me see that you exert yourself, and answer all my desires specified in that and the foregoing letters. Dear Tom, I am at present exceedingly embarrassed with much business of a very different kind. I shall nevertheless administer as soon as I see that nothing else is wanting in order to sell the stock, and pay the debts herewith : for every other step I shall depend on you. I need not tell you what I formerly hinted to you. You see I was too true a prophet, and that we have already lost considerably by this delay. I must desire you to pay forty pounds to my brother, Cornet William Berkeley 30 , quartered in Sligo, or to his order in Dublin, for which you will take a receipt, and place it to my account. You will, I presume, soon hear from him. In your next, pray let me know your opinion about the way of trans- mitting about five hundred pounds hither, whether by bill or by draught, from hence, or if there be any other way more advantageous. I must once more entreat you, for the sake of old friendship, to pluck up a vigorous active spirit, and disincumber me of the affairs relating to the inheritance, by putting, one way or other, a final issue to them. I thank God I find, in matters of a more difficult nature, good effects of activity and resolution ; I mean Bermuda, with which my hands are full, and which is in a fair way to thrive and flourish in spite of all oppo- sition. I shall hope to hear from you speedily; and am, dear Tom, yours affectionately, GEOR. BERKELEY. London, Jan. 27, 1725-6. Dear Tom, Mrs. Wogan and Aspinwall have not yet been able to see the act of parliament, which I am pretty sure could be of little or no use if they had seen it ; for as it passed several years before the South-Sea business, it would never prove that Pearson acted as trustee in the subscriptions. But if there be any paper (as you seem to intimate in your last), that sets forth his trust in that particular, you need only procure the sight thereof, and the business is done ; otherwise, for ought I can see, it is necessary that Mr. Alderman Pearson's heir or heirs renounce, and that I administer as to his effects in this province ; otherwise nothing can be done, as I suppose you see by the paper of instructions sent you from Doctors' Commons. Now that I may see my way in this matter, I must desire -° This is the only allusion to his brother William. Cf. p. 9. IV.] Letters from England. 123 you to inform me particularly what the nature of administering is, what it obliges one to, and to what it may expose a man. I have not yet taken out letters of administration to Mrs. V. Homrigh here, nor shall I, until I see that it can be of use; that is, until I see that every other step is accom- plished towards the immediate selling the stock, and applying it as it should be applied. What I wrote in my former concerning the year and a day for administering, &c, has, I find, nothing in it, as I am now told by Mr. Aspinwall, from whom I had it, and who, it seems, was mistaken. I think I ought to tell you these things, that you may see where the stop is, and that you may act accordingly. The affair of the creditors I must recommend to you of course ; though I have nothing new to say, but only that I earnestly refer you to what I have already written upon that and other matters ; which, after all that hath been said, I need not repeat. I hope, dear Tom, that you will exert yourself once for all, and give a masterly finishing stroke to the whole business of the executorship. If it be not such a stroke as one could wish at law, yet a finishing one of any sort, by arbitration of lawyers, or not lawyers, before I leave this part of the world, would be very agreeable. My brother 31 hath informed me that Dr. Ward tells him Colonel M'Casland is not inclined to add to the trouble of his other business that of taking any further care of my tithes, &c. I must desire, if you can find out the truth of this, to let me know it ; for it will be time for me to look out for other farmers. I had once thought of employing a brother 32 of my own, but have now no thought of that kind. I must desire you to send me fifty pounds by the next post. I am in a fair way of having a very noble endowment for the College of Bermuda, though the late meeting of parliament, and the preparations of a fleet, &c, will delay the finishing things, which depend in some measure on the parliament, and to which I have gained the consent of the government, and indeed of which I make no doubt ; but only the delay, it is to be feared, will make it impossible for me to set out this Spring. One good effect of this evil delay, I hope, may be, that you will have disembarrassed yourself of all sort of business that may detain you here, and so be ready to go with us. In which case, I may have some- what to propose to you that I believe is of a kind agreeable to your inclinations, and may be of considerable advantage to you. But you must say nothing of this to any one, nor of any one thing that I have now hinted concerning endowment, delay, going, &c. I have heard 31 Probably Robert. Peter Ward, D.D., 32 Not Robert, I think, but one of the was Subdean and one of the Prebendaries of other brothers. Derry (1721-40). 124 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. lately from Caldwell, who wrote to me in an affair in which it will not be in my power to do him any service. I answered his letter, and men- tioned somewhat about Bermuda, with an overture for his being Fellow there. I desire you would discourse with him as from yourself on that subject, and let me know what your thoughts are of his disposition towards engaging in that design. I am, dear Tom, your affectionate friend and humble servant, GEOR. BERKELEY. London, Feb. 6, 1725-6. Dear Tom, I have wrote to you on several points to which I have had no answer. The bill indeed of fifty pounds I have received ; but the answer to other points you postponed for a few posts. It is not yet come to hand, and I long to see it. I shall nevertheless not repeat now what I have so often insisted on, but refer you to my former letters, which I hope are not forgotten, and that I shall be convinced they are not in a post or two. In your last you mention your design of coming to London this summer. I must entreat you to let me know by the first opportunity whether you persist in that design, and in what month you propose to execute it, and as nearly as possible the very time. Pray fail not in this ; I have particular reasons for desiring it. There is one point that will not admit of any delay ; I mean the set- ting my Deanery to farm. I told you that Dr. Ward had informed my brother that Col. M'Casland (who hath his hands full of other business) cared not to be any farther concerned in it. I must desire you, without loss of time, to inform yourself whether this be so, and to let me know what instrument I must send to you to empower you to set it. This by all means I would be informed of the next post, that it may be set either to the same persons who held it last, or else to Mr. Bolton, or some other person of sufficient credit and substance and good reputation. I do not doubt your setting it to the best advantage; only there is one thing which I desire you to insist on, viz. that instead of the first of April and the first of June, the days of payment for the current year, be the first of December and the first of February, that so I may have the money against my voyage to Bermuda, which possibly may not be till this time twelvemonth. Whatever trouble you are at in this affair, I shall acknow- ledge in the proper manner, and shew myself thankful for it. I thought I should be able to have gone to Ireland, and transacted this affair myself. iv.] Letters from England. i 25 I had even once thought I should be able to have set out for Bermuda this season ; but his Majesty's long stay abroad, the late meeting of par- liament, and the present posture of foreign affairs, taking up the thoughts both of ministers and parliament, have postponed the settling of certain lands in St. Christopher's on our College, so as to render the said thoughts abortive. I have now my hands full of that business, and hope to see it soon settled to my wish. In the mean time, my attendance on this business renders it impossible for me to mind my private affairs. Your assistance, therefore, in them, will not only be a kind service to me, but also to the public weal of our College ; which would very much suffer if I were obliged to leave this kingdom before I saw an endowment settled on it. For this reason I must depend upon you. So hoping to hear from you upon this article by the first post, I conclude, dear Tom, yours affectionately, GEOR. BERKELEY. London, March 15, 1725-6. I need not tell you the time for setting my Deanery to farm is now so nigh that it is necessary something be done out of hand. Dear Tom, Last Saturday I sent you the instrument impowering you to set my Deanery. It is at present my opinion that matter had better be deferred till the Charter of St. Paul's College hath got through the House of Commons, who are now considering it. In ten days at farthest I hope to let you know the event hereof ; which, as it possibly may affect some circumstance in the farming my said Deanery, is the occasion of giving you this trouble for the present, when I am in the greatest hurry of business I ever knew in my life ; and have only time to add that I am yours, G. B. April 19, 1726. Dear Tom, After six weeks' struggle against an earnest opposition from different interests and motives, I have yesterday carried my point just as I desired in the House of Commons, by an extraordinary majority, none having the confidence to speak against it, and not above two giving their nega- tive; which was done in so low a voice as if they themselves were ashamed of it. They were both considerable men in stocks, in trade, 126 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. and in the city : and in truth I have had more opposition from that sort of men, and from the governors and traders to America, than from any others. But, God be praised, there is an end of all their narrow and mercantile views and endeavours, as well as of the jealousies and sus- picions of others (some whereof were very great men), who apprehended this College may produce an independency in America, or at least lessen its dependency upon England. Now I must tell you, that you have nothing to do but go on with farming my Deanery, &c, according to the tenor of my former letter, which I suspended by a subsequent one till I should see the event of yesterday. By this time you have received the letters of attorney for Partinton's signing, in which I presume there will be no delay. Dear Tom, yours, &c. G. BERKELEY. London, May 12, 1726. What more easy than to cast an eye on the draught of the two sisters' debts as stated by Clarke ? What more unaccountable than that this is not yet done ? London, June 9, 1726. Dear Tom, I am surprised to find there are any debts left unpaid in Ireland, having thought that debt of Henry's which you mention long since dis- charged. I am sure I concluded that, with what money was left with you, and what I laid out here (in discharge of debts whereof I acquainted you), my share of the remaining Irish debts would have been reduced to nothing. You formerly told me Marshal did not keep pace with me. I hoped you would not think of paying anything more until he had brought himself up to equality with me. I am also very much surprised at your proposing to me to pay money for Marshal there, which you say I may reimburse myself here, when I already told you that I would never have been at the pains to administer here, if the effects on this side the water were not allotted to pay English debts (which you made me believe, in a former letter, should be done). And I have reason to think that, after the payment of such English debts, nothing will be left of these effects wherewith to reimburse myself any payment you shall make for Marshal out of my money there. To your question, therefore, whether you shall make such payment ? I do answer in the negative. I am at a loss to explain what you mean by promising to try to state the English debts from the materials you have before you. IV.] Letters from England. 127 I ask two distinct questions : 1st, Is there not among Mrs. V. Homrigh's papers a catalogue of her debts clearly stated, as I am told by Mr. Clarke ? 2ndly, Why have I not a copy of such catalogue transmitted to me? Had I foreseen the difficulties I am reduced to for want of it, I would have cast my eye on the papers myself, and have known what the debts were before I left Ireland; but I left that matter wholly to you. You still do not stick to tell me that Marshal will do nothing; nay (which is worse), that he will not allow any English debts at all, without telling me one of his reasons. You (for example) averred to me in Ireland, that Mrs. Perkins's appeared a just demand from Mrs. V. Hom- righ's own papers; and I have seen here a note of Mrs. Esther V. Homrigh, the younger, to Mr. Tooke, for fifty pounds, together with interest of five per cent. Now I would fain know why are not these debts to be paid and acknowledged as well as those in Ireland ? More- over, I would fain know why book debts should not be paid here as well as in Ireland ? In a word, why in any case a difference should be made between English and Irish debts ? I grant we should distinguish between the mother's and the daughter's debts; and it was to make this dis- tinction that I so often (to no purpose) dunn'd you for a catalogue of the daughter's debts, drawn up by her order, in Clarke's hand. But I find it is to no purpose to write ; I long to talk to you by word of mouth, either there or here. Pray let me know next post when you design coming for England, for I would go over to Derbyshire to meet you, in case you do not come to London. On the other hand, I am very loath to be dragged to Ire- land before the grant to our College is settled and perfected. I write in great hurry ; but before I conclude must tell you, that the Dean of Raphoe 33 hath informed me of his desire to live in Derry : now I had rather he should live in my house for nothing than a stranger for a paltry rent. It is therefore my desire, that a stop may be put to any disposition thereof till such time as the Dean can hear whether a house be (pursuant to his order) already taken for him in Derry. Dear Tom, write me something satisfactory about the debts by next post, or send me a flat denial, that I may no longer expect it. Last autumn you promised me a full state of my whole accounts, what hath been received and what disbursed : having not received it, I must now put you in mind again of it. In my last I desired that my money for the last year of the Deanery be put in the hands of Swift and Company. I am, yours, G. BERKELEY. 13 William Cotterell (presented in 1725), afterwards Bishop of Ferns. 128 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. London, June 14, 1726. Dear Tom, I received Mrs. M'Manus's account, in which there are certain articles that I cannot approve of. First, The ferry 34 Mr. M'Manus himself told me I should not pay; that charge having been for the late Dean's house- hold, and the curates' passage when they were to preach his turns. But as I have no household there, and as I have otherwise provided for having my turns preached, there is no colour or occasion for my paying it; and I am the more surprised at his charging it, because it was against his own positive opinion as well as my orders. Secondly, I do not see why the repairing of the church windows should be charged to me. Thirdly, I should have been acquainted with the paving of the street, or any such matters, before he had laid out money on them. Fourthly, I know not what those charges are which Mr. Maccasland is said to be at for schoolmasters. I write not this as if I valued either repairing the church windows or allowing somewhat to schoolmasters, provided those things had been represented to me for my consent ; but to be taxed without my knowledge is what I do not understand. It is my duty not to suffer the Dean to be taxed at will, nor to connive at the introducing new precedents to the wrong of my successors. To be plain, Mr. M'Manus being desired by me to make a list of such constant charges as the Dean should be at, I subscribed and warranted him to pay the same. Since that time, by letter to him, I made some addition to the charity children; but what is not warranted by that list, or by some subsequent order or warrant of mine, should not be allowed by me. However, for what is in the account you have sent me, I refer myself to you ; only must beg you to signify to them that I shall never allow any- thing for the time to come but what I am apprised of, and consent to beforehand. So that no vouchers will do (without an order under my own hand) for expenses not included in the list made by Mr. M'Manus, and approved by me at Derry. This I believe you will think a reason- able precaution, in order to prevent myself or successors being im- posed on. I am of opinion that you should immediately write to Messrs. Wogan and Aspinwall, directing and impowering them to sell whenever, from the circumstance of affairs, we shall think it proper so to do. Sudden occasions happen which will not allow waiting for orders from Ireland. We have already been great losers by that, which I very well foreknew : " For the 'ferry,' cf. p. 101. IV.] Letters from England. r 29 here, though you knew nothing of it there ; though by this time you are convinced the information I sent you last autumn was true. In short, intelligence may be had here, but it can never there, time enough to be of use. Yours affectionately, G. B. Dear Tom, Youks of the 2nd and the 9th of July are come to my hands. What you say in your last of the receipts in full, and the caution to be used thereupon, had occurred to my own thoughts, and I acted accordingly. With respect to Mrs. Philips and Mrs. Wilton, I found the former a palpable cheat ; but the latter still stands out, that she never received, at any time, any of Mrs. Mary's money. I must therefore desire you to look a second time on the receipt you mention from her to Mrs. Mary ; for you might possibly have been mistaken. I thought, when in Ireland, that you owned Mrs. Parkins' s to be a true debt. Pray give me your thoughts particularly upon it. The same I desire on the charges for the mother's funeral, which, if in right they are to be paid by us, I cannot understand what you mean by the creditor's abating one half of his demand. I am glad to find that you will take advice upon the dubious debts. Pray do it soon : and when that is done, I shall hope for one list from you, containing your own judgment upon the whole, of what debts are to be discharged by the money here. The exact sum of the annuities received by Messrs. Wogan and Aspinwall I do not remember, but it is about £190. The next time I write you may know exactly. I have considered aboutt he house 35 , and am come to this resolution : If Dr. Ward be in Dublin, pray give my service to him, and tell him my house is at his service, upon condition only that he keep it in repair, and rid me of all charges about it, as hearth-money or the like. I had some time since a letter from him, desiring the use of it on these terms ; but the offer I had made the Dean of Raphoe disabled me for that time from giving him the answer I now desire you to do, because I know not where to write to him myself,* he having been about to leave Chester for Ireland when I received his letter. But at present I think myself at liberty, it being about six weeks since the Dean was with me, since which time I have not heard from him, though I then desired he would let me have his answer forthwith. As to setting it, I am less inclined that way, because Dr. Ward, being Subdean, is at some trouble on my account, 36 The Deanery-house at Derry. Cf. notes 31, 33. VOL. IV. K 130 Life and Letters of Berkeley, [ch. and I would willingly oblige him. You may therefore drop it to him, that I prefer his having it rent-free to a rent of twenty pounds, which you think I may get from another. As to the account you have sent me of receipts and disbursements, I must observe to you, with respect to one particular, that when I made you a proposal of being concerned in the affairs accruing to me by the death of Mrs. V. Homrigh, the terms which I proposed, and you agreed to, were these, viz. that if you would undertake the trouble of settling that whole matter, when it was settled I should allow you twelve pence in the pound out of the profits arising therefrom. I never designed, therefore, nor promised to allow any thing, till the whole was settled ; nor was it reasonable, or indeed possible, that I should : Not reasonable, because the main reason for which I made such proposal of is. per pound, was the difficulty of disembrangling our affairs with Partinton ; which difficulty seems hardly to have been touched hitherto, at least I do not find that any thing to the purpose hath been done since I left Ireland: — Not possible, because, till the debts are paid, and affairs settled with Partinton, I cannot know what doth, or what doth not, come to my share. It was my desire to have things concluded as soon as possible ; and in order to this, I expected more would be done by you than by another. I chose therefore putting my affairs into your hands rather than into Mr. Dexter' s or Mr. Donne's ; one of whom, if you had declined it, I was resolved on. I was also willing, for that end, to allow more than is commonly allowed to solicitors or agents. For these reasons, and especially because I shall have, on many accounts, pressing occasion for what money I can raise against my departure (which I propose to be next Spring), I must desire you to desist for the present from paying yourself, and to pay the whole of my money into the hands of Swift and Company, by them to be transmitted to me in England upon demand ; and I shall leave a note behind me with you, which shall intitle you in the fullest and clearest manner to the said twelve pence in the pound. I must desire you to let me know whether you have obliged the farmers of my deanery to make all future payments to my order in Dublin, as I directed. I should be glad to see a copy of the articles you concluded with them, which you may send me per post. I am surprised at what you tell me of Mr. Synge's paying m pounds to Mr. Bindon on my account, which, on a second inquiry, you must find a mistake. I had received only one hundred English from Mr. Bindon, who (because he wanted it in Ireland) let me have it on the same terms that the banker was to supply him there, by which I saved about 30 shillings in the exchange ; and so I drew on Mr. Synge IV.] Letters from England. 131 for one hundred and ten pounds odd money, Irish. I shall hope to hear from you next post, after the receipt hereof, and that you will then tell me your resolution about coming to England. For myself, I can resolve nothing at present, when or whether I shall see Ireland at all, being employed on much business here. I am, dear Tom, your affec- tionate humble servant, G. BERKELEY. London, July 19, 1726. I have heard from Mr. M'Manus; and by this post have wrote an answer, insisting that I will not allow any thing for the ferry, it being a gross imposition, and contrary both to his own advice and my express orders. Dear Tom, The stocks being higher than they have been for this long time, and, as I am informed, not likely to rise higher, I have consented to their being sold, and have directed Messrs. Wogan and Aspinwall to write you word thereof as soon as they are disposed of, with an account of their amounts. I hoped you would have sent me a copy of the articles for farming my deanery, that I may see whether they are according to my mind ; particularly whether the money is made payable to my order in Dublin, as I directed, for special reasons. I likewise expected a copy of the last balance, the deductions being larger than I can account for. I have spoke with Mr. Binden, who tells me he received within a trifle, under or over, one hundred and eleven pounds from Ned Synge. I have wrote to Ned Synge to let him know his mistake. I have also wrote to him and Mr. Norman to pay the money in their hands to Swift and Company, in order to have it transmitted hither. I desire to know whether you come to England, at what time, and to what place, that I may contrive to see you, for I may chance not to be in London, designing to pass some time in the country 33 ; but I would steer my course so as to be in your way in case you came on this side the water. Mrs. Wilton persists that she never gave a receipt to Mrs. Mary. I must therefore desire you to send me her receipt inclosed in your next. As to Mr. Tooke's bond or note, you desire to know whether it be sealed ; which particular I do not remember : but I remember that it 3G Another of his rural excursions in England. 132 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. mentions interest ; and I desire to know whether, in point of right, such interest should not be paid ; and whether it would not seem odd to pro- pose defalcating any part of a man's right for want of form, when it plainly appeared to be intended ? In short, I would know upon what principles you proceed, when you say he may be contented with no interest, or with half interest. By this post I suppose you will receive from Mr. Aspinwall an account of the sum-total of the transfer, &c. I am plagued with duns, and tired with put-offs, and therefore long to see it applied to pay them : but, in order to this, must desire you to send me two distinct lists, one of the undoubted legal demands, another of the equitable, that so I may have your opinion, in distinct terms, of what should be paid in law, and what in conscience. This was not answered by your last letter's observations, which nevertheless show you may easily do it ; and it is no more than what you had promised to do before. I shall therefore expect such lists from you in a post or two. I am, dear Tom, your affectionate humble servant, G. BERKELEY. London, Aug. 4, 1726. You mentioned a friend of Synge's who was desirous to be one of our Fellows. Pray let me know who he is, and the particulars of his character. There are many competitors ; more than vacancies ; and the fellowships are likely to be very good ones : so I would willingly see them well bestowed. Dear Tom, It is a long time since I have heard from you, and am willing to sup- pose that some of your letters are miscarried. I have quitted my old lodging, and desire you to direct your letters to be left for me with Mr. Smibert 37 , painter, next door to the King's Arms tavern, in the little piazza, Covent Gorden. I desired a copy of the articles concluded on with the farmers of my deanery. I likewise desired the receipt of Mrs. Wilton, and the particular catalogues of the debts, in the manner you promised. I must now re- peat the same desires. As for the articles and bonds, I have thought proper to lodge them with Mr. Synge, who hath a fixed abode in town, and will take care to place them securely among his own papers. You will therefore deliver them to him. As I have occasion for my money to be gathered in and placed with Mr. Swift and Company, in order to 37 This is the first mention of Smibert the 1 725, now in the possession of the Rev. Dr. artist. He made a portrait of Berkeley in Irons of Brompton. IV.] Letters from England. 133 be transmitted hither, I have wrote to M'Manus and Mr. Norman ; to the former, to send me the balance of accounts for last year ; to the latter, to pay the money you told me lay in his hands to Swift and Com- pany : but hitherto I do not find either done. Mr. Aspinwall hath some time since informed you that the total of the effects transferred by him amounts to eight hundred and forty pounds odd money, out of which charges are to be deducted. He hath shewed me the bill of these in Doctors' Commons, which amount to about fourteen pounds. Some other money laid out by him, together with the fees for his own trouble, I have not yet seen the account of. I think you had better write to him by the next post to transmit the third part of the overplus sum to Swift and Company, for the use of Partinton Van Homrigh ; who, when he hath got his share remitted, can have nothing to complain of ; and, as you have hitherto treated in his behalf with Messrs. Wogan and Aspin- wall, your orders will be followed therein by them more properly than mine. I had almost forgot to repeat to you, that I want to know what reason there is for disputing any part of the interest on the note to Mr. Tooke, whether it be sealed or no. Let me know in your next what you resolve about coming to England, and when. I shall trouble you with no more at present, from, dear Tom, yours affectionately, G. BERKELEY. London, August 24, 1726. Dear Tom, I received yours; and accordingly went to Messrs. Wogan and Aspinwall, who promised to transmit the money drawn for by Partinton, which I suppose is due. I desired them to let me have their bill of charges ; which they also promised against the next time I saw them. As for the clamour of the people of Derry, I have not, nor ever shall have, the least regard for it, so long as I know it to be unjust and groundless : it being so false to suggest that I am for allowing less than my predecessors, that I am now actually at seventy-six pound per annum constant expence more than any of them ever were, having just now directed Dr. Ward to provide a new curate for Coll. Sampson's island, and having formerly appointed another additional curate in Derry to preach my turns, as likewise having added to the number of charity children, which are annual expences, not to mention repairing the chancel, &c. ; nothing of which kind I ever was against. I did not indeed like (nor would any man in his senses) that people should make 1 34 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. articles of expence without acquainting me, or dispose of my money (though it were to good uses) without my consent previously obtained. But all this while I have gainsaid nothing but the ferry, and that for reasons I formerly gave you ; not that I valued the expence, which was a trifle, but that I would not be imposed on myself, nor entail an impo- sition on my successor : for there is no man so unknowing or negligent in affairs as not to be sensible that little impositions lead to great ones. But as to that matter, M'Manus having informed me that Dr. Ward had engaged I would pay the ferry-money, I have wrote to Dr. Ward to know the truth of that, and his judgment whether the same should be continued, being resolved to comply therewith. As to what you write about my making a difficulty of leaving 58 pounds in M'Manus's hands for the curates, it is a mistake. The sum charged in his account is about 140 pounds, not for charges paid, but to be paid; and not only to curates, but for several other purposes. I never meant but the curates should be punctually paid ; nobody need be at any pain about that : but I thought, as they were paid the first year (when the farmers had no money of mine in their hands), so they might have been paid the sub- sequent years out of the running income. I thought likewise, and still think, that the rents of the glebe, and the dues formerly farmed to the clerk, are sufficient to make the November payment, without M'Manus's advancing one penny, and without his retaining my income of the pre- ceding year, especially when the tithes of the current become payable a little after. As my money is not at interest, it is much the same whether these payments be stopt now or next January; but it was necessary to observe what I thought wrong, to prevent people's growing upon me. I still want the lists you promised me of the debts (legal and equitable), in order to make the payments, that the business on this side the water (which hath already cost me much trouble) may be at length dispatched. In your next, I desire to be informed what the mistake is which you observe in M'Manus's account, and likewise what you say to his telling me there were no deductions made from the 650 pounds of Coll. Mac- casland's moiety, as I observed to you already in my last. As to what you say of matrimony, I can only answer, that as I have been often married by others, so I assure you I have never married myself. I am, dear Tom, your affectionate humble servant, G. BERKELEY. London, Sept. 13, 1726. Before you went to the country, you told me about eight hundred pounds of the last year's income would be paid to Swift, &c. I desire to IV.] Letters from England. know whether it be so, or what it is. In my last I sent you what appeared in M'Manus's letter to me ; but you are of opinion he mistook in my prejudice. Dear Tom, I have received your letter, and write you this in haste. I am much importuned by the creditors, and at a loss how to deal with them. Why should not Comyng's debt for the funeral be wholly paid ? I have seen a letter under Mrs. Esther's hand promising to pay it : this was wrote to one Lancaster. What you say of paying half of this and other debts I cannot comprehend : Either they are due and should be all paid, or not due and r none paid. I have seen a promissory note of Mrs. Esther's to Mrs. Hill, whereof I send you subjoined a copy. Let me know your opinion, and take advice of others on the nature of a note so worded ; and whether it obligeth absolutely, or only as far as the mother's assets will go. What shall I do with Mr. Fisher, who claims twenty-three pounds odd money from Mrs. Mary, and about six pounds for Mrs. Esther, all for goods delivered since the mother's death. A day or two before I received your letter, I had paid three pound odd money to Mrs. Wilton, being no longer able to withstand her importunity, and despairing of seeing her receipt. The truth is, she showed me a letter wrote several months after the date of that receipt from Mrs. Mary, acknowledging herself indebted, but mentioning no sum. I therefore paid that bill, which was dated after the day of clearing, and no more. W T hat must be done with Farmer ? and, above all, what must be done with the milliner Mrs. Du Puis or Du Pee ? I before mentioned her to you : She gives me great trouble. It would be endless to go through all. I desire a word in particular to each of these. To put them off till your coming in the spring, is utterly impracticable ; they having been amused with hopes of seeing you all last summer : and it being rumoured that I intend to leave Europe next spring, what would such a put-off look like. In the account of demands you formerly sent me, you, or rather in your notes upon the demands, you often mentioned Mr. Clarke's catalogue, without signifying what catalogue that is, whether one sent from hence, or one wrote there for the use of Mrs. Esther, or Mrs. Mary in her life- time. If the latter, pray let me know it ; such a catalogue would be of great use to prevent impositions. I should be glad of a copy of it. You observe it differs frequently from accounts sent from hence ; for instance, it contains about half of Fisher's demand from Mrs. Mary, if I take you 136 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. right. It should follow therefore, that Fisher should be paid, at least so much — should it not ? Send a copy of that catalogue, with the time when it was drawn up. You often mention an act of Parliament to pre- vent frauds, which you say makes for us. Pray send me a distinct abstract of that act, or at least of the substance and purport of it. The note shewed me by Mrs. Hill is in the following words : ' London , January 28, 17 13-14. — I Esther Van Homrigh, junior, do promise to pay to Katharine Hill the sum of thirty-three pounds eleven shillings and sixpence, on the 28th day of April next, for my mother Mrs. Esther Van Homrigh, being her sole executrix, as witness my hand, Witnesses present E. Van. HoMRTGH. Wm. Brunley. Anne Kindon! I desire you will give me your opinion clearly upon this note. I like- wise desire you to satisfy me in these three points; isf, Whether Mrs. Mary was minor during the whole time of her living with her mother ? 2dly, Whether the mother died indebted to Mrs. Mary, or had spent part of her fortune ? %dly, Whether the things which Mrs. Mary had during her minority were charged by the mother, and the mother satisfied for the same ? I entreat you satisfy me instantly as to the points contained in this letter ; after which, I shall speedily expect an answer to the matters in my former letters, which now I have not time to repeat, or say any more but that I am, dear Tom, yours affectionately, G. BERKELEY. London, Nov. 5, 1726. Dear Tom, I have wrote to you often for certain eclaircissements which are abso- lutely necessary to settle matters with the creditors, who importune me to death. You have no notion of the misery I have undergone, and do daily undergo, on that account. I do therefore earnestly entreat you to answer all that I have queried on that head without delay, and at the same time resolve me in what follows. Have you any letter or entry that takes notice of Mr. Collins as a creditor to Mrs. Esther, junior ? He hath produced to me two notes of hers, one for ten, the other for four pound odd money. Mrs. Farmer demands, for hosiers goods, near six pound from Mrs. Mary, and one pound nineteen from Mrs. Esther. I have seen her books, IV.] Letters from England. 137 and by them it appears something is due ; but in some places it looks as if they had transferred the mother's debts to the daughter. Pray tell me distinctly and intelligibly what appears to you from the papers of this. You have told me that this, with many other demands, are only the mother's debts. Pray tell me withal your reasons for this, that the creditors themselves may be satisfied hereof, for they will not take your word or mine for it. First, Let me know what appears to you to have been supplied by each creditor for Mrs. Mary's use. 2dly, Let me know upon what grounds you conceive that and no more to have been so supplied. %dly, Be distinct in giving your opinion, whether a minor be not chargeable for eatables and wearables supplied on the credit of another, or on their own credit, during the minority ? Whether it appears that Mrs. Mary was ever charged by her mother for those things ? Lastly, Let me know what you think was distinctly sup- plied for Mrs. Mary's use, used by her, and never paid for; it being my opinion such debts should be discharged in foro conscientice, though per- haps the law might not require it, on score of minority or length of time, For God's sake disembrangle these matters, that I may once be at ease to mind my other affairs of the College, which are enough to employ ten persons. You promised a distinct tripartite list, which I never got. The observations you have sent are all of them either so ambiguous and indecisive as to puzzle only, or else precarious ; that is, unsupported by reasons to convince me or others. Now, I suppose where you give a positive opinion you have reasons for it ; and it would have been right to have sent these reasons distinctly and particularly. I will not repeat what I have said in my former letters, but hope for your answer to all the points contained in them, and immediately to what relates to dis- patching the creditors. I propose to make a purchase of land (which is very dear) in Bermuda, upon my first going thither; for which, and for other occasions, I shall want all the money I can possibly raise against my voyage. For this purpose, it would be a mighty service to me if the affair with Partinton were adjusted this winter, by reference or compro- mise. The state of all that business, which I desired you to send rne, I do now again earnestly desire. What is doing or has been done in that matter ? Can you contrive no way for bringing Partinton to an imme- diate sale of the remaining lands ? What is your opinion and advice upon the whole ? What prospect can I have if I leave things at sixes and sevens when I go to another world, seeing all my remonstrances, even now that I am near at hand, are to no purpose ? I know money is at present on a very high foot of exchange : I shall therefore wait a little, in hopes it may become lower ; but it will at all events be necessary to 138 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. draw over my money. I have spent here a matter of six hundred pounds more than you know of, for which I have not yet drawn over. As to what you write of Robin, I am glad to find that others think he behaves well : I am best judge of his behaviour to me. There is a way of resenting past favours, and there is a way of asking future ones ; and in both cases a right and a wrong. I had some other points to speak to, but am cut short, and have only time to add, that I am yours affectionately, G. BERKELEY. London^ Nov. 12, 1726. December 1, 1726. Dear Tom, I have lately received several letters of yours, which have given me a good deal of light with respect to Mrs. V. Homrigh's affairs ; but I am so much employed on the business of Bermuda, that I have hardly ti.me to mind any thing else. I shall nevertheless snatch the present moment to write you short answers to the questions you propose. As to Bermuda, it is now on a better and surer foot than ever. After the address of the Commons, and his Majesty's most gracious answer, one would have thought all difficulties had been got over: but much opposition hath been since raised (and that by very great men) to the design. As for the obstacles thrown in my way by interested men, though there hath been much of that, I never regarded it, no more than the clamours and calumnies of ignorant mistaken people : but in good truth it was with much difficulty, and the peculiar blessing of God, that the point was carried maugre the strong opposition in the cabinet council ; wherein, nevertheless, it hath of late been determined to go on with the grant, pursuant to the address of the House of Commons, and to give it all possible dispatch. Accordingly his Majesty hath ordered the warrant for passing the said grant to be drawn. The persons appointed to contrive the draught of the warrant are the Solicitor- General 38 , Baron Scroop of the Treasury, and (my very good friend) Mr. Hutchinson 39 . You must know that in July last the Lords of the Treasury had named commissioners for taking an estimate of the value and quantity of the Crown lands in St. Christophers, and for receiving proposals either for selling or farming the same for the benefit of the public. Their report is not yet made ; and the Treasury were of opinion 38 Charles Talbot, Lord Chancellor in 1733. lie was son of the Bishop of Durham, and brothel of Edward Talbot, Butler's friend. w There is, I think, a notice of 'Archibald Hutchinson,' as a friend of Berkeley's, some- where in the Gent. Mag., but I have mislaid the reference. •v.] Letters from England. !39 they could not make a grant to us till such time as the whole were sold or farmed pursuant to such report. But the point I am now labouring is to have it done, without delay ; and how this may be done without em- barrassing the Treasury in their after disposal of the whole lands was this day the subject of a conference between the Solicitor-General, Mr. Hutchinson, and myself. The method agreed on is by a rent-charge on the whole crown lands, redeemable upon the crown's paying twenty thousand pounds, for the use of the President and Fellows of St. Paul's, and their successors. Sir Robert Walpole hath signified that he hath no objection to this method ; and I doubt not Baron Scroop will agree to it ; by which means the grant may be passed before the meeting of parlia- ment, after which we may prepare to set out on our voyage in April. I have unawares run into this long account because you desired to know how the affair of Bermuda stood at present. You also desire I would speak to Ned. You must know Ned hath parted from me ever since the beginning of last July. I allowed him six shillings a week besides his annual wages ; and beside an entire livery, I gave him old clothes, which he made a penny of; but the creature grew idle and worthless to a prodigious degree. He was almost constantly out of the way ; and when I told him of it he used to give me warning. I bore with this behaviour about nine months, and let him know I did it in compassion to him, and in hopes he would mend ; but finding no hopes of this, I was forced at last to discharge him, and take another, who is as diligent as he was negligent. When he parted from me, I paid him between six and seven pounds which was due to him, and likewise gave him money to bear his charges to Ireland, whither he said he was going. I met him t'other day in the street ; and asking why he was not gone to Ireland to his wife and child, he made answer that he had neither wife nor child. He got, it seems, into another service since he left me, but continued only a fortnight in it. The fellow is silly to an incredible degree, and spoiled by good usage. I shall take care the pictures be sold in an auction. Mr. Smibert, whom I know to be a very honest, skilful person in his profession, will see them put into an auction at the proper time, which he tells me is not till the town fills with company, about the meeting of parliament. As to Bacon, I know not what to do with him. I spoke often to Messrs. Wogan and Aspinwall about him. Mr. Aspinwall also spoke to him, and threatened him with bringing the affair into court ; and he still promised, and always broke his promise. I always, for my part, insisted they should prosecute him ; and, since your mentioning him in your letter, have done it in stronger terms than ever, but to no purpose ; for, 140 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. upon the whole, I find they decline meddling with it. They say the fellow is a knave, and skilful in delays of law and attorneys' tricks, and that he may keep us employed for several years ; that it is a matter out of their sphere ; in short, they do not care to be employed in this affair. When I saw the man, I did not like his looks nor manner, and am now quite at a loss what to do with him. The whole expense they charge for management in South Sea House, and at Doctors' Commons, together with their own trouble, amounts to thirty-nine pounds ten shillings and sixpence. I have bills of the particulars. Some of the creditors I have paid ; but there are many more unpaid, whose demands I could not yet adjust. The first leisure I have I shall try to do it, by the help of the lights I have now got. As to M'Manus, I am content to favour him so far as to forbear his paying that part of my income on the first of January which was stipulated to be then paid; but then the whole must be paid punctually on the first of February. I say I shall have necessary occasion for the whole income of the present year to be paid, without fail, on the first of February next ; and I wish he may have timely notice from you of this. I formerly gave him warning myself; but since he has wrote to you, it is fit he know this answer. My affairs absolutely require this ; and I expect that he will not, upon any pretext, disappoint me. You tell me what is to be done with Mr. Tooke's note, in case it be a bond in form, or a simple promissory note, or a promis- sory note with interest sealed ; but still you omit what (to the best of my remembrance) is the true case, to wit, a promissory note unsealed, to pay the principal with interest. Before I closed this letter, the bond was brought me, sealed, witnessed, and bearing interest, making, with the principal, eighty pound, which I have paid this moment ; so that I was mistaken in thinking it a note, being a bond in form. In your last but one, you sent two opposite opinions of Howard and Marshal concerning Mrs. Hill's note, but promised to give your own, and to be more clear in the point in your next, which it seems you forgot to do. I have in a former letter desired you to send me over an abstract of the state of our case in dispute with Partinton, and a full account of our demands upon him. You have told me indeed where the point sticks at present; but you may see that this does not fully answer my desire. I want to know (as if I had never heard anything of the matter) a full account of that whole affair stated, what our demands amount to in each particular, and what expectations there are of succeeding, and grounds for prosecuting, the said demands respectively. I remember to have told you I could know more of matters here than perhaps people generally do. You thought we did wrong to sell ; but the stocks are fallen, and depend upon it IV.] Letters from England. 141 they will fall lower. In a former letter, I acquainted you that I desired the bonds may be lodged with Ned Synge, who will call for them. Yours, G. BERKELEY. In the writings of Pope, Swift, and Arbuthnot, about this time, we meet with occasional playful allusions to Bermuda, in prose and verse. In September, Pope exults with Swift, that they may live where they please, c in Wales, Dublin, or Bermudas.' In November, Arbuthnot refers to the cry for war in London, pro- duced by the total stoppage of trade, and proposes to rig out a privateer for the West Indies. c Will you be concerned ? We will build her at Bermudas, and get Mr. Dean Berkeley to be our manager.' The proposed c manager ' was as bent as ever upon his enterprise, through all the discouragements of 1727, and the vexa- tious embarrassments of the Vanhomrigh business. George I died, and George II was proclaimed in June. He has again la mer a. bolre. But within a month he had a new Warrant for his Grant, signed by the young King, and the lost ground was thus recovered. He was then anxious to visit Dublin, and, for some inscrutable reason, to live there, in the suburbs, in strict privacy, unobserved by his old friends. The following letters to Prior in 1727 tell their own story : — London, Feb. 27, 1726-7. Dear Tom, The packets you speak of you may direct, under cover, to the right honourable Thomas, Earl of Pomfret 40 , in Hanover Square; but then you must take care that no one packet be above a certain quantity or weight, t and thereby exceed the limits of franking: in which case the frank I know will not be regarded, and the papers may miscarry. What the precise limits are I know not ; any body there can inform you. I send you herewith an account of our affairs transacted by Wogan and Aspinwall. You may observe in the account of Mr. Gyles (em- ployed by them) a half guinea blotted out, which I paid separately for an extract of a Will relating to Bermuda, and which by mistake was inserted in this account, to which it had no relation. The pictures were all sold for forty-five pounds, at an auction which was held last week in Covent Garden, at the house of one Mr. Russel, 40 With whom his friend Benson travelled in Italy some years before. He was the first Earl, and died in 1 753. 142 Life and Letters of Berkeley, [ch. a painter. They were sold publicly and fairly among several other pictures. The truth of it is, that of late years the taste lies so much towards Italian pictures, many of which are daily imported, that Dutch pictures go off but heavily. Mr. Smibert did not think they would have brought so much. I have taken the utmost care to keep myself within the limits of your directions in the payments I have hitherto made, and shall continue to act with the same caution. Mr. Marshal cannot long more than I do to put an end to this matter of my administration, which I was willing to have declined, if he had thought good to accept it. But the constant hurry of business I have on my hands, together with my not being able to find out some of the creditors, hath hitherto unavoidably delayed it. However, I have paid between two and three hundred pounds, and shall finish all as soon as possible. Mr. Clarke I have not seen this long time. I suppose he is ashamed for my having found out that he was to receive a sum of money from Mrs. Philips, whose unjust debt he had undertaken to get paid. This, and his not giving me the notice Alder- man Barber said he desired him to give before the sale of the jewels, makes me think very indifferently of him. Besides, there is no sort of consistency between the accounts of creditors, as given in by him, and their own demands, which still strengthens my suspicion of him. As to the sum to be paid into Swift and Company, and the deductions to be made for curates, &c, I only desire that all may be done on the foot you told me you had agreed with Mr. M'Manus, and whereof you stated the account in a letter I have by me, and which I need not transcribe, because I suppose you remember it. As to the sale of the reversionary lands, I desire it may be done as soon as possible ; and not to stand out, but to take the best terms you can. As to the rest, I long to see it all finished by arbitration. My going to Bermuda I cannot positively say when it will be. I have to do with very busy people at a very busy time. I hope nevertheless to have all that business completely finished in a few weeks. I am, dear Tom, yours, G. B. London, April 11, 1727. Dear Tom, In my last I made no mention of any sums of my money applied to the payment of debts, or other purposes common to Mr. Marshal and me, because I suppose you have taken care that he keep equal pace with me : if he be deficient, this is the only time to right myself. As IV.] Letters from England. 143 to those you call dubious debts, and those which, being contracted in the mother's lifetime, are payable by Partinton, I should be glad to hear your opinion in a line or two, since I am not allowed to act otherwise than by strict legal justice. Thus much I think Mr. Marshal and myself are obliged to, viz. to pay those debts if nothing be stopt for them by Partinton ; and if there be, to advertise the creditors thereof. Since my last, I paid what you allowed to be due to Mrs. Farmer (now Mrs. Reed). For this and all other payments I have receipts or notes which I propose bringing with me to Ireland. And now I mention my coming to Ireland, I must earnestly desire you, by all means, to keep this a secret from every individual creature. I cannot justly say what time (probably some time next month) I shall be there, or how long; but find it necessary to be there to transact matters with one or two of my associates (who yet I would not have know of my coming till I am on the spot), and, for several reasons, am determined to keep myself as secret and concealed as possible all the time I am in Ireland. In order to this, I make it my request that you will hire for me an entire house, as neat and convenient as you can get, somewhere within a mile of Dublin, for half a year. But what I prin- cipally desire is, that it be in no town or village, but in some quiet private place, out of the way of roads, or street, or observation. I would have it hired with necessary furniture for kitchen, a couple of chambers, and a parlour. At the same time, I must desire you to hire an honest maid servant, who can keep it clean, and dress a plain bit of meat : a man servant I shall bring with me. You may do all this either in your own name, or as for a friend of yours, one Mr. Brown (for that is the name I shall assume), and let me know it as soon as possible. There are several little scattered houses with gardens about Clantarfe, Rath- farnum, &c. I remember particularly the old castle of Ramines, and a little white house upon the hills by itself, beyond the Old Men's Hos- pital, likewise in the outgoings or fields about St. Kevin's, &c. In short, in any snug private place within half a mile or a mile of town. I would have a bit of a garden to it, no matter what sort. Mind this, and you'll oblige your affectionate humble servant, G. BERKELEY. Dear Tom, Things being as you say, I think you were in the right to pay only 100 pounds to Mr. Marshal at present. I have drawn on you for 12 pounds, which my B. Robin will call for. 144 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. I would by all means have a place secured for me by the end of June: it may be taken only for three months. I hope you will not have left Ireland before my arrival. I take it for granted you have paid what I directed for Mr. Partinton Van Homrigh's share of the pictures. I sent the answer to his bill engrossed by post, and shall be glad to hear you have got it. I long to hear the sale of lands (reversionary) perfected to Mr. Conolly. I am (God be praised) very near concluding the crown grant to our College, having got over all difficulties and obstructions, which were not a few. I conclude, in great haste, dear Tom, yours, G. BERKELEY. London, May 20, 1727. Dear Tom, Poor Caldwell's 41 death I had heard of two or three posts before I received your letter. Had he lived, his life would not have been agree- able. He was formed for retreat and study ; but of late was grown fond of the world, and getting into business. A house between Dublin and Drumcondra I can by no means approve of : the situation is too public ; and what I chiefly regard is privacy. I like the situation of Lord's house much better, and have only one ob- jection to it, which is your saying he intends to use some part of it himself; for this would be inconsistent with my view of being quite concealed ; and the more so because Lord knows me, which of all things is what I would avoid. His house and price would suit me. If you can get such another, quite to myself, snug, private, and clean, with a stable, I shall not matter whether it be painted or no, or how it is furnished, provided it be clean and warm. I aim at nothing magnificent or grand (as you term it), which might probably defeat my purpose of continuing concealed. You have more than once talked of coming to England without coming : perhaps you may alter your mind now as well as heretofore ; but you are best judge of that. I desire to know when., your business requires your being in England ? — whether you come to London ? — and how long you propose staying on this side of the water ? I am sure it will be at least a full month before I can reach Dublin. If you come over immediately, and make but a very short stay, possibly I might defer my going, to attend you in your return. At all events, I should be sorry we missed of each other by setting out at the same time, which may occasion my seeing you neither there nor here. 41 Cf. pp. 110, 114, 1 24. iv.] Letters from England. 145 The bell-man calls for my letter, so I shall add no more but that I am your affectionate humble servant, GEORGE BERKELEY. London, June 13, 1727. Pray let me hear from you next post. Dear Tom, Yesterday we had an account of King George's death. This day King George II was proclaimed. All the world here are in a hurry, and I as much as any body ; our grant being defeated by the King's dying before the broad seal was annexed to it, in order to which it was passing through the offices. I have la mer h boire again. You shall hear from me when I know more. At present I am at a loss what course to take. Pray answer my last speedily. Yours, G. B. London, June 15, 1727. London, June 27, 1727. Dear Tom, Yesterday I received your letter, containing an account of your design about coming to England. In a former letter, I gave you to know that my affairs were ravell'd by the death of his Majesty. I am now beginning on a new foot, and with good hopes of success. The warrant for our grant had been signed by the King, countersigned by the Lords of the Treasury, and passed the Attorney General. Here it stood when the express came of the King's death. A new warrant is now preparing, which must be signed by his present Majesty, in order to a patent passing the broad seal. As soon as this affair is finished, I propose going to Ireland. I cannot certainly say when that will be ; but sure I am it will not be time enough to find you there, if you continue your scheme of coming over the next month. It is unlucky that we should both think of crossing the sea at the same time. But as you seem to talk doubtfully of your design, I hope it may suit with your conveniency to alter it ; in which case we may probably come together to England. The changes of ministry you talk of are at present but guessed at ; a little time will show. Yours, &c. G. BERKELEY. VOL. IV. L 146 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch, Dear Tom, This is to inform you, that I have obtained a new warrant for a grant, signed by his present Majesty, contrary to the expectations of my friends, who thought nothing could be expected of that kind in this great hurry of business. As soon as this grant (which is of the same import with that begun by his late Majesty) hath passed the offices and seals, I purpose to execute my design of going to Ireland. In case, therefore, you continue your purpose of coming to England this summer, I must desire you to leave all papers relating to my affairs with Mr. Synge 42 , sealed up in a bag as things belonging to me, put into his hands for fear of accidents; but to say nothing to him of my going to Dublin, which I would have by all means kept secret from every one ; my design being, in case I find you are absent, to make my arrival, after I am come, known to Synge ; to look into the papers myself, and try if I can state matters so as to bring them to a conclusion with Partinton. It would assist me much in this affair if you would do what I have long and often desired, viz. draw up a paper containing an account of my demands on Partinton or others in virtue of my executorship, with the several reasons supporting the said demands, and an account of the proceedings thereupon at law ; what hath been done, and what remains to be done. I hoped to have heard of the sale of the reversion by this time. Let me hear by next post. I am yours, G. BERKELEY. London, July 6, 1727. Dear Tom, In answer to your last letter, this is to let you know, that my grant is now got farther than where it was at the time of the King's death. I am in hopes the broad seal will soon be affixed to it, what remains to be done in order thereto being only matter of form; so that I propose setting out from hence in a fortnight's time. When I set out, I shall write at the same time to tell you of it. I know not whether I shall stay longer than a month on that side of the water. I am sure I shall not want the country lodging (I desired you to procure) for a longer time. Do not therefore take it for more than a month, if that can be done. I remember certain remote suburbs [of Dublin] called Pimlico and Dolphin's Barn, but know not whereabout they lie. If either of them be situate in a private pleasant place, and airy, near the fields, I should therein like a first floor in a clean house (I desire n Probably the Rev. Edward Synge, successively Bishop of Cloyne, of Ferns, Chancellor of St. Patrick's, Dublin, afterwards and of Elphin. IV.] Letters from England. H7 no more) ; and it would be better if there was a bit of a garden where I had the liberty to walk. This I mention in case my former desire cannot be conveniently answered for so short a time as a month ; and, if I may judge at this distance, these places seem as private as a house in the country : for you must know, what I chiefly aim at is secrecy. This makes me uneasy to find that there hath been a report spread among some of my friends in Dublin of my designing to go over. I cannot account for this, believing, after the precautions I had given you, that you would not mention it directly or indirectly to any mortal. For the present, I have no more to add, but only to repeat my request that you will leave all papers relating to my executorship with Mr. Synge sealed up in a bag, with directions to deliver them to my order. This I desired you to perform in my last, in case you leave Ireland before I arrive there. If with them you likewise leave what I formerly desired, it will save me some trouble. I am, dear Tom, your affectionate humble servant, T j G. BERKELEY. July 21, 1727. I observe you cake no notice of what I said about selling the revep- sionary lands, though you formerly encouraged me to think I should have heard of their being sold before this time. In case you do not make use of the power I gave you by letter of attorney to make sale of the reversionary lands before you come for England, I desire you would leave that said letter of attorney among the papers with Mr. Synge. From July 1727 till February j 728, there is a gap in the cor- respondence as it has descended to us. It is not clear where Berkeley was, or how he was employed, during these months. The often postponed visit to Ireland had not yet been made ; America, where he hoped to be in April, was still in the distance. In February 1728 he was, after all, in London, and Prior seems to have visited him in the interval. He hoped to set out for Dublin in March, and to begin his missionary voyage over the Atlantic in May. These hopes were not fulfilled. The following letters to Prior supply some curious details, especially about the proposed visit to Dublin : — Dear Tom, I agree that M'Manus should retain for payment of the curates to ' the first of May. After so many delays from Partinton, I was fully con- vinced the only way to sell the reversionary lands must be by compelling L 2 148 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [CH. him to join in the sale by law, or by making a separate sale. This I proposed to you by word of mouth, and by letter, as much as I could ; and I now most earnestly repeat it, intreating you to do the one or the other out of hand if it be not done already, as I have hopes it is by what you say in your last. Dear Tom, fail me not in this particular ; but by all means order matters so that the purchase-money may be paid in to Swift, &c. on the first of April, or at farthest ten days after ; which ten days I am willing to allow to M'Manus as desired. I need not repeat to you what I told you here of the necessity there is for my raising all the money possible against my voyage, which, God willing, I shall begin in May, whatever you may hear suggested to the contrary ; though you need not mention this. I propose to set out for Dublin about a month hence ; but of this you must not give the least intimation to any body. I beg the favour of you to look out at leisure a convenient lodging for me in or about Church- street, or such other place as you shall think the most retired. Mr. Petit Rose writes me from Portarlington about renewing his lease, which he desires I would empower you to do. He mentions a promise I made on the last renewal, that I would another time allow him one year gratis. For my part, I absolutely deny that I know any thing of any such promise. If you remember any thing of it, pray let me know ; for if there was such a thing, it must have been made by you, to whom I referred the management of that affair. As I do not design to be known when I am in Ireland, I shall comply with his desire in sending you a letter of attorney to perfect the renewal, agreeable to such draught as you transmit hither ; provided still, that his proposal (which I have by this post directed him to send to you) be approved by you ; to whom I leave it, to do what to you shall seem fair and reasonable in that matter. I am your affectionate humble servant, GEOR. BERKELEY. London, Feb. 20, 1727 — 8, London, April 6, 1728. Dear Tom, I ha vp: been detained from my journey partly in expectation of Dr. Clayton's 43 coming, who was doing business in Lancashire, and 43 Robert Clayton, D.D., appointed to the bishopric of Killala in January, 1730, trans- lated to Cork in 1 735' an< ^ to Clogher in 1745. He was living in England about this time, having married a cousin of Lady Sundon in 1728. He was celebrated for his kind and generous character. This learned and philosophic prelate, alleged author of the Essay on Spirit (1750), died in 1758, on the day fixed for the commencement of his trial on a charge of heresy. •v.] Letters from England. 149 partly in respect to the excessive rains. The Doctor hath been several days in town, and we have had so much rain that probably it will be soon over. I am therefore daily expecting to set out, all things being provided. Now it is of all things my earnest desire (and for very good reasons) not to have it known that I am in Dublin. Speak not, therefore, one syllable of it to any mortal whatsoever. When I formerly desired you to take a place for me near the town, you gave out that you were looking for a retired lodging for a friend of yours ; upon which everybody sur- mised me to be the person. I must beg you not to act in the like manner now, but to take for me an entire house in your own name, and as for yourself : for, all things considered, I am determined upon a whole house, with no mortal in it but a maid of your own putting, who is to look on herself as your servant. Let there be two bed-chambers, one for you, another for me ; and, as you like, you may ever and anon lie there. I would have the house, with necessary furniture, taken by the month (or otherwise, as you can), for I purpose staying not beyond that time : and yet perhaps I may. Take it as soon as possible, and never think of saving a week's hire by leaving it to do when I am there. Dr. Clayton thinks (and I am of the same opinion) that a convenient place may be found in the further end of Great Britain Street, or Ballibough-bridge 44 — by all means beyond Thomson's the Fellow's. Let me entreat you to say nothing of this to anybody, but to do the thing directly. In this affair I consider convenience more than expense, and would of all things (cost what it will) have a proper place in a retired situation, where I may have access to fields and sweet air, provided against the moment I arrive. I am inclined to think, one may be better concealed in the outermost skirt of the suburbs than in the country, or within the town. Wherefore, if you cannot be accommodated where I mention, inquire in some other skirt or remote suburb. A house quite detached in the country I should have no objection to; provided you judge that I shall not be liable to discovery in it. The place called Bermuda I am utterly against. Dear Tom, do this matter cleanly and cleverly, without waiting for further advice. You see I am willing to run the risk of the expense. To the person from whom you hire it (whom alone I would have you speak of it to) it will not seem strange you should at this time of the year be desirous, for your own convenience or health, to have a place in a free and open air. If you cannot get a house without taking it for a longer time than a month, take it at such the shortest time it can be let for, with agreement for further continuing in case there be occasion. 11 In the N.E. suburbs of Dublin. Life and Letters of Berkeley. [CH. Mr. Madden 45 , who witnesses the letter of attorney, is now going to Ireland. He is a clergyman, and man of estate in the north of Ireland. I am, your affectionate humble servant, GEORGE BERKELEY. From April till September, Berkeley again disappears. Whether he went to Dublin, as he had so long proposed, is doubtful. At any rate, he did not go to America in May. In September we find him at Gravesend, married, and about to sail for Rhode Island, with his wife and a small party of friends. Almost no particulars about the marriage are known. The lady was Anne, daughter of John Forster, who had been Recorder of Dublin, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, and also Speaker of the Irish House of Commons 46 . Her uncle was Nicholas Forster, who in 1709 admitted Berkeley to holy orders, and who was now Bishop of Raphoe 47 . This family of Forsters had settled in Ireland in the wars of Charles I, when a younger son of Sir Humphrey Forster, Bart., of Aldermaston in Berkshire, who had gone to Ireland with Lord Conway and Sir Thomas Rawdon, was rewarded by a grant of the estate of Tullaghan. The father of Mrs. Berkeley is said to have been so devoted to the House of Brunswick, that in Queen Anne's reign he was a favourite toast at Herrenhausen ; and her mother, it seems, was connected with Monck, the famous Duke of Albemarle 48 . The marriage, according to Stock, took place on the 1st of August 1728; where it took place I have not been able to dis- cover. As a search in the registry at Dublin has failed to dis- cover any record of it, the ceremony was apparently not performed within that Province. It may have been in England, where mem- bers of the Forster family appear sometimes to have lived. All that one can now discover of Mrs. Berkeley makes her 45 Was this Dr. Madden afterwards one of the founders of the Dublin Society, and an intimate friend of Prior's ? 46 He seems to have been Speaker in 1707 — 9 (see Gilbert's History of Dublin, vol. III. Appendix). He was Chief Justice in 1714—20. 47 Forster was appointed to the bishopric of Killala in 1 714, and transferred to Raphoe in 1 716, where the liberal benefac- tions of this excellent prelate are gratefully remembered. He died in June 1 743. See Cotton's Fasti, vol. III. p. 354; also Mant's History, vol. II. There is a portrait of him in the Library which he founded at Raphoe. 48 Pre/ace to Monck Berkeley. v.] In England, and married. 151 worthy of her husband. She shared his fortunes when he was about to engage in one of the most romantic moral movements of modern times, and when, in love with an ideal academic life in the Bermudas, he was prepared to surrender preferment and social position at home, in order to devote the remainder of his life to the great Continent of the West. Report bears that she was her- self of the school of the Mystics or Quietists, and that her favourite writers were Fenelon, Madame Guyon, and their English disciple Hooke, the historian of Rome. The following letter to Prior describes Berkeley and his party on the eve of their departure from England : — Gravesend, Sept. 5, 1728. Dear Tom, To-morrow, with God's blessing, I set sail for Rhode Island, with my wife and a friend of hers, my lady Handcock's daughter, who bears us company. I am married since I saw you to Miss Forster, daughter of the late Chief Justice, whose humour and turn of mind pleases me beyond any thing that I know in her whole' sex. Mr. James, Mr. Dalton, and Mr. Smibert, go with us on this voyage. We are now all together at Gravesend, and are engaged in one view. When my next rents are paid, I must desire you to inquire for my cousin Richard Berkeley 49 , who was bred a public notary (I suppose he may by that time be out of his apprenticeship), and give him twenty moidores as a present from me, towards helping him on his beginning the world. I believe I shall have occasion to draw for six hundred pounds English before this year's income is paid by the farmers of my Deanery. I must therefore desire you to speak to Messrs. Swift, &c, to give me credit for said sum in London about three months hence, in case I have occasion to draw for it ; and I shall willingly pay their customary interest for the same till the farmers pay it to them, which I hope you will order punctually to be done by the first of June. Give me advice of your success in this affair, viz. whether they will answer such draught of mine in London, on what interest, and on whom, and how I am to draw ? Direct for me in Rhode Island, and inclose your letter in a cover to Thomas Corbet, Esq., at the Admiralty office in London, who will always 49 I have not found anything about this ' cousin.' The request, in the circumstances, shows Berkeley's kindness of heart. 15 2 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. forward my letters by the first opportunity. Adieu. I write in great haste, yours, G. B. I wrote by this post to M'Manus to comply with all the points pro- posed in Dr. Ward's memorial. A copy of my Charter was sent to Dr. Ward by Dr. Clayton. If it be not arrived when you go to London, 46 write out of the Charter the clause relating to my absence. Adieu once more. This strange enterprise, so in contrast, like its conductor, to the spirit of that age, was not unobserved by the journals of the day. In the Historical Register for the year 17 2 8 50 , we have another account of the departure from Gravesend : — Dr. Berkeley's Design of settling a College in Bermudas. The Reverend Dr. Berkeley, Dean of Derry, who obtained a Patent of His late Majesty, to erect a College in Bermudas, like that in Dublin,, for instruction of youth in all manner of liberal sciences and learned arts, sailed about the middle of September last for the West Indies, in a ship of 250 tons, which he hired. He took several tradesmen and artists with him. Two gentlemen of fortune (James and Dalton) are gone, with all their effects, to settle in Bermudas. The Dean married an agreeable young lady about six weeks before he set sail ; the lady's sister is gone with them; they had £4000 each to their fortune, which they carried with them. They carried also stores and goods to a great value. The Dean embarked 20,000 (?) books, besides what the two gentlemen carried. They sailed hence for Rhode Island, where the Dean intends to winter, and to purchase an estate, in order to settle a correspondence and trade between that island and Bermudas, particularly for supplying Bermudas with black cattle and sheep. The Dean's Grant of £2000 [£20,000?] on St. Christopher's is payable in two years time, and the Dean has a year and a half allowed him afterwards, to consider whether he will stick to his College in Bermudas, or return to his Deanery of Derry. None of the intended Fellows of the proposed College were in the party that embarked at Gravesend. Besides the three who seem, when he left Dublin in 1724, to have promised to join the enter- prise, he had been looking out for other associates, finding c many more competitors than vacancies.'' He tried besides to persuade Thomas Prior and Dr. Clayton, and he had negotiations with 60 Vol. XIII. p. 289. IV.] Gravesend. Dr. Blackwell • r ' 1 of Aberdeen. But he now sailed from Gravesend as a pioneer. Others were to follow after land had been purchased, and when the City and College of Bermuda 52 were in progress. The little party who accompanied him and his wife consisted of Miss Handcock, a daughter probably of Sir William Handcock, a former Recorder of Dublin, and ancestor of the noble family of Castlemaine ; John James, an Englishman of good family, after- wards Sir John James, of whom more hereafter; Richard Dalton, of Lincolnshire, the common friend of Berkeley, Benson, and Seeker; and Smibert, an English artist, whom Berkeley met in Italy, and whose studio, near Covent Garden, was, as we have seen, one of his resorts in his years of waiting and working in London. He was in his forty-fourth year when, in deep devotion to his Purpose, and full of glowing visions of a Fifth Empire in the West — 'time's noblest offspring/ he sailed for Rhode Island, on his way to Bermuda, with the promise of the Prime Minister that the Parliamentary grant should be paid to him after he had made an investment. He bought land in America, but he never arrived at Bermuda. 51 Dr. Blackwell, in some observations on the union of action with speculation, adds : — ' 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 neither pains nor ex- pense 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 exahed plan of an Amer- ican University was not carried into execu- tion. Many such spirits in our country would quickly make learning wear another face.' (Memoirs of the Court of Augustus, vol. II. p. 277.) Thomas Blackwell, who gives this interesting testimony, was born in Aberdeen in 1 701, and was Professor of Greek in Marischal College in 1723, and Principal in 1748. He gave an impulse to classical studies in the north of Scotland. Among his pupils were Principal George Campbell and Dr. James Beattie. 2 Berkeley's skill in architecture was illustrated in his own elegant designs of the proposed City of Bermuda, the me- tropolis of his Utopia, which were once possessed by the Rev. Dr. Raymond, Vicar of Trim, and afterwards by his granddaughter Mrs. Ewing, widow of Mr. Thomas Ewing, a Dublin bookseller. CHAPTER V. A RECLUSE IN RHODE ISLAND. 1729— 1732. On the 23rd of January, 1729, the 'hired ship of 250 tons/ in which Berkeley and his party sailed from Gravesend, was visible in the Narragansett waters, on the western side of Rhode Island. It was making for the secure and beautiful harbour of Newport, after a voyage of rather more than four months from the Thames. The arrival of the romantic expedition, in this remote region, on its mission of 'godlike benevolence,' was thus announced in the New England Weekly Courier of the 3rd of February, 1729: — Newport, January 24, 1729. 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 com- plaisant manner. 'Tis said he proposes to tarry here with his family about three months. An event so singular as this arrival has left its mark upon the traditions of the place. Some of them are to be found in Up- dike's rare and curious History of the Episcopal Church in Narra- gansett, a gossipping local history of that country, which probably gives as exact an impression as any book of the social and eccle- siastical atmosphere that surrounded Berkeley in his American home. 'Dean Berkeley/ we are here told 1 , 'arrived in Newport by a circum- stance purely accidental. He, with other gentlemen his associates, were bound to the Island of Bermuda, with an intention of establishing there a College for the education of the Indian youth of this country — a plan 1 History of the Episcopal Church, &c, p. 395 ; being part of Bull's Memoir of Trinity Church, Newport. A Recluse in Rhode Island. 155 however which wholly failed. The captain of the ship in which he sailed could not find the island of Bermuda, and having given up the search for it, steered northward until they discovered land unknown to them, and which they supposed to be inhabited by savages. On making a signal, however, two men came on board from Block island, in the character of pilots, who, on inquiry, informed them that the town and harbour of New- port were near ; and that in the town there was an Episcopal Church, the minister of which was Mr. James Honeyman. On which they pro- ceeded to Newport, but an adverse wind caused them to run into the west passage, where the ship came to anchor. The Dean wrote a letter to Mr. Honeyman, which the pilots took on shore at Conanicut island, and called on Mr. Gardner and Mr. Martin, two members of Mr. Honey- man's church, informing them that a great dignitary of the Church of England, called Dean, was on board the ship, together with other gentle- men passengers. They handed them the letter from the Dean, which Gardner and Martin brought to Newport with all possible dispatch. On their arrival, they found Mr. Honeyman was at church, it being a holiday on which divine service was held there. They then sent the letter by a servant, who delivered it to Mr. Honeyman in his pulpit. He opened it and read it to the congregation, from the contents of which it appeared the Dean might be expected to land in Newport every moment. The church was dismissed with the blessing, and Mr. Honeyman, with the wardens, vestry, church, and congregation, male and female, repaired immediately to the ferry-wharf, where they arrived a little before the Dean, his family and friends 2 / Part of this is undoubtedly false, for it is contradicted by Berkeley himself, in his Gravesend letter to Prior, and also by the Historical 'Register. There can be no doubt that it was his intention from the first to go to Rhode Island. The idea seems to have been to purchase land there, as an investment for Bermuda, and perhaps also to establish friendly correspondence with influential New Englanders. Newport was then a flourishing town, nearly a century old, of the first importance, and an emporium of American commerce. It was in those days the maritime and commercial rival of New York and Boston. Narragansett Bay formed its outer harbour; and the inner harbour, on which the town was 2 Other traditions vary a little from this. Some of them say that the ship made no land till it arrived at the east or Sachuest river, from which it came round the north end of Rhode Island to Newport. Others say the first land made after the vessel got into the passage was Narragansett, on the Con- tinent opposite Newport. 156 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [CH. built, was well protected from the ocean. It was a natural place for the President of St. Paul's to choose as a basis of his opera- tions. The residence, too, in that part of New England of some missionaries of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, who had been placed there a few years before, may have been another inducement. One lingers over the picture of the pious philanthropist, his newly married wife, her friend, and their three companions, wend- ing their way from the ferry-wharf of Newport, with their colonial escort, on that far-ofF winter day, in the beginning of 1729. This c gentleman of middle stature,' with his manly courtesy, found himself at last in the crisis of an enterprise, preparation for which had absorbed his energy for seven long years, and which aimed at establishing the American civilization of the future on the basis of the University and the Church. He was c never more agreeably surprised, 5 he says, c than at the sight of the town and harbour ' of Newport, where he first saw the continent that has so long filled his imagination. Around him was some of the softest rural, and grandest ocean scenery in the world, which had fresh charms even for one who, educated in the vale of the Nore, was familiar with the south of England, had lingered on the bay of Naples, and wandered in Inarime and among the mountains of Sicily. The island in which Newport is situated is about fifteen miles long, and from three or four in breadth. It was Berkeley's home for nearly three years — years of waiting for the fulfilment of the promise on the faith of which he left England. He was here nearly seventy miles from Boston, and about an equal distance from Newhaven and Yale College. The Indian name of the island was Aquidneck or the Isle of Peace. The surface was undu- lating, and there was a central ridge with pleasant meadows gently sloping to the shore. This hill-top commanded homely farm- houses, pastures, cornfields, orchards, and woodlands, with streams of water making their way through deep ravines to the bay, or to the Ocean with its lofty cliffs, a scene which might remind the English visitor partly of the Isle of Wight and partly of Anglesea. Orchards screened the houses from the northern blasts. The atmosphere was delightful, with brilliant sunsets in summer and autumn, and sea breezes from the south, tempered by the Gulph stream, and securing perpetual verdure to the fields. Few things, v.J A Recluse in Rhode Island. 157 visitors tell us, can be imagined more soothing and beautiful than the rippling of the waves in the inner waters of Rhode Island on its smooth and shelving sands, the reflection of the verdant banks, and the glistening surface under the broad moon- light j or more sublime than when in winter the deep rolling billows from the ocean break upon its rocky shore. The island contained about eighteen thousand inhabitants, when Berkeley landed in 1729. Of these fifteen hundred were negroes — freemen and slaves, for many of the Newport merchants then engaged in the slave trade. A few native Indians, too, might still be seen in the island, and a larger number on the opposite or Narragansett shore. At that time Newport possessed attractions, as a rich centre of foreign and domestic trade, different from those of the fashionable watering-place it has now become. Its early wealth may be explained by several causes. The salubrity of the climate drew strangers from the Continent and from the West Indies ; its harbour gave security, near the open ocean ; and the spirit of religious toleration which reigned in the Island made it then in America what Holland was in Europe in the end of the seventeenth century. This little State was colonized by Roger Williams in 1636. Its society was constituted in a way unlike the surrounding com- munities; for religious freedom was granted here while it was unknown in every other State in America. Religionists from all the Colonies betook themselves to this city of refuge. Jews and Quakers, persecuted elsewhere, flourished in Newport in peace. The island was crowded with religious refugees, who professed often the most fantastic beliefs. An unusual independence of in- dividual opinion prevailed, and indeed prevails there at the present day. At the time of Berkeley's arrival, the population of Newport was, accordingly, a motley one. The slave trade brought negroes to the place. The white inhabitants were of many religious sects — Quakers, Moravians, Jews, Episcopalians, Congregationalists, Presbyterians, sixth principle and seventh principle Baptists, and as many others besides 3 . There was a large merchant population. 3 ' In one thing the different sectaries at Newport, both men and women, all agreed — in a rage for finery, to the great amuse- ment of Berkeley's two learned, elegant friends, Sir John James and Richard Dalton. Esq. ; the men in flaming scarlet coats and waistcoats, laced and fringed with brightest glaring yellow. The sly Quakers, not ven- turing on these charming coats and waist- coats, yet loving finery, figured away with 158 Life and Letters of Berkeley, [ch. and a fleet of merchant ships, some employed in the whale fishery, and others in commerce with the West Indies. In the interior of this verdant Island, and also on the Narra- gansett shore, lived a pastoral population. In their snug wooden farm-houses there was plenty and good cheer in summer and in winter. The slaves and the Indians worked for the farmers at hay harvest and in the sheep-fold. A landed aristocracy was inter- spersed among the sheep and cattle farmers. The country was remarkable in those days for its frank and generous hospitality. Travellers were entertained as guests, and inns were rare ; New- port contained only one or two in 1720. The society, for so remote a region, was intelligent and well-informed. The landed gentlemen took good care of the education of their children. Private tutors were employed by some, and others were taken to be educated in the houses of the missionaries. The girls were sent to Boston for their education. The family libraries and pictures which still remain show the taste and culture of the gentlemen of the island and of Narragansett even in those early times — the Updikes, Hazards 4 , Potters, Browns, and Stantons. Smibert, Berkeley's artist friend, soon found employment. Some of his portraits still adorn the houses of the country. The Rhode Island aristocracy of Berkeley's time maintained the character of the old English country gentlemen from whom they were descended. A state of society supported by slavery produced festivity. Tradition records the genial life of those days in the colony. Excursions to Hartford to luxuriate on bloated salmon were annual indulgences in May. Pace races on the beach for silver tankards were the social indulgences of summer. When plate on their sideboards. One, to the no small diversion of Berkeley, sent to England, and had made on purpose, a noble large tea- pot of solid gold, and inquired of the Dean, when drinking tea with him, whether Friend Berkeley had ever seen such a " curious thing." On being told that silver ones were much in use in England, but that he had never seen a gold one, Ebenezer replied : — " Aye, that was the thing ; I was resolved to have something finer than anybody else. They say that the Queen [Caroline] has not got one." The Dean delighted his ridicu- lous host by assuring him that his was an unique ; and very happy it made him.' (Preface to Monck Berkeley, p ccccliv.) Jews as well as Quakers were then prominent in Newport. President Stiles, some years after this, loved to walk on the Parade there with the Jewish Rabbies, learning from them the mysteries of the Cabbala. See Dr. Park's Memoir of Hopkins, p. 84. 4 The name of Hazard associates Rhode Island with philosophy at the present day, — in the person of Rowland G. Hazard, of Peacedale, near Newport, whose acute trea- tises on the Will ( 1 864), and on Causation (1869), are known on both sides of the Atlantic, and to whose kindness I am in- debted for information about Berkeley's home in his native island. v.] A Recluse in Rhode Island. •59 autumn arrived, there were harvest-home festivities. Large numbers of both sexes gathered on those occasions. Gentlemen in their scarlet coats and swords, with laced ruffles over their hands, silk stockings, and shoes ornamented with silver buckles, and ladies dressed in brocade, with high-heeled shoes and high head-dresses. These festivities would sometimes continue for days, and they were shared by the slaves as well as their masters. Christmas was the great festival of the year: twelve days were then given to hospitalities. The wedding, too, was a great gala in the olden time. And the fox chase, with hounds and horns, as well as fishing and fowling, were favourite sports in Narragansett 5 . Berkeley and his wife seem to have lived in the town of Newport fo' the first five or six months after their arrival. Mr. Honeyman, the missionary of the English Society, had been placed there, in Trinity Church, in 1704. This was the earliest episcopal mission in that part of America. The church, which was finished a few years before Berkeley's arrival, is still a conspicuous object from Newport harbour. He preached in it three days after his arrival, and often afterwards during his stay in the island 6 . We have a slight picture of him as he appeared in Trinity Church, given by Colonel Updike's 7 son Ludowick, who used to say that when a boy his father often took him to hear Berkeley preach. Like all really learned men, he was tolerant in religious opinion, which gave him a great and deserved popularity with all de- 5 It may be interesting to record the names of some of the old families who were living this pleasant rural life when Berkeley was in Rhode Island. ' Among them,' says Updike, 'were Dr. Badcock, Colonel Stanton, Colonel Champlin, the two Gov. Hazards, Gov. Robinson, Col. Potter, Judge Potter, the Gardniers, Col. Willet, Elisha Cole, John and Edward Cole, Judge Holme, Col. Up- dike, Matthew Robinson, Col Brown, Dr. M'Sparran, and Dr. Fayerweather. They received frequent visits from others in Boston. These constituted a bright, intel- lectual, and fascinating society. Great sociality and interchange of visits prevailed among them, and strangers were welcome, and treated with old-fashioned urbanity and hospitality ; but the political acrimony, strife, and discord engendered by the Revolution broke up and destroyed their previously existing intercourse, and harmonious rela- tions were never restored. By that event we became another and a new people.' (p. 187.) 6 The Berkeley Papers contain skeleton notes of sermons preached in Trinity Church, Newport, and in the Narragansett country, printed in another part of this volume. They were for the most part preached in 1729, one or two in 1730. 7 Colonel Upside was Attorney-General of the Colony for twenty-four years. He was an intimate friend of Berkeley, who presented to him, on his departure from Rhode Island, a silver coffee-pot, which re- mains as an heirloom in the Updike family. 160 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. nominations. All sects, it seems, rushed to hear him ; even the Quakers with their broad-brimmed hats came and stood in the aisles. Updike reports that Berkeley in one of his sermons very emphatically said — c Give the devil his due, John Calvin was a great man 8 / Three months after his arrival at Newport, Berkeley describes his new experience in the following letter to Prior : — Newport, in Rhode Island, April 24, 1729. Dear Tom, I can by this time say something to you, from my own experience, of this place and people. The inhabitants are of a mixed kind, consisting of many sorts and sub- divisions of sects. Here are four sorts of Anabaptists, besides Presby- terians, Quakers, Independents, and many of no profession at all. Notwithstanding so many differences, here are fewer quarrels about religion than elsewhere, the people living peaceably with their neighbours, of whatever profession. They all agree in one point, that the Church of England is the second best. The climate is like that of Italy, and not at all colder in the winter than I have known it every where north of Rome. The spring is late ; but, to make amends, they assure me the autumns are the finest and longest in the world, and the summers are much pleasanter than those of Italy by all accounts, forasmuch as the grass con- tinues green, which it doth not there. This island is pleasantly laid out in hills and vales and rising grounds ; hath plenty of excellent springs and fine rivulets, and many delightful landscapes of rocks and promon- tories and adjacent islands. The provisions are very good ; so are the fruits, which are quite neglected, tho' vines sprout up of themselves to an extraordinary size, and seem as natural to this soil as to any I ever saw. The town of Newport contains about six thousand souls, and is the most thriving flourishing place in all America for its bigness. It is very pretty and pleasantly situated. I was never more agreeably surprised than at the sight of the town and its harbour. I could give you some hints that may be of use to you if you were disposed to take advice ; but of all men in the world, I never found encouragement to give you any. By this opportunity I have drawn on Messrs. Wogan and Aspinwall for ninety-seven pounds, and shall soon draw for about five hundred pounds more. I depend on your taking care that my bills be duly 8 Memoirs of the Rhode Island Bar, p. 34. v.] A Recluse in Rhode Island. 1 6 1 paid. I hope you have well concerted that matter with Swift and Com- pany, as I desired you. My draughts shall always be within my income ; and if at any time they should be made before payment thereof into their hands, I will pay interest. I doubt not you keep my farmers punctual. I have heard nothing from you or any of my friends in England or Ireland, which makes me suspect my letters were in one of the vessels that wreck'd. I write in great haste, and have no time to say a word to my brother Robin. Let him know we are in good health. Once more take care that my draughts are duly honoured (which is of the greatest importance to my credit here); and if I can serve you in these parts, you may command your affectionate humble servant, GEOR. BERKELEY. Send the date of my accounts and affairs, directed and enclosed to Thomas Corbet, Esq., at the Admiralty Office in London. Direct all your letters the same way. I long to hear from you. In the spring of 1729, accompanied by his friends Smibert and Colonel Updike, he visited the Rev. James M c Sparran 9 , the mis- sionary minister of St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Narragansett, whose America Dissected bears traces of an acute and vigorous mind. Smibert's portraits of the good missionary and his wife remain as memorials of this visit. It gave Berkeley an oppor- tunity of visiting the Indians in their huts and encampments. At least one of his manuscript sermons is marked as having been c preached in the Narragansett country.' We learn, on Mrs. Berkeley's authority, that c when the season and his health permitted, he visited the Continent [of America], not only in its outward skirts, but penetrated far into its recesses. The same generous desire of advancing the best interests of mankind which 9 I quote the following from Duyckinck's Cyclopcedia of American Literature: — ' The Rev. James M'Sparran of St. Paul's Church, Narragansett, wis one of the pioneer band of English clergymen whose influence is often to be noticed in cementing the founda- tions o'f American progress. His family was from the north of Ireland, having emigrated from Scotland. He had a good classical education, and came a missionary to Narra- gansett, in the State of Rhode Island, from the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, in 1 721. The next year he married Miss Harriet Gardner, a lady of the place. He was intimate with Berkeley during the residence of the Dean at Newport. In 1736, he visited England, and returned with the title of Doctor of Divinity from Glasgow In 1752. he wrote an historical tract of merit — America Dissected, which was printed at Dublin in 1753 It was his intention to publish an extended history of the Colonies, espe- cially of New England He died at his house, in South Kingstown, December I, 1757, having sustained manfully a career of many difficulties.' (pp. 143 — 44.) VOL. IV. M l62 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. induced him to cross the Atlantic did uniformly actuate him whilst America was the scene of his ministry/ c Dean Berkeley,' says Updike, c repeatedly visited Narragansett, accompanied by Smibert, Col. Updike, and Dr. M c Sparran, to examine into the condition and character of the Narragansett Indians 10 . 5 It is not to be supposed, however, that Berkeley travelled extensively in America. His knowledge of that country from personal observation was limited to a narrow region. We find no traces of him to the south or west of Rhode Island, in the direction of Newhaven and Stratford, or on the Connecticut river. And we have the almost contemporaneous testimony of the Rev. Noah Hobart. c Tis true, 5 this gentleman says n , c that Berkeley resided in Rhode Island for some time, but whether he was per- sonally acquainted with any number of our most eminent ministers I confess I do not know. In the general, it is well enough known that this c great and good man,' as Mr. Beech very justly styles him, partly through indisposition, and partly through a close application to his beloved studies, lived a very retired life while in this country. He saw very little of New England, was hardly ever off Rhode Island, never in Connecticut, nor in Boston till he went there to take his passage to London.' The following letter to Prior was written while Berkeley was living in the town of Newport : — Newport in Rhode Island, June 12, 1729. Dear Tom, Being informed that an inhabitant of this country is on the point of going for Ireland, I would not omit writing to you, and acquainting you that I received two of yours, dated September 23 and December 21, wherein you repeat what you formerly told me about Finney's legacy. The case of Marshall's death I had not before considered. I leave it to you to act in this matter for me as you would for yourself if it was your own case. I depend on your diligence about finishing what remains to be done, and your punctuality in seeing my money duly paid in to Swift and Company, and sending me accounts thereof. If you have any service to be done in these parts, or if you would l ' See Biog. Brit. vol. III. — 4 Addenda ;' 11 Second Address to the Members of the and Updike, pp. 176, 523. Episcopal Separation, Boston, 1751. v.] A Recluse in Rhode Island. know any particulars, you need only send me the questions, and direct me how I may be serviceable to you. The winter, it must be allowed, was much sharper than the usual winters in Ireland, but not at all sharper than I have known them in Italy. To make amends, the sum- mer is exceedingly delightful ; and if the spring begins late, the autumn ends proportionably later than with you, and is said to be the finest in the world. I snatch this moment to write ; and have time only to add, that I have got a son, who, I thank God, is likely to live. My wife joins with me in her service to you. I am, dear Tom, your affectionate humble servant, G. BERKELEY. I find it hath been reported in Ireland that we propose settling here. I must desire you to discountenance any such report. The truth is, if the King's bounty were paid in, and the charter could be removed hither, I should like it better than Bermuda : but if this were mentioned before the payment of said money, it may perhaps hinder it, and defeat all our designs. As to what you say of Hamilton's 12 proposal, I can only answer at present by a question, viz. Whether it be possible for me, in my absence, to be put in possession of the Deanery of Dromore ? Desire him to make that point clear, and you shall hear farther from me. This letter announces the birth of Berkeley's first child. The records of Trinity Church, Newport, contain the following rather curious relative information: — '1729, September i. Henry Berke- ley, son of Dean Berkeley, baptised by his father^ and received into the Church.' In the following extract from a letter written by Dr. Zachary Grey to Dr. Timothy Culter, formerly of Yale College, and now of Boston, we have a reference to Berkeley 13 : — Boston, New England, July 18, 1729. Dean Berkeley is at Rhode Island, honoured by the whole Church, and dissenters of all denominations. He will pass the next 12 Probably John Hamilton, Dean of Dromore. This adds to the difficulty about that deanery. 13 Nichols's Illustrations of Literature, vol. IV. p. 289. Dr. Grey was rector of Houghton Conquest in Bedfordshire. He corresponded for many years with Dr. Cutler at Boston. See Nichols's Lit. Anec. vol. II. p. 546. M 2 164 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. winter there ; and we promise ourselves he will use his interest to place his College in these parts, and this will be some compensation for the loss the Church has sustained as to Harvard College. We have other glimpses of Berkeley this summer. c Elder ' Corner, who at that time preached to a congregation of Baptists at Newport, left some manuscript diaries, which are preserved in the archives of the Rhode Island Historical Society, at Providence. In these, the following entry occurs: — c 1729, July 14. This day Mr. John Adams and I waited on Dean George Berkeley at his house. Kindly treated/ The following memorandum of the worthy c Elder ' is curious: — c From July 28 to August 7, 1729, the heat was so intense as to cause the death of many. Through the first nights in August, the lightnings were constant and amazing.' It was probably in this July or August of 1729, that Berkeley, with his wife and child, removed from Newport to the pleasant valley in the interior of the island, where he had bought a farm and built a house. His three friends, James, Dalton, and Smibert, soon afterwards went to live in Boston. Berkeley's farm was a tract of land of about ninety-six acres. He bought it from Captain John Anthony, a native of Wales, then a wealthy grazier in Rhode Island, whose daughter afterwards married Gilbert Stuart, father of the American artist w . It adjoined a farm which belonged to the missionary Honeyman, from whom Honeyman's Hill in the neighbourhood takes its name. In this sequestered spot Berkeley planned and built a commodious house. He named his island home Whitehall, in loyal remembrance of the Palace of the English kings from Henry VIII to James II. It was in the farm-house of Whitehall that, at the age of forty-four, he began domestic life, the father of a family. Till the autumn of 1729, he had lived in Trinity College, Dublin, in hired apart- ments in London, or in France and Italy — not at all, as it seems, domesticated at Dromore or Derry. He had now more oppor- tunity for meditative reading than almost since he left Dublin in 1713, and he had one to share his life whose sympathy was with Fenelon and mystic Quietism. 14 See Updike, p. 254. I have not been tions of the Hon. J. R. Bartlett, of Provi- able to get a copy of the original deed of dcnce. The Records at Newport were lost purchase, notwithstanding the kind cxer- or injured in the revolutionary war. v.] A Recluse in Rhode Island. I6 5 The house at Whitehall may still be seen, in its green valley, near a hill which commands a wide view of land and ocean and neighbouring islands. When asked why he built it in the valley, when he might have gratified his love of nature more if it had been placed on the high ground, Berkeley is said to have answered, with philosophic appreciation — c To enjoy what is to be seen from the hill, I must visit it only occasionally; if the prospect were constantly in view it would lose its charm/ The house stands a little off the road that runs eastward from New- port, about three miles from the town. The engraving here given is from drawings taken on the spot 15 . WHITEHALL, BERKELEY'S RESIDENCE IN RHODE ISLAND. 15 In a book entitled Travels through the Middle Settlements in North America in the years 1759 and 1 760, by Andrew Burnaby, M.A., Vicar of Greenwich, we have some account of Whitehall nearly thirty years after Berkeley left it. The following extract is interesting : — ' At Newport, about three miles from 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 strange stories of the Dean, 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 them, 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 pre- 1 66 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. No spot in that island can be dearer to the thinker or the philanthropist than the quiet vale in which Berkeley lived and studied for more than two years. The changes of a century and a half have left the place nearly as it was, though the house now bears marks of decay. It is built of wood. It has an architectural character of its own, different from the other farm-houses in the neighbourhood. Within, the ceilings are low, the cornices deep, and the fireplaces ornamented with quaint tiles. The house looks to the south. The south-west room was probably the library. The old orchard has mostly perished ; here and there aged apple-trees stand, whose gnarled trunks have resisted the winter storm. A few old cedars are near. The well from which Berkeley drank may be seen, with its old-fashioned apparatus for drawing water. Sheep and cattle still feed in the sunny pastures, and the sur- rounding meadows and corn-fields are well cultivated. A rivulet runs through a small ravine near the house. The ocean may be seen in the distance — -while the groves and wild rocks offer the diction, is at present nothing better than a farm-house, and his library is converted into the dairy.' A reviewer in the Gentleman s Magazine (vol. XLV. p. 133), who seems to be well informed, observes as follows upon this passage : — • Several mistakes in this strange story we have a particular pleasure in being able to correct, in justice to a man who, though extraordinary, was also excellent, and whose zeal, however unsuccessful, in the best of causes, entitles him to much better epithets than wild and chimerical. Far from pro- jecting a town, &c, the building, and the only building, which Dean Berkeley had planned, was a tea-room and a kitchen, not even a bed-chamber. For what he said to his designer (or rather painter), Smibert, a painter without imagination, as to the probable value of that ground, there is not the least foundation. Possibly the proprietor of it might conceive that there was some latent scheme in contemplation which might eventually increase the value ; and certain it is that, influenced by this notion, he de- manded a greater price than the Dean chose to give, and therefore declined the purchase Had Mr. Burnaby been so disposed, Rhode Island would have furnished him with some traits of Dean Berkeley as a philanthropist more pleasing and more true.' Lord and Lady Amberley visited White- hall in September, 1867 — more than a century after Mr. Burnaby. I extract the following sentences from a letter giving an account of the visit, with which I was favoured by Lady Amberley : — ' The house is built of wood, as they all are in this part of the country — white horizontal planks. Berkeley's parlour was a good sized square room, with four win- dows, and a large fireplace, with pretty, old- fashioned, painted tiles. His bedroom was above — a narrow massive staircase, with wooden bannisters, leading to it. There is an old orchard in front of the house, with pear-trees in it that were there in Berkeley's time. An old vine creeps over the house. . . . . A simple-minded woman, named Brown, who inhabits it, was surprised at our interest in every corner of the place From the house we went to what is called the Second Beach, nearly a mihe off, Berke- ley's chief resort, and where the rocks are known by the name of Paradise. The beach is sandy. The rocks stand back a little way from it. One gets to the foot of them across a brook, and through long tangled grass, full of beautifully coloured wild flowers. The alcove is a lonely spot, open only to the south, with a grand view of the ocean, and quite protected from rain and sun, and from all intruders — a capital study for any recluse.' v.] A Recluse in Rhode Island. 167 same shade, and silence, and solitude which soothed Berkeley in his recluse life. No solicitations of his friends in Boston could withdraw him from the quiet of this retreat, where he diverted his anxieties about Bermuda and the expected endowment by the ingenious and beautiful thoughts which are blended with subtle feeling and gleams of humour in the dialogues of Alclphron^ pub- lished after his return to England. This most popular of all his writings was the result of reading and meditation in Rhode Island. None of his previous works show so much learned re- search. We may infer from its pages that Berkeley must have had a considerable library within his reach at Whitehall. Alciphron is redolent of the fragrance of rural nature in Rhode Island, and of the invigorating breezes of its ocean shore. BERKELEY'S ALCOVE, RHODE ISLAND. Smith of Philadelphia, in his preface to the London edition of Johnson of Stratford's philosophical works, says that one day when visiting him Johnson took up the book, and reading some of Berkeley's rural descriptions, told him that they were copied from the charming landscapes in that delightful island, which 1 68 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. lay before him at the time he was writing. The tradition is that much of Alciphron was studied in the open air at a favourite retreat below a projecting rock, commanding a view of the beach and the ocean, with some shady elms not far off. The spot is still shown to visitors, and the chair in which Berkeley was ac- customed to sit in this natural alcove in the Hanging Rocks is still preserved with veneration 16 . We have pictures of Rhode Island in the book. The following pas- sage, for instance, describes the scenery round Whitehall 17 : — c After dinner we took our walk to Crito's, which lay through half a dozen pleasant fields, planted round with plane-trees, that are very com- mon in this part of the country. We walked under the delicious shade of these trees for about an hour before we came to Crito's house, which stands in the middle of a small park, beautified with two fine groves of oak and walnut, and a winding stream of sweet and clear water.' Here is a picture of the Second Beach and the Hanging Rocks 18 : — c Next morning Alciphron and Lysides said the weather was so fine they had a mind to spend the day abroad, and take a cold dinner under a shade in some pleasant part of the country. Whereupon, after breakfast, we went down to a beach about half a mile off^ where we walked on the smooth sand, with the ocean on the one hand, and on the other wild, broken rocks, intermixed with shady trees and springs of water, till the sun began to be uneasy. We then withdrew into a hollow glade between two rocks, where we seated ourselves.' The conversation in the fifth Dialogue is introduced by a picture of the town of Newport and Narragansett Bay as seen from Honeyman's Hill : — c We amused ourselves next day, every one to his fancy, till nine of the clock, when word was brought that the tea-table was set in the library, which is a gallery on a ground floor, with an arched door at one end opening into a walk of limes, where, as soon as we had drank tea, we were tempted by fine weather to take a walk which led to a small mount of easy ascent, on the top whereof we found a seat under a spreading tree. Here we had a prospect, on the one hand of a 16 Dr. Coit in a letter says, — ' Through my grandfather, the chair in which Dean Berkeley used to sit at Newport has de- scended to me, and is still in good preserva- tion. It is the one in which he is believed to have composed his Minute Philosopher." 1 An engraving of the chair is given by Updike, p. 306. It was here, according to Updike, that he wrote his celebrated verses — so oracular as to the future destiny of America. Cf. note 15. 17 Dial. I. sect. I. 18 Dial. II. sect. 1. v.] A Recluse in Rhode Island. 169 narrow bay or creek of the sea, enclosed on either side by coast beautified with rocks and woods, and green banks and farm-houses. At the end of the bay was a small town, placed upon the slope of a hill, which, from the advantage of its situation, made a consider- able figure. Several fishing-boats and lighters gliding up and down, on a surface as smooth and as bright as glass, enlivened the prospect. On the other side, we looked down on green pastures, flocks and herds basking beneath in sunshine, while we, in our situation, enjoyed the freshness of air and shade. Here we felt the sort of joyful instinct which a rural scene and fine weather inspire; and proposed no small pleasure in resuming and con- tinuing our conference till dinner. 3 The spirited picture of a fox chase, which follows, represents what might be seen not in Eng- land only, but also in the Narragansett country. Though Berkeley loved chiefly domestic quiet at Whitehall, and the c still air of delightful studies, 5 he mixed occasionally in the society of Newport, with its clergymen, lawyers, and physicians, and its enterprising and liberal merchants. Some of them had been trained in European universities, and were attracted to the colony by its prosperity. Soon after he settled at Whitehall, he took an active share in forming a philosophical Society in New- port, where he found persons not unqualified to consider ques- tions v/hich had long occupied his thoughts, and who could see that his philosophical system implied no distrust of the senses, nor disregard of reason in the conduct of life. Among the members were Col. Updike, Judge Scott (a granduncle of Sir Walter Scott), Nathaniel Kay, Henry Collins, Nathan Townsend, the Rev. James Honeyman, and the Rev. Jeremiah Condy. John - son of Stratford and M c Sparran of Narragansett were occasional members. The Society seems to have been very successful. One of its objects was to collect books. It originated, in 1747, the Redwood Library, one of the most useful institutions in Newport at the present day 19 . Berkeley's house at Whitehall was a place of meeting for the missionaries of the surrounding country. c The missionaries 19 Berkeley corresponded in French with lived at Providence. (Updike, pp. 41-59.) Gabriel Bernon, an aged Huguenot refugee, The letters I have not been able to re- who emigrated to America in 1698, and cover. 1 70 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. from the English Society, who resided within a hundred miles of Newport/ according to the affectionate testimony of Mrs. Berkeley 20 , c agreed among themselves to hold a sort of Synod there, twice in a year, in order to enjoy the advantages of his advice and exhortation. Four of these meetings were accordingly held. One of the principal points which he then pressed upon his fellow-labourers was the absolute necessity of conciliating by all innocent means the affection of their hearers, and also of their dissenting neighbours. His own example indeed very eminently enforced his precepts ; for it is hardly possible to conceive a con- duct more uniformly kind, tender, beneficial, and liberal than his was. He seemed to have only one wish in his heart — that was to alleviate misery, and diffuse happiness.' In the delightful seclusion of this studious life, the recluse in Rhode Island was not forgotten by his friends in England. He continued to correspond with Prior at Dublin, and also with friends about Court in London, praying for a settlement of the Bermuda claims. The following letter from Dr. Benson 21 may have reached Whitehall in the autumn of 1729, and now throws some light upon Berkeley: — Dear Mr. Dean, It was great joy to me to hear from your own hand, what I had before heard from others, that you were safely arriv'd in Rhode Island, and that Rhode Island is so agreeable to you ; and I am the more pleas'd it is, as I find so little likelihood of the £20,000 being paid in order to remove you to Bermuda. I know how much it is your desire to be doing a great deal of good wherever you are, and I hope it is in your power to do it in some other place, if they will not permitt you to do it where you at first proposed. [I said] to Ld. Pembroke as a thought of my own whefther] they would give some part of the money if they [could not be] persuaded to pay in the whole. This he said it [would be danjgerous to propose, because the offering to accept [a part] might be interpreted by them the giving up a right [to the whole], and that such an offer should come from them and not from [your] Agents. The old Earl has been enquiring and ruminating?] much about these affairs, but with what intention, [or with] any or not I do not know. This I know, that if you do not take 20 Biog. Brit. vol. III. — 'Addenda.' Durham, and one of the king's chaplains. 21 Berkeley Papers. Benson was at this Seeker had married his sister, time archdeacon of Berks, prebendary of v.] A Recluse in Rhode Island. 171 care to return an answer to the Query I sent you enclosed in my former letter to you (which I hope came safe to your hands), you will be as much out of the good graces of the Earl as you are in them now. I have not been wanting to say everything wh. I thought might be proper in order to promote, and to be silent about everything which I feared might prejudice your good designs. As the Master of the Rolls 22 seems very well affected towards you, I have [talked] a good deal with him, but as he told me the affair of [Rhode Is] land would be brought before the Parliament, I have [been very] cautious since in dropping anything of any . . . settling within yt. Government. So great is the [prejudice of?] some men, that a certain wise gentleman told [me he was] persuaded that you acted in concert with the [men of] New England, and was fomenting the opposition [there] to settling a salary on the Governour. And so [ ] interestedness of others, that the good example they hear your Lady is setting of beginning a manufacture which herself will wear, they look upon as a dangerous precedent, and what may prove in time prejudicial to the manufactures of England. Thus you see your company and your designs are not inconsiderable in the eyes of the world. I acquainted you in my other letter that there is a likelihood of Dr. Clayton's being made a Bp. in Ireland, and by this means of that being realy compass'd by his mea[ns] which you projected in relation to another person. The [Clerk?] of the Council, to shew you that the highest honours cannot secure men from sickness and human infirmities, [is] so mortified by a very severe fit of Rheumatism, and he is so much humbled that he actually was] sworn in my Official of the Archdeaconry of Berks, [I have no] private news to write you, and I wish I could send any publick that is good, but those wise heads which [might be our de] fence against evils which might arise from your going to Bermuda have not been [aware of those ?] which were before their eyes, and which we are now so [much in danjger of feeling that war is ready everywhere. I am going to Durham in a few days, and propose to [stay there] some months. My Brother Seeker, Dr. Rundle 23 , &c. are there. I [am] much delighted to hear of your health. I am desir'd from Ld. Pomfret, the Bp. of Durham 2 \ and many other places and persons, to make their compliments to you, and I desire you to make mine to James, Dicky 25 , and Smibert, and to the ladies too, for I look [on them as] my acquaint- ance. As Dicky is my vassal, my r[egal privileges] will extend to all his 22 Sir Joseph Jekyll, to whom Butler's 23 Dr. Rundle was then a prebendary at Sermons are dedicated. He was Master of Durham, the Rolls 1 7 1 7— 1 738. 21 Bishop Talbot. 25 Richard Dalton. 1 72 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. possessions however far he flies from me, and therefore [I consider myself] a party concerned in the title he is making out to his new purchase. Dear Mr. Dean, I have nothing more to add at present, than wishing health to yourselves and prosperity to all your designs. You need, you can say nothing more to recommend Rhode Island and make me wish myself there, than that you are there and the good company with you. I am, Dear Mr. Dean, With the greatest esteem and truest affection, Your most sincere and faithful friend and servant, M. B. London, June 23, 1729. Sir John 26 has a project for propagating a race of blacks in Europe, which I suppose he has communicated to you. And here is a letter from Berkeley to Prior, which contains a pleasant family picture : — Rhode Island, March 9, 1730. Dear Tom, My situation hath been so uncertain, and is like to continue so till I am clear about the receipt of his Majesty's bounty, and, in consequence thereof, of the determination of my associates, that you are not to wonder at my having given no categorical answer to the proposal you made in relation to Hamilton's Deanery, which his death hath put an end to 27 . If I had returned, I should perhaps have been under some temptation to have changed ; but as my design still continues to wait the event, and go to Bermuda as soon as I can get associates and money (which my friends are now soliciting in London), I shall in such case persist in my first resolution of not holding any Deanery beyond the limited time. I long to hear what success you have had in the law-suit. Your account of the income of the Deanery last paid in is come to my hands. I remember that one of Mrs. Van Homrigh's creditors (I think a stay- maker) was in France, and so missed of payment. I should be glad you could find some way of paying him, and any others if you find anything Sir John Rawdon (?). died in 1729. See Cotton's Fasti, vol. III. John Hamilton, Dean of Dromore, p. 293. Cf. note, p. 163. v.] A Recluse in Rhode Island. 173 still due, even during the minorities of the young ladies, if in books of account charged to their credit. I suppose Mr. Marshall will agree to this ; but whether he doth or no, I think it should be done. I do there- fore leave that matter to be fully accomplished by you as you can find opportunity, as perhaps some affair might call you to London, or you may have some friend there : for, in the hurry of things, I should be sorry to have overlooked any, or that any should suffer who should make out their pretensions since. I now call to mind that for this reason I with- held that forty pounds which was paid Mr. Marshall when I was in Dublin ; but this was then out of my thoughts, or I should not have ordered the payment thereof. I agree to what you propose about paying Finey's son, since it is agreeable to Mr. Marshall. I live here upon land that I have purchased, and in a farm-house that I have built in this island. It is fit for cows and sheep, and may be of good use for supplying our College at Bermuda. Among my delays and disappointments, I thank God I have two domestic comforts that are very agreeable, my wife and my little son ; both which exceed my expectations, and fully answer all my wishes. My wife gives her service to you ; and, at her request, I must desire you to pay, on my account, two guineas yearly to her brother's wife 28 , towards the support of a young girl, child of my wife's nurse. The girl's name is Betty Smith. Mrs. Forster lives in Henry-street. As this is a piece of charity, I am sure you will not neglect it. I must also desire that out of the next payment made by M'Manus, you give one hundred pounds to brother Robin, to be disposed of by him as I have directed, in pursuance of a letter I had from him ; and that the rest be paid in to Swift and Company. Mr. James, Dalton, and Smibert, &c, are at Boston, and have been there for several months. My wife and I abide by Rhode Island, pre- ferring quiet and solitude to the noise of a great town, notwithstanding all the solicitations that have been used to draw us thither. No more at present but that I am, dear Tom, your affectionate humble servant, GEOR. BERKELEY. As to what you ask about my companions, they are all at Boston, and have been there these four months, preferring that noisy town to this peaceful retreat which my wife and I enjoy in Rhode Island. Being in a hurry, I have writ the same thing twice. I have desired M'Manus, in a letter to Dr. Ward, to allow twenty Mrs. Berkeley's brother George married a daughter of Sir Abraham Elton, Bart. I 74 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. pounds per annum for me, towards the poor-house now on foot for clergymen's widows, in the diocese of Derry. Soon after his arrival at Newport, Berkeley was visited by the Reverend Samuel Johnson, the episcopal missionary at Stratford, one of the most learned scholars and acute thinkers of his time in America 29 . His name must always be associated with Berkeley's. Mr. Johnson was then about thirty years of age. He was born at Guildford in Connecticut. His father and grandfather were deacons in the Congregational Church of that town, Congrega- tionalism being the form of ecclesiastical polity established in the New England colonies. He graduated at Yale College in 1714, and was a tutor there from 1 716 till 17 19. He also officiated as pastor at Westhaven. By reading the works of eminent Anglican divines, and after many conferences among themselves, Cutler, then Rector of Yale College, Johnson, and some other ministers, were led, about 1722, to doubt the validity of Presbyterian ordination, and the expediency of extempore common- prayer. They soon announced their new convictions, and cast in their lot with the Church of Hooker, Cudworth, and Barrow. The Church of England had at that time hardly any existence in Con- necticut. Cutler, Johnson, and Brown now resigned their offices in the College, and their pastoral charges in the neighbourhood, in order to connect themselves with its communion. In 1722, they crossed the ocean, to obtain episcopal ordination in England. They were welcomed by the ecclesiastical dignitaries and at the two Universities. Johnson is said to have visited Pope at his villa, who gave him cuttings from his Twickenham willow. These he carried from the banks of the Thames, and planted on the wilder banks of his own beautiful river at Stratford in Connecticut, when he was settled there in November 1723. The Principles of Human Knowledge had early fallen into Johnson's hands, and he had in consequence formed a high notion of Berkeley's philosophical genius and aims. He hastened to wait upon him as soon as he heard of his arrival in Rhode Island. A correspondence and a succession of visits followed. It docs not 2!) See Dr. Chandler's Life of Samuel memoir, by Dr. Beardsley of Newhaven, Johnson, D.D., published in America early may be looked for. in the present century. A more satisfactory v.] A Recluse in Rhode Island. 175 appear that Berkeley ever went to Stratford, but Johnson more than once visited Whitehall, and had philosophical and theological diffi- culties removed by a more original and experienced mind, He was a convert to the New Principle, which he regarded, when rightly understood, as the true philosophical support of faith. The denial of the absolute existence of Matter, a whimsical paradox to the superficial thinker, he found to mean nothing more than a denial of an inconceivable substratum of sensible phenomena. The affir- mation of the merely relative existence of sensible things was to him the affirmation of orderly combinations of sensible pheno- mena, in which our corporeal pains and pleasures were determined by Divine Ideas that are the archetypes of physical existence. This conception of the universe, habitually kept before him, seemed to Johnson more apt than any other system to harmonize with our individual dependence on the Supreme Mind or Will, perpetually present and perpetually active. In his own works he adopted and applied this philosophy, with a force and clearness which entitle \ him to an eminent place among the thinkers of America 30 . 30 More than twenty years after this, in 1752, a volume entitled Elementa Philo- sophica, written by Johnson, was printed by Benjamin Franklin, at Philadelphia. It consists of two treatises — Noetica, or Things relating to the Mind or Understanding; and Ethica, or Things relating to the Moral Behaviour. The volume is dedicated to Berkeley. It is extremely rare, unknown in this country, and hardly to be found in America : I am indebted for the use of a copy to the kindness of Mr. Sibley, the librarian of Harvard College. I make no apology for giving the follow- ing extracts from the Noetica, illustrative of Johnson's intellectual relations to Ber- keley : — ' The word Mind or Spirit signifies any intelligent active being; which notion we take from what we are conscious of in our- selves. . . . And by reasoning and analogy from ourselves, we apply it to all other minds or intelligences besides or superior to us ; and (removing all limitations and imper- fections) we apply it even to that Great Supreme Intelligence, who is the universal Parent of all created spirits, and (so far as our words or conceptions can go) may be defined, an Infinite Mind or Spirit.' (p. 2.) ' The immediate object of our perceptions and actions we call ideas ; as this word has been commonly used by the moderns, with whom it signifies any immediate object of the mind in thinking, whether sensible or intellectual, and so is in effect synonymous with the word thought, which comprehends both. Plato, indeed, by the word Idea understood the original exemplar of things, whether sensible or intellectual, in the Eternal Mind, con- formable to which all things exist; or the abstract essences of things, as being Origi- nals or Archetypes in that Infinite Intellect, of which our ideas or conceptions are a kind of copies. But perhaps it may be best to confine the word idea to the immediate objects of sense and imagination ; and to use the word notion or conception to signify the objects of consciousness or pure intellect — though both of them may be expressed by the general term thought.' (p. 3.) ' These ideas, or objects of sense, are commonly supposed to be pictures or representations of things without us, and indeed external to any mind, even that of the Deity Himself; and the truth or reality of them is conceived to consist in their being exact pictures of things or objects without us, which are supposed to be the real things. But, as it is impossible for us to conceive what is without our minds, and consequently what those supposed originals are, and whether these ideas of ours are just resemblances of them or not, I am afraid 176 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. It is a great pity that most of Berkeley's many letters to Johnson have been lost, as some fragments which have been preserved are of more interest to the metaphysician than any others in his correspondence. I am indebted to Mr. Gilman, of Yale College, for the following, one of the few that have been rescued : — Reverend Sir, Yours of Feb. 5th came not to my hands before yesterday ; and this afternoon, being informed that a sloop is ready to sail towards your town, I would not let slip the opportunity of returning you an answer, though wrote in a hurry. 1. I have no objection against calling the Ideas in the mind of God archetypes of ours. But I object against those archetypes by philosophers supposed to be real things, and to have an absolute rational existence distinct from their being perceived by any mind whatsoever ; it being the this notion of them will lead us into an in- extricable scepticism. I am therefore apt to think that these ideas, or immediate ob- jects of sense, are the real things ; at least, all that we are concerned with — I mean of the sensible kind ; and that the reality of them consists in their stability or consistence, and their being, in a stable manner, exhibited to our minds, or produced in them, in a steady connexion with each other, con- formable to certain fixed laws of nature, which the great Father of Spirits hath established to Himself, according to which He constantly affects our minds, and from which He will not vary, unless upon extra- ordinary occasions, as in the case of miracles. Thus, for instance, there is a fixed, stable connexion between things tangible and things visible or the immediate objects of touch and sight, — depending, as I conceive, immediately upon the permanent, most wise and almighty will of the great Creator and Preserver of the world. By this, however, it is not meant that visible objects are pictures of tangible objects, for they are entirely different and distinct things ; as different as the sound triangle, and the figures signified by it. All that can be meant by it there- fore is, that, as tangible things are the things immediately capable of producing (or rather being attended with) sensible pleasure and pain in us, according to the present laws of our nature, on account of which they are conceived as being properly the real things ; so, the immediate objects of sight are always, by the same stable law of our nature, con- nected with them, as signs of them, and ever correspondent and proportioned to them. . . . Not that it is to be doubted that there are Archetypes of these sensible ideas, but existing external to our minds ; but then they must exist in some other mind, and be ideas also as well as ours ; because an idea can resem- ble nothing but an idea, and an idea ever implies, in the very nature of it, relation to a mind perceiving it, or in which it exists. But then, those Archetypes or Originals, and the manner of their existence in that Eternal Mind, must be entirely different from that of their existence in our minds ; as different as the manner of His existence is from ours. In Him, they must exist as in Original Intellect ; in us, only by way of Sense and Imagination ; in Him as Originals, in us only as faint copies ; such as He thinks fit to communicate to us, according to such laws and limitations as He hath established, and such as are sufficient to all the purposes of our wellbeing, in which only we are con- cerned. Our ideas, therefore, can no other- wise be said to be images or copies of their Archetypes in the Eternal Mind, than as our souls are said to be images of Him, or as we are said to be made after His image.' (3 — 9.) The part of the Noetica which deals with the pure Intellect and its notions, and with intuitive Intellectual Light, is more akin to Plato and Malebranche, and even Kant, than to Berkeley's early philosophical works. \\] A Recluse in Rhode Island. 177 opinion of all Materialists that an ideal existence in the Divine Mind is one thing, and the real existence of material things another. 2. As to Space. I have no notion of any but that which is relative. I know some late philosophers have attributed extension to God, par- ticularly mathematicians, one of whom, in a treatise De Spatio Reali* 1 , pretends to find out fifteen of the incommunicable attributes of God in Space. But it seems to me that they all being negative, he might as well have found them in Nothing. And that it would have been as justly inferred from Space being impassive, uncreated, indivisible, &c, that it was Nothing as that it was God. Sir Isaac Newton supposeth an absolute Space, different from relative, and consequent thereto ; absolute Motion different from relative motion ; and with all other mathematicians he supposeth the infinite divisibility of the finite parts of this absolute Space ; he also supposeth material bodies to drift therein. Now, though I do acknowledge Sir Isaac to have been an extraordinary man, and most profound mathematician, yet I cannot agree with him in these particulars. I make no scruple to use the word Space, as well as all other words in common use ; but I do not thereby mean a distinct absolute being. For my meaning I refer you to what I have published. By the * * * I suppose that all things, past and to come, are actually present to the mind of God, and that there is in Him no change, varia- tion, or succession. A succession of ideas I take to constitute Time, and not to be only the sensible measure thereof, as Mr. Locke and others think. But in these matters every man is to think for himself, and speak as he finds. One of my earliest inquiries was about Time, which led me into several paradoxes, that I did not think fit or necessary to publish ; particularly the notion that the Resurrection follows the next moment to death. We are confounded and perplexed about Time, — (1) Supposing a succession in God; (2) conceiving that we have an abstract idea of Time; (3) supposing that the Time in one mind is to be measured by the succession of ideas in another; (4) not considering the true use and end of words, which as often terminate in the will 82 as in the under- standing. 3. That the soul of man is passive as well as active, I make no doubt. Abstract general ideas was a notion that Mr. Locke held in common with the schoolmen, and I think all other philosophers ; it runs through his whole book of Human Understanding, He holds an abstract idea of 31 De Spacio Reali, sen ente Infinilo : elsewhere a doctrine regarding mysteries is Cnnamen Math. Metaph. (1706). proposed that is not unlike Kant's regulative w S-;e Alcipbrnn, Dial. VII., where and ideas of reason, and practical postulates. VOL. IV. N 1 78 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. Existence, exclusive of perceiving and being perceived. I cannot find I have any such idea, and this is my reason against it. Des Cartes proceeds upon other principles. One square foot of snow is as white as a thousand yards ; one single perception is as truly a perception as one hundred. Now, any degree of perception being sufficient to Existence, it will not follow that we should say one existed more at one time than another, any more than we should say a thousand yards of snow are whiter than one yard. But, after all, this comes to a verbal dispute. I think it might prevent a good deal of obscurity and dispute to examine well what I have said about abstraction, and about the true sense and significance of words, in several parts of these things that I have published 33 , though much remains to be said upon that subject. You say you agree with me that there is nothing within your mind but God and other spirits, with the attributes or properties belonging to them, and the ideas contained in them. This is a principle or main point, from which, and from what I had laid down about abstract ideas, much may be deduced. But if in every inference we should not agree, so long as the main points are settled and well understood, I should be less solicitous about particular conjectures. I could wish that all the things I have published on these philosophical subjects were read in the order wherein I published them, and a second time with a critical eye, adding your own thought and observation upon every part as you went along. I send you herewith the bound books and one unbound. You will take yourself what you have not already — you will give the Principles, the Theory, and the Dialogues, one of each, with my service, to the gen- tleman who is Fellow of Newhaven College, whose compliments you brought to me. What remains you will give as you please. If at any time your affairs should draw you into these parts, you shall be very welcome to pass as many days as you can spend at my house. Four or five days' conversation would set several things in a fuller and clearer light than writing could do in as many months. In the mean- time, I shall be glad to hear from you or your friends, whenever you please to favour, Reverend Sir, Your very humble servant, GEORGE BERKELEY. 33 See, in particular, the Introduction to Appendix to the first volume of this edition' the Principles of Human Knotuledge ; also of Berkeley's Works. v.] A Recluse in Rhode Island, 179 Pray let me know whether they would admit the writings of Hooker and Chillingworth into the Library of the College in Newhaven 34 . Rhode Island, March 24, 1730. The following fragment of a letter to Johnson, without date, but probably written about this time, is contained in the Appendix to Chandler's Life of Johnson : — ... It is a common fault for men to hate opposition, and to be too much wedded to their own opinions. I am so sensible of this in others that I could not pardon it to myself, if I considered mine any further than they seem to me to be true ; which I shall be the better able to judge of, when they have passed the scrutiny of persons so well qualified to examine them as you and your friends appear to be ; to whom my illness 35 must be an apology for not sending this answer sooner. 1. The true use and end of Natural Philosophy is to explain the phe- nomena of nature, which is done by discovering the laws of nature, and reducing particular appearances to them. This is Sir Isaac Newton's method ; and such method or design is not in the least inconsistent with the principles I lay down. This mechanical philosophy doth not assign or suppose any one natural efficient cause in the strict and proper sense; nor is it, as to its use, concerned about matter ; nor is matter connected therewith; nor doth it infer the being of matter. It must be owned, indeed, that the mechanical philosophers do suppose (though unneces- sarily) the being of matter. They do even pretend to demonstrate that matter is proportional to gravity, which, if they could, this indeed would furnish an unanswerable objection. But let us examine their demon- stration. It is laid down in the first place, that the momentum of any body is the product of its quantity by its velocity, moles in celeritatem ducta. If, therefore, the velocity is given, the momentum will be as its quantity. But it is observed that bodies of all kinds descend in vacuo with the same velocity ; therefore the momentum of descending bodies is as the quantity or moles, i. e. gravity is as matter. But this argument concludes nothing, and is a mere circle. For, I ask, when it is premised that the momentum is equal to the moles in celeritatem ducta, how the moles or quantity of matter is estimated. If you say, by extent, the pro- position is not true ; if by weight, then you suppose that the quantity of 34 He refers to a supposed Puritan pre- judice, which might have been strengthened by the withdrawal of Johnson and his friends from the Congregationalist com- N 2 munity, and its occasion. 35 This is the first of many references afterwards to bad health. 180 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch, matter is proportional to matter : i. e. the conclusion is taken for granted in one of the premises. As for absolute space and motion, which are also supposed without any necessity or use, I refer you to what I have already published ; particularly in a Latin treatise, De Motu, which I shall take care to send to you. 2. Cause is taken in different senses. A proper active efficient cause I can conceive none but Spirit ; nor any action, strictly speaking, but where there is Will. But this doth not hinder the allowing occasional causes (which are in truth but signs), and more is not requisite in the best physics, i. e. the mechanical philosophy. Neither doth it hinder the admitting other causes besides God ; such as spirits of different orders, which may be termed active causes, as acting indeed, though by limited and derivative powers. But as for an unthinking agent, no point of physics is explained by it, nor is it conceivable. 3. Those who have all along contended for a material world have yet acknowledged that natura naturans (to use the language of the schoolmen) is God ; and that the divine conservation of things is equi- pollent to, and, in fact, the same thing with a continued repeated creation : in a word, that conservation and creation differ only in the terminus a quo. These are the common opinions of the schoolmen ; and Durandus, who held the world to be a machine like a clock, made and put in motion by God, but afterwards continuing to go of itself, was therein particular, and had few followers. The very poets teach a doctrine not unlike the schools, — Mens agitat molem. (Virg. yEneid VI.) The Stoics and Platonists are everywhere full of the same notion. I am not therefore singular in this point itself, so much as in my way of proving it. Further, it seems to me that the power and wisdom of God are as worthily set forth by supposing him to act immediately as an omni- present infinitely active spirit, as by supposing him to act by the media- tion of subordinate causes, in preserving and governing the natural world. A clock may indeed go independent of its maker or artificer, inasmuch as the gravitation of its pendulum proceeds from another cause, and that the artificer is not the adequate cause of the clock ; so that the analogy would not be just to suppose a clock is in respect of its artist what the world is in respect of its Creator. For aught I can see, it is no disparagement to the perfections of God to say that all things necessarily depend on him as their Conservator as well as Creator, and that all nature would shrink to nothing, if not upheld and preserved in being by the same force that first created it. This I am sure is agree- able to Holy Scripture, as well as to. the writings of the most esteemed philosophers ; and if it is to be considered that men make use of tools v.] A Recluse in Rhode Island. 181 and machines to supply defect of power in themselves, we shall think it no honour to the divinity to attribute such things to him. 4. As to guilt, it is the same thing whether I kill a man with my hands or an instrument ; whether I do it myself or make use of a ruffian. The imputation therefore upon the sanctity of God is equal, whether we suppose our sensations to be produced immediately by God, or by the mediation of instruments and subordinate causes, all which are his creatures, and moved by his laws. This theological consideration, therefore, may be waved, as leading beside the question; for such I hold all points to be which bear equally hard on both sides of it. Difficulties about the principle of moral actions will cease, if we consider that all guilt is in the will, and that our ideas, from whatever cause they are produced, are alike inert. 5. As to the art and contrivance in the parts of animals, &c, I have considered that matter in the Principles of Human Knowledge™ \ and, if I mistake not, sufficiently shown the wisdom and use thereof, considered as signs and means of information. I do not indeed wonder that on first reading what I have written, men are not thoroughly convinced. On the contrary, I should very much wonder if prejudices, which have been many years taking root, should be extirpated in a few hours' reading. I had no inclination to trouble the world with large volumes. What I have done was rather with a view of giving hints to thinking men, who have leisure and curiosity to go to the bottom of things, and pursue them in their own minds. Two or three times reading these small tracts, and making what is read the occasion of thinking, would, I be- lieve, render the whole familiar and easy to the mind, and take off that shocking appearance which hath often been observed to attend specu- lative truths. 6. I see no difficulty in conceiving a change of state, such as is vulgarly called Death, as well without as with material substance- It is sufficient for that purpose that we allow sensible bodies, i. e. such as are immediately perceived by sight and touch ; the existence of which I am so far from questioning (as philosophers are used to do), that I establish it, I think, upon evident principles. Now, it seems very easy to conceive the soul to exist in a separate state (i. e. divested from those limits and laws of motion and perception with which she is embarrassed here), and to exercise herself on new ideas, without the intervention of these tangible things we call bodies. It is even very possible to ap- prehend how the soul may have ideas of colour without an eye, or of sounds without an ear See sect. 60 — 66. 1 82 Life and Letters of Berkeley, [ch. New England at this time possessed in Jonathan Edwards the most subtle reason er that America has produced, and what is not generally known, an able defender of Berkeley's great philoso- phical conception, in its application to the material world. Edwards was born in 1703, at Windsor in Connecticut, and he spent a youth of devout meditation there, and on the banks of the Hudson river. He was one of Johnson's pupils at Yale College, and when Berkeley was at Rhode Island, Edwards was a pastor at Northampton in Massachusetts. The wonderful power of subtle ratiocination, and the sublimely fervid if con- fined piety of this extraordinary man have left their mark upon successive generations of American theologians. His celebrated Inquiry Into the freedom of the Will did not appear till 1754; but it is in his earlier writings that he unfolds his views about the nature of sensible things. He does not name Berkeley, and it is not likely that they ever met 37 . 37 A few quotations from Jonathan Ed- wards may illustrate what I have said : — ' When we say that the world, i. e. the material universe, exists nowhere but in the mind, we have got to such a degree of strictness and abstraction that we must be exceedingly careful that we do not confound and lose ourselves by misapprehension. It is impossible that it should be meant that all the world is contained in the narrow compass of a few inches of space, in little ideas in the place of the brain ; for that would be a contradiction; for we are to remember that the human body, and the brain itself, exist only mentally, in the same sense that other things do ; and so that which we call place is an idea too. There- fore things are truly in those places ; for what we mean, when we say so, is only, that this mode of our idea of place apper- tains to such an idea. We would not there- fore be understood to deny that things are where they seem to be. Nor will it be found that the principles we lay down shall make void Natural Philosophy ; for to find out the reasons of things in Natural Philo- sophy is only to find out the proportion of God's acting. And the case is the same as to such acting whether we suppose the world only mental in our sense or no Place itself is only mental ; within and without are there mental conceptions. When I say, the Material Universe exists only in the mind, I mean, that it is absolutely dependent on the conception of the mind for its existence ; and does not exist as Spirits do, whose exist- ence does not consist in, nor in dependence on, the conceptions of other minds, we must be exceedingly careful lest we con- found ourselves by mere imagination. It is from hence I expect the greatest opposition. It will appear a ridiculous thing, I suppose, that the material world exists nowhere but in the soul of man, confined within his skull; but we must again remember what sort of existence the head and brain have. The soul, in a sense, has its seat in the brain ; and so, in a sense, the visible world is existent out of the mind ; for it certainly, in the proper sense, exists out of the brain Space is a necessary being, if it may be called a being ; and yet we have also shown, that all existence is mental, that the existence of all exterior things is ideal. Therefore it is a necessary being only as it is a necessary idea, &c.' See Memoirs of Jonathan Edwards, by Sereno E. Dwight — Appendix, ' Remarks in Mental Philosophy.' The conception which runs through these and other passages blends with much in the later theological writings of Edwards. But if he thus agrees with Berkeley in his ac- count of sensible things, they separate in their theory of causation and free-will. Free agency, which is involved in the Dual- ism of Berkeley, is argued against by Edwards, whose speculative theology or philosophy is hardly to be distinguished, from that of Spinoza. Berkeleism is essen- tially a philosophy of causation. v.] A Recluse in Rhode Island. 183 But we must return from philosophy to the enterprise which brought Berkeley to his seclusion in Rhode Island. The Bermuda prospect now begins to darken, even to his eye. There are gloomy symptoms in the following letters to Prior, in May and July, 1730 :— Dear Tom, Last week I received a packet from you by the way of Philadelphia, the postage whereof amounted to above four pounds of this country money. I thank you for the enclosed pamphlet 38 , which in the main I think very seasonable and useful. It seems to me, that in computing the sum-total of the loss by absentees, you have extended some articles beyond the due proportion ; e. g. when you charge the whole income of occasional ab- sentees in the third class : and that you have charged some articles twice ; e.g. when you make distinct articles for law-suits £9,000 and for attend- ance for employments £8,000, both which seem already charged in the third class. The tax you propose seems very reasonable, and I wish it may take effect, for the good of the kingdom, which will be obliged to you whenever it is brought about. That it would be the interest of England to allow a free trade to Ireland, I have been thoroughly con- vinced ever since my being in Italy, and have upon all occasions endeavoured to convince English gentlemen thereof, and have convinced some, both in and out of Parliament ; and I remember to have dis- coursed with you at large upon this subject when I was last in Ireland. Your hints for setting up new manufactures seem reasonable ; but the spirit of projecting is low in Ireland. Now, as to my own affair, I must tell you that I have no intention of continuing in these parts but in order to settle the College his Majesty hath been pleased to found at Bermuda ; and I wait only the payment of the king's grant to transport myself and family thither. I am now em- ploying the interest of my friends in England for that purpose ; and have wrote in the most pressing manner either to get the money paid, or at least to get a positive answer that may direct me what course I am to take. Dr. Clayton indeed hath wrote me word, that he hath been informed by a good friend of mine (who had it from a very great man), that the money will not be paid. But I cannot look upon a hearsay, at second or third hand, to be a proper answer for me to act upon. I have therefore suggested to the Doctor, that he ought to go himself with the 38 Prior's List of the Absentees of Ireland. himself at the time an 'absentee,' and so It was published at Dublin in 1 729, and described by Prior, ' the yearly value of his dedicated to Lord Carteret. Berkeley was estates spent abroad being about £900.' 184 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [CH. letters-patent containing the grant in his hands, to the Treasury, and there make his demand in form. I have also wrote to others to use their interest at Court ; though indeed one would have thought all solicitation at an end when once I had obtained a grant under his Majesty's hand and the broad seal of England. As to going to London and soliciting in person, I think it reasonable first to see what my friends can do ; and the rather because I cannot suppose my own solicitations will be more regarded than theirs. Be assured I long to know the upshot of this matter ; and that, upon an explicit refusal, I am determined to return home ; and that it is not the least in my thoughts to continue abroad and hold my Deanery. It is well known to many considerable persons in England, that I might have had a dispensation for holding it for life ; and that I was much pressed to it, but I resolutely declined it : and if our design of a College had taken place as soon as I once hoped it would, I should have resigned before this time. A little after my first coming to this island, I entertained some thoughts of applying to his Majesty (when Dr. Clayton had received the 20,000 pounds, the patent for which I left with him), to translate our College hither; but have since seen cause to lay aside all thoughts of that matter. I do assure you, bona fide, that I have not the least intention to stay here longer than I can get a clear answer from the Government ; for, upon all private accounts, I should like Derry better than New England. As to the reason of my coming to this island, I think I have already informed you that I have been at great expence in purchasing land and stock here, which might supply the defects of Bermuda, and so obviate a principal objection that was made to placing a College there. To conclude, as I am here in order to execute a design addressed for by Parliament, and set on foot by his Majesty's royal Charter, I think myself obliged to wait the event, what- ever course is taken in Ireland about my Deanery. I had wrote to both the bishops of Raphoe 39 and Derry 40 ; but letters are of uncertain passage. Yours was half a year in coming ; and I have had some a year after their date, though often in two months, and sometimes less. I must desire you to present my duty to both their Lordships, and acquaint them with what I have now wrote to you in answer to the kind message from my Lord of Derry, conveyed by your hands ; for which I return my humble thanks to your Lordship. I long to hear the success of our law-suit with Partinton. What I hear from England about our college-grant you shall know. My wife gives her service to you. She hath been lately ill of a mis- carriage ; but is now, I thank God, recovered. Our little son is great 39 Bishop Forster. 10 Bishop Downes. v.] A Recluse in Rhode Island. 185 joy to us. We are such fools as to think him the most perfect thing we ever saw in its kind. I wish you all happiness ; and remain, dear Tom, yours affectionately, G. BERKELEY. Rhode Island, May 7, 1730. This is a duplicate of a letter I sent you several months ago. I have not since had one line from the persons I had wrote to, to make the last instances for the 20,000 pounds. This I impute to an accident that we hear happened to a man of war, as it was coming down the river, bound for Boston, where it was expected some months ago, and is now daily looked for, with the new governor. The newspapers of last February mentioned Dr. Clayton's being made bishop. I wish him joy of his preferment, since I doubt we are not likely to see him in this part of the world. I know not how to account for my not hearing that the dispute with Partinton is finished one way or other before this time. Newport in Rhode Island, July 20, 1730. The forebodings are confirmed in this scrap of a letter from Dr. Cutler at Boston to Dr. Zachary Grey 41 : — Boston, May 9, 1730. . . . Dean Berkeley leads a private life at Rhode Island, and I have yet wanted the happiness of paying my respects to him. Some say his designs will come to nothing; and I fear they guess right. The important autumn and winter of 1 730 is nearly a blank in our picture of Berkeley's course, and we are left to conjecture. The crisis of the Bermuda College was now come. The estate had been pur-chased, and the public money was due. But Sir Robert Walpole had never entered heartily into the project. His ruling political idea was the consolidation of England under the house of Brunswick. An explosion of Christian knight-errantry in the colonies was not embraced in this ruling notion, and might in its issues turn out to be in many ways inconsistent with it. The presence in London of the enthusiastic leader of the expedition, four years before, had carried the grant through the House of Commons. But the brave missionary, his motives and action misinterpreted, was now a studious recluse in Rhode Island. 41 Nichols's Illustrations, vol. IV. p. 289. 1 86 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. This winter of 1730 — 31 was probably a time of anxious cor- respondence between Berkeley in his island home and London. Gibson, the Bishop of London 42 , with whose diocese the western hemisphere was connected, tired of official excuses and evasions, pressed for a definite issue to the negotiations and promises of so many years. A conclusive answer was at last given to him. c If you put this question to me as a minister/ said Walpole, c I must, and can, assure you, that the money shall most undoubtedly be paid, as soon as suits with public convenience ; but if you ask me as a friend, whether Dean Berkeley should continue in America, expecting the payment of ^20,000, I advise him by all means to return home to Europe, and to give up his present expectations.' And so, about the beginning of the year 1 73 1 , the Prime Minister of England was, it seems, able to crush the project which about the year 17^1 was first conceived by the philanthropist and philosopher 43 . The correspondence which ended in this heavy blow to the single-minded and patient student at Whitehall, I am not able to present. Even the letters to Prior end with the one already given, dated July 1730, when the issue was still doubtful. Yet Berkeley's stay at Whitehall was prolonged for more than a year after that letter to Prior. A sentence in one of Cutler's letters to Grey, preserved by Nichols 44 , is our only account of him during the fol- lowing winter and spring: — c Boston, April 20, 1731 Dean Berkeley is coming home, leaving us lamenting the loss of him.' But his departure was still delayed. This, the year of his great disappointment, was perhaps the most studious year of his life. Alciphron was written, as it seems, in 1731. The picture with which the book opens reveals his feelings, and the way in which he soothed them : — c I flattered myself, Theages, that before this time I might have been able to have sent you an agreeable account of the success of the affair which brought me into this remote corner 42 Edmund Gibson, D.D. (1669 — 1 748), the marriage portion of the Princess Royal, one of the most learned of contemporary on her marriage with the Prince of Orange, divines, was Bishop of London from 1723 General Oglethorpe induced Parliament to till his death. He is celebrated as the author vote the remainder for his new colony of of the Codex Juris Ecclesiastici Anglicani Georgia, in America — after obtaining Ber- (1 7 1 3) keley's consent to this application of the 18 Parliamentary influence soon after money. See Journals of the House of diverted the grants into another channel. Commons, May 10, 16, and 17, 1 733. The lands in St. Christopher's produced 41 Illustrations, vol. IV. p. 292. .€90,000. Of this £80,000 was granted as v.] A Rechse in Rhode Island. 187 of the country. But, instead of this, I should now give you the detail of its miscarriage, if I did not rather chose to entertain you with some amusing incidents, which have helped to make me easy under a circumstance I could neither obviate nor foresee. Events are not in our power ; but it always is, to make a good use even of the very worst. And I must needs own, the course and event of this affair gave opportunity for reflections, that make me some amends for a great loss of time, pains, and expense. A life of action, which takes its issue from the counsels, passions, and views of other men, if it doth not draw a man to imitate, will at least teach him to observe. And a mind at liberty to reflect on its own observations, if it produce nothing useful to the world, seldom fails of entertainment to itself. For several months past I have enjoyed such liberty and leisure in this distant retreat, far beyond the verge of that great whirlpool of business, faction, and pleasure, which is called the World. And a retreat in itself agreeable, after a long scene of trouble and disquiet, was made much more so by the conversation and good qualities of my host Euphranor, who unites in his own person the philosopher and the farmer, two characters not so inconsistent in nature as by custom they seem to be.' This first page of Alclphron represents Ber- keley in the last year of his family life at Whitehall. The whole book represents his studies there, in the library, in the field, and on the sea shore. A few fragments belonging to the summer of 1731 remain. In the parish records of Trinity Church at Newport, the following entry may be found:— c June u, 1731. Philip Berkley, Anthony Berkley, Agnes Berkley, negroes, received into the Church.' It appears that Berkeley, like his neighbours in the island, had slaves. The Berkeley Papers contain a document, signed by the Honourable J. Jenks, Governor of Rhode Island, and W. Cod- dington, the Deputy- Governor, which records the purchase of a slave by him. Slavery, as such, does not seem to have vexed his conscience more than it did St. Paul's 45 . But he was indignant 43 So too with the Puritan ministers of last century in New England. In the in- ventory of Jonathan Edwards' estate, after his death, there was mentioned among his ' quick stock,' one negro boy, Titus, valued at a hundred dollars. And Dr. Hopkins, an eminent American divine, owned a slave. See Park's Memoir of Hopkins, p. 114. 1 88 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. at the c irrational contempt of the blacks, as creatures of another species, who had no right to be instructed or admitted to the sacraments.' And he proclaimed emphatically that a state of slavery was not inconsistent with being baptized. Domestic sorrow darkened his home as the autumn advanced. The following inscription may be read on the tombstone of his friend Nathanael Kay, in the burial ground of Trinity Church : — c Joining to the south of this tomb lies Lucia Berkeley, daughter of Dean Berkeley. Obiit^ the 5th of September 1731.' It is our only record of the birth of this second child. His daughter Lucia was left to lie among the hospitable society of that olden time, who now sleep round the venerable church in which they once listened to her father's words. This sorrow must have been on the eve of the departure, as is shown by the following letter to Johnson at Stratford : — Rev. Sir, I am now upon the point of setting out for Boston, in order to embark for England. But the hurry I am in could not excuse my neglecting to acknowledge the favour of your letter. In answer to the obliging things in it, I can only say I wish I might deserve them. My endeavours shall not be wanting, some way or other, to be useful ; and I should be very glad to be so in particular to the College at Newhaven, and the more as you were once a member of it, and have still an influence there. Pray return my service to those gentlemen who sent their complements by you. I have left a box of books with Mr. Kay, to be given away by you — the small English books where they may be most serviceable among the people, the others as we agreed together. The Greek and Latin books I would have given to such lacls as you think will make the best use of them in the College, or to the School at Newhaven. I pray God to bless you, and your endeavours to promote religion and learning in this uncultivated part of the world, and desire you to accept mine and my wife's best wishes and services, being very truly, Rev. Sir, Your most humble servant, GEORGE BERKELEY. Rhode Island, Sep. 7, 1 731. We may conclude that Berkeley, with his wife and their in- fant child, bade farewell to Whitehall and to Rhode Island soon v.] A Recluse in Rhode Island. 189 after this letter was written. It was probably in October or November that they sailed from Boston. At any rate, Berkeley reappeared in London in February, 1732. Their companions in the voyage from Gravesend were left in America. Later cor- respondence shows that Mr. James was in Boston several years after this. The artist Smibert settled there, and his name is still remembered in America. He was the first person in New England who devoted himself to his art. Berkeley it is said met Smibert in Italy, and afterwards invited him to join the Bermuda expedition as professor of the Fine Arts in the projected College. In Berkeley's artistic designs of the city of Bermuda — the Athens of his Utopia — a museum of the Arts was conspicuous. Smibert's influence is still felt in at least one of the Colleges of New England. To him Yale College owes the portrait of Ber- keley, an engraving of which is presented to the readers of this edition of his works. The original picture presents a group, in which the philosopher appears standing beside a table, with his hand upon his favourite Plato, and apparently dictating to an amanuensis. His wife and another lady, probably Miss Hand- cock, are seated near him, the lady with a child in her arms. Dalton seems to be acting as Berkeley's amanuensis, while Mr. James is standing behind the two ladies. The artist himself ap- pears in the picture, and another person said to be an American friend. There are thus eight figures on the canvas. It was probably painted at Boston, when the Berkeley family were about to leave America. It was long preserved there in the studio of the Smiberts, and was given to Yale College in 1 808 46 . Thus ended the romantic episode of Rhode Island, which warms the heart, and touches the imagination more perhaps than any event in Berkeley's life. Of all who have ever landed on the American shore, none was ever animated by a purer and more 40 ' The portrait painter, Mr. Smibert, who Updike, p. 523 note.) There is still extant accompanied Dr Berkdey to America in a portrait of Dr. M'Sparran by Smibert, said 1728. was employed,' says Dr. Barton, ' by to have been painted during the visit which the Grand Duke of Florence to paint two Berkeley and the artist made to the good or three Siberian Tartars, presented by the missionary, soon after their arrival at Duke to the Czar of Russia. Mr. Smibert, Newport, when the object of their visit on his landing at Narragansett with Dr. was to see the North American Indians. Berkeley, instantly recognized the Indians Smibert died at Boston, and had as a pupil to be the same people as the Siberian Tar- the artist Copley, father of the late Lord tars whose pictures he had painted.' (See Lyndhurst 1 90 Life and Letters of Berkeley. self-sacrificing spirit. It is for this, more than for his specu- lative thought, that he is now remembered in New England. The cosmopolitan Berkeley has left curiously few local impres- sions at any of the places where he lived, perhaps more in Rhode Island than anywhere else. The island still acknowledges that, by his visit, it has been touched with the halo of a great and sacred reputation. His direct influence is now, however, hardly to be found in the history of American thought, though his phi- losophy was professed by two of the greatest American thinkers — Samuel Johnson and Jonathan Edwards. The colonies in general were too insulated in sectional interests, and too little given to speculative studies, to receive and preserve a subtle philosophic doctrine. We must now return to less romantic and more familiar scenes. CHAPTER VI. BACK TO LONDON, AND IN CONTROVERSY. 1732— 1734. Berkeley returned to England in the end of 1731, with his wife and their infant child. His long cherished hopes were dis- appointed, and he had now to satisfy himself with his Irish Deanery. The vision of the America of the future, civilized and enlightened by a Christian University, which had filled his imagi- nation during the best years of middle life, was dissolved. The c astonishing and animating force of eloquence and enthusiasm/ which years before almost persuaded the party at Lord Bathurst's to accompany him across the ocean, had failed to move Sir Robert Walpole. The failure affected the whole following period of his life. After his return from America one sees signs of a less buoyant spirit. There are soon not unfrcquent complaints of failing health. And a greater disposition to recluse study is shown than since he left Trinity College in the spring of 17 13: the tranquil and domestic influences of Rhode Island were favourable to this. It was probably on one of the early days of 1732 that Berkeley arrived in London. On Friday the 18th of February, he preached the Sermon at the anniversary meeting of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, in the Church of St. Mary-le-Bow. The office was usually confined to bishops, but it was on this occasion appropriately offered to the Dean of Derry. The sermon was published. It is the only one of Berkeley's which was published during his life : the Discourse on Passive Obedience is hardly an exception. The Christian knowledge of God, and the moral obligation of diffusing it, is the subject of this missionary sermon. Berkeley's inclination to connect in a practical way the mysteries of faith 192 Life and Letters of Berkeley, [ch. with human action, and his aversion to verbal abstractions ap- pear in his description of what religious knowledge is. He saw in the Christian religion something meant for the mass of man- kind, and which therefore could not consist in c subtle and nice notions. 5 The time when divinity began to be treated as an abstract science marked, he thought, the beginning of its loss of spiritual power over its professors. c Doubtless the making religion a notional thing hath been of infinite disservice. Its holy mysteries are rather to be received with the humility of faith than defined with the accuracy of human reason.' He re- commended religion, in the broad spirit of the New Testament, according to the sober and reverent tone of the Anglican Church, without theological leaning towards a particular school. Rhode Island, and the good missionaries from whom he had so lately parted, were not forgotten. He referred with characteristic be- nignity to the academic and other endeavours alike of Con- formists and Nonconformists in New England, while he repeated those commonplaces of charity and toleration which, however often repeated, are so readily forgotten. Berkeley's practical interest in religious learning in New Eng- land ceased but with his life. It showed itself soon after this sermon was preached. His friend Johnson, in his youth a gra- duate and tutor of Yale College at Newhaven, had not lost his influence in that seminary by his conformity to the Church. Both of them wished to encourage a wisely-managed institution of learning, though Churchmen were not among the trustees. And as to Berkeley's philosophy, the President said that Yale College would c probably always retain a favourable opinion of his idea of material substance, as not consisting in an unknown and inconceivable substratum, but in a stated union and combination of sensible ideas.' In the summer of 1732, accordingly, we find Berkeley employed in providing for this rising seminary of learning in America. As one part of the fruits of his liberality, he made over to it his farm of ninety-six acres at Whitehall, for the encouragement of Greek and Latin scholarship. Two instruments of the conveyance are preserved in the archives of the College. The first is dated on the 26th July, 1732. Some changes in the terms, mutually agreed upon, led to a repetition of VI.] Back to London. 193 the deed, and a second was completed on the 17th of August, 1733 1 . 1 The final Deed of Conveyance is as follows : — ' This Indenture made the seventeenth day of August in the Seventh year of the Reign of our Sovereign Lord George the Second, by the Grace of God King of Great Britain, France and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, and in the year of our Lord One Thousand Seven Hundred Thirty Three, be- tween George Berkeley. Doctor of Divinity, Dean of Derry in the Kingdom of Ireland, on the one part, and the Reverend Mr. Elisha Williams, President or Rector with the rest of the Corporation or incorporate Society of Yale College in New Haven in the Province of Connecticut, on the other, witnesseth that for and in consideration of the sum of Five Shillings of Lawful Money of Great Britain to the said George Berkeley by the said Corporation, in hand paid at or before the ensealing and delivery of these presents, the receipt whereof is hereby acknowledged, and for divers other good causes and considerations, he the said George Berkeley hath granted, bargained, sold, and by these presents doth grant, bargain and sell unto the said Corporation and their successors, all that messuage tenement or dwelling house, stable and crib, and a certain tract of land to the same adjoining and be- longing, containing about Ninety-Six Acres (be the same more or less) and consisting of one orchard and the rest arable pasture, mea- dow and wood land, situate, lying and being in Newport, in the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, and bounded northerly partly on land now or late of James Barker, and partly on School lands, easterly by a highway, and partly by a small piece of land of about half a quarter of an acre with a house thereon, southerly by a highway, and westerly by land now or late in the possession of the Widow Turner, together with all rights, profits, privileges and appurtenances thereunto belonging or appertaining, and the reversion and rever- sions, remainder and remainders thereof, and all the estate, right, title, property, claim and demand whatsoever of him the said George Berkeley of in and unto the said premises and every part and parcell thereof. ' To have and to hold the said dwelling- house, stable, tract of land, and premises hereby granted, bargained and sold, with their and every of their appurtenances, unto the said corporation or incorporate society and their successors, for ever, under, and subject to the conditions, provisoes and powers, and under the rules and orders here- VOL. IV. ( inafter mentioned, expressed and declared of and concerning the same ; that is to say, that they the said corporation or incorporate society, and their successors do and shall, for ever hereafter, pay and apply the clear yearly rents and profits of the said premises from time to time, as the same shall become due and payable, and as they shall receive the same, (they the said corporation or in- corporate society, and their successors re- spectively, first deducting thereout, all such reasonable costs and charges as they, or any of them shall, from time to time, and at any time hereafter incur, sustain, or be put unto, in the execution of the trust hereby in them reposed) to three students of the said college, towards their maintenance and subsistence during the time between their first and second degree ; such students being to be called scholars of the house, and, during that space of time, being hereby obliged to reside, at least three quarters of each year, between their first and second degree, in the said college : and that the said students or scholars of the house, be elected on the sixth day of May, (if not on a Sunday) but if it shall happen on a Sunday, then the election to be on the day following, such election to be performed by the President or head of the college, for the time being, jointly with the senior episcopal missionary of that colony or province of Connecticut, for the time being, that is to say, he who hath been longest upon the mission in the said colony, the candidates to be publicly examined by the said President or Rector and senior missionary, two hours in the morning, in Greek, and in the afternoon, two hours in Latin, on the day of election, — all persons having free access to hear the said examination : — and it is hereby declared and intended, and it is the true intent and meaning of the said George Berkeley, that those who appear to be the best scholars on said examination, be, without favour or affection, elected ; — and in case of a division of sentiment in the electors, the election to be determined by lot : — and if the senior episcopal clergyman shall not attend, then any other episcopal clergyman of said colonv be intituled to elect, in course of seniority : — and if none of the episcopal clergy shall attend, then, and in such case, the election to be performed by the President or Rector of the said college for the time being : — Provided always, that whatever surplus of money shall arise during the vacancies of the said scholarships, ihe same to be laid out for Greek and Latin books, to be dis- 194 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. The rent of the farm was appropriated to three scholarships^ which have had no inconsiderable influence in promoting Greek and Roman learning in America — c a great incitement,' says Pre- sident Clap, c to a laudable ambition to excel in a knowledge of the classics V Besides the conveyance of Whitehall, Berkeley made a donation of books to the Library of Yale College, with the help of some of the Bermuda subscribers. They were sent from London in May 1733. This was, according to President Clap, the best collection of books which had ever been brought, at one time, to America, consisting of nearly a thousand volumes, valued at about five hundred pounds. The original invoice, notwithstanding its ob- vious bibliographical imperfections, is interesting as it illustrates Berkeley's preference in the selection 3 . posed of by the said electors on the said day of election to such of the undergraduate students as shall shew themselves most de- serving by their compositions in the Latin tongue on a moral subject or theme proposed by the electors. " Provided also that if at any time or times hereafter any difficulty, dispute or dif- ference shall happen to arise concerning the due Election of the said three Scholars of the House, or any of them in manner aforesaid, that then and in every such case the power of explaining such difficulty, dispute or dif- ference is hereby referred to the said George Berkeley : Provided always, and it is hereby declared to be the true intent and meaning of these presents and the parties thereto, that in case the said rules and orders con- cerning the said election and the application of the rents and profits of the said premisses be not from time observed, that then and in that case the grant of the said premisses to the said Corporation of Yale College hereby made shall cease, determine and be void. 'GEORGE BERKELEY. 1 Signed, Sealed and Delivered (being first duly Stampt) the day and Year above written, the words (or Rector) being first interlin'd in the 25th and 30th Lines, in the presence of us, * Isaac Browne, John Pierson, Henry Newman.' 2 See Clap's History of Vale College. The Yale Literary Magazine for 1852 contains a list of ' Berkleian Scholars of the House' from 1733, — 'to show how far the results of this beneficence has fulfilled the design of the pious founder.' ' It is a fact of no slight significance,' the writer remarks, ' taken in connection with the original pur- pose of Berkeley, that of this list nearly one hundred are marked as ministers of the Gospel, foremost among whom is President Wheelock, who founded an Indian school, the germ of Dartmouth College ; while hundreds more, not here enumerated, have been recipients of this bounty in the shape of the smaller premiums, among whom may be named David Brainerd, the " Apostle to the Indians." ' This list contains above two hundred names, among them some of the most eminent in America. President Dwight, (the grandson of Joanathan Edwards), who is one of them, published an American edi- tion of Alciphron in 1803. 3 I have now before me * A Catalogue of Books for Vale College, at New Haven, in Connecticut, New England, markt as in the mar gent, consign' d to Mr. Andrew Belcher at Boston, by Capt. Alden, master of the Dolphin,' for which I am indebted to Mr. Gilman. They were ' shipp'd 30'' of May, 1 733» by order of the Rev. Mr. Dean Berkeley, at London,' and the invoice is signed ' Henry Newman.' The Catalogue is too long to be inserted here. It contains nearly five hundred books — with some duplicates, about VI.] Back to London. 195 While Berkeley was trying thus to realise some part of his magnificent American vision, he was also giving the world fruits of his American studies, pursued in the secluded valley at White- hall. In no period of his life did he contribute to literature so copiously as in the two years which followed his return from Rhode Island. With his young wife in his romantic home, he had there indulged a love of study, which before that had been disturbed by fifteen years of movement in Europe. Alciphron, or the Minute Philosopher, appeared in March 1732, about two months after his return to England. It is the largest of his works, and sooner engaged popular attention than any of its predecessors. A second edition followed in the same year. a thousand volumes. It contains a good 1 collection of Greek and Roman literature i and philosophy — Plato, Aristotle, the Neo- < platonists, Sextus Empiricus, &c. prominent. The Greek and Latin Fathers are well re- : presented in some of the best editions. i There is a good deal of church history — 1 Eusebius, Nicephorus, Hardouin, Baronius, < Dupin, and others. The divinity is mostly < of the Anglican school — Hooker, Chilling- < worth, Barrow, Stillingfleet, Tillotson, South, Bull, Chandler, Smalridge, Atterbury, Gib- < son, Sherlock, and the Boyle Lectures. In philosophy, besides the ancients, are the i works of Bacon, Malebranche, Locke, Gro- 1 tius, and Puffendorf — of Berkeley's own < works only Alciphron. The principal works 1 of Newton, Pemberton, Keil's Astronomy, Ditton's Fluxions, and a few other mathe- < matical books, complete the scanty list in ; that department. Works in natural history 1 and medicine have a large share — Hippo- 1 crates, Celsus, Willisius, Sydenham, Diemer- < broek, Ray's Hist. Plant., the Hist. Nat. of 1 Jonstonus, the Op. Med. of Freind, Arbuthnot 1 on Aliments, Cheyne's Essay on Health, and on 1 The English Malady, Hale's Vegetable Staticks, : &c. ; also Burnet's Theory, and Whiston's. I In English literature there is a fair collection 1 of poets — including Spenser, Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Cowley, Milton, Butler, Waller, 1 Dryden, Blackmore, Pope, Prior, Steele, Swift's Miscellanies, &c. ; also a few repre- | sentatives of French literature — Fenelon, | Fontanelle, La Bruyere, Rapin, &c. In i history we find Clarendon. Burnet, Kennet, i &c. The works of Erasmus, Vossius, and i the Acta Eruditorum from 1682 to 1 706 1 (30 vols.), are also in the list. ] Johnson mentions, in his Autobiography, i that the trustees of Yale College, ' though 1 O 2 they made an appearance of much thankful- ness, were almost afraid to accept the noble donation.' They recollected the effect of Anglican divinity upon Johnson himself, and some of their other tutors and graduates, in previous years, and suspected a prosely- tizing design. But in the end a more liberal spirit prevailed, and Berkeley kept up friendly correspondence with the College to the end of his life. There is, I believe, a ' Berkeley Association' in Yale College at the present day. Harvard College, as well as Yale, shared in Berkeley's liberality. The following ex- tract, sent to me from the original records of the College Corporation, is a proof of this : — ' At a meeting of the President and Fellows of Harvard College at Cambridge, September 3> i 733 5 — Whereas the Rev nd . Dean Ber- keley has lately procured a valuable collec- tion of books, and sent them to Harvard College, voted y i y e thanks of y" Corpora- tion be returned by y e President to ye Dean for the above donation, procured and sent by him, and y l he be desired to make proper acknowledgments, on behalf of y e Corpora- tion, to those gentlemen who have contri- buted to so literal a benefaction ' The Harvard collection was destroyed by fire in 1 764. Trinity Church at Newport was not for- gotten by Berkeley. A handsome organ, his gift in 1 733' st ' H remains as a visible memo- rial of his connection with the place. His offer of an organ to a church in the town of Berkeley, Mass., is said to have been too much for the puritanical rigour of the in- habitants, who unanimously voted it an invention of the devil to entrap the souls of men. 196 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. In a Preface to Alciphron, I have given some account of its design and contents. It was the fruit of years of thought about the moral and religious scepticism of the time. Berkeley intended in a series of dialogues to present different types of the class of persons who claimed exclusively the name of c Free-thinkers.' It was a return, in fact, to the work begun in the Guardian, in which he had been employed nearly twenty years before. Materialistic free- thinking had been growing in the interval, and he felt that this was accompanied by a relaxation of the springs of spiritual life in the new generation. Alciphron was a fresh proclamation of Berkeley's spiritual philosophy, in aspects which he thought fitted to restore a depressed faith in Supreme Providential Mind, in Moral Order, and in the Christian Mysteries. The theological utilitarianism of his college days runs through the first four dialogues of Alciphron, where he wants to restore belief in the moral government of the Universe. We might almost expect to have his new Principle pressed here, and the reader asked to apprehend intuitively the inseparableness of living mind from the sensible world in any of its possible forms. But there is no direct appeal of this sort. The argument dwelt upon is less abstract. It is drawn from the New Theory of Vision, rather than from the Principles of Human Knowledge. The fourth dialogue, in which it is argued that Mind is the ultimate governing principle in the universe, is simply the New Theory of Vision of 1709, more freely developed than it was in that juvenile essay, and made to show that we literally see the Supreme Providential Being every time we use our eyes ; in the very same way that we see a human being when one is near us, and speaking to us. The New Theory of Vision, it is to be remembered, explains the connection established in our thoughts between what is seen and what is felt, as the result of both an objective and a subjective association. This is what one might call its c constructive prin- ciple.' The announcement of it naturally leads the thinker to in- quire why the real ideas of sense are so associated among them- selves as to form what to all practical purposes is a language ; and a language which we are all induced to learn, through consequent subjective associations among our ideas of imagination. To this question various answers might be offered. The confused popular answer would take for granted that the visible vi.] Back to London. 197 and the tangible are associated in sense, because it is one and the same extended thing that is at once seen and felt. The philosophers, again, in their fondness for abstractions, said that what was touched and what was seen were common qualities of an unperceived substance which they called Matter. Berkeley's theory was different from both. They are sensibly associated, he said, because the supreme Mind is always sustaining the associa- tion. Are the phenomena which we see, and those which we touch, blindly united in and by a substance, called Matter, of which we can have no idea; or are they freely and rationally united by Divine Will, and according to the Divine Ideas ? This, although he saw it but dimly, is, I think, the profound question on which Berkeley's theory of vision turns at last; and in employing this principle, it expands from a mere psychological theory of vision into a metaphysical theory of the universe. Berkeley himself did not yet quite put it thus, but about the time that Alclphron was written, he was coming very near this : he was taking for granted that it is more reasonable to suppose that the association (in sensible things) between what is seen and what is felt, is the immediate result of a Mind, more or less resembling our own, than to sup- pose that it is due to abstract Matter — a mere name, into which we can throw no meaning at all. We can understand, he would probably argue, what is meant by another mind, because we have experience in ourselves of what mind means; but we can have no sensible experience or idea of unperceived material substance. In the constant orderly associations of sight and feeling, we have neither less nor more than an example of that relation between signs and their meanings which we have when a human being is actually speaking to us or writing to us. Accordingly, we have the very same reason to say, that the whole sensible world con- stantly expresses living Mind, that we have to say that the spoken or written words actually uttered by a living human being do so. c In consequence of your own sentiments and con- cessions,' Berkeley says 4 to the atheistic free-thinker, c you have as much reason to think the Universal Agent or God speaks to your eyes, as you can have for thinking any particular person * Aldphron, Dial. IV. sect. 12, 14. 198 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. speaks to your ears. . . . You stare, it seems, to find that " God is not far from any one of us/' and that u in Him we live and move and have our being." You who, in the beginning of this morning's conference, thought it strange that God should leave Himself without a witness, do now think it strange that the witness should be so full and clear.' That Berkeley does not refer more to the Divine Ideas makes his speculation in this dialogue defective. His theory is a theological sensationalism ; analogous, so far, to his theological utilitarianism. It implies, if it does not say, that our sensations are signs of Divine Ideas; through which the sensations, apparently heterogeneous, are constructed into trees, and mountains, planets, and other sensible things, in a way which makes them materials of science. They are, in short, converted into objects proper, and charged with scientific meaning, by means of Ideas which exist independently of us the individual percipients. Berkeley's argument implies, though it does not express, the existence of a system of fixed relations, amidst which we are placed, in which we participate, and to which the language of vision is adapted. Without those Divine Ideas or objective relations, there is nothing to which the sensible signs could be adapted. This remarkable dialogue does not avoid, however, the closely- related question of the nature of our knowledge of supreme or infinite Mind. If God, as infinite, cannot be known at all by the human mind, it seems to be of little moment whether we speak of unknown Matter or of infinite Mind, as the constructive principle of our sensible world. The sceptical Lysides in the dialogue is quite ready to accept an unknown subject of absolutely unknown attributes, as on the whole nearly as good as no God at all. This leads to a discussion of the question, whether, and to what extent, the Divine or Infinite Mind can be known by a human mind 5 . Berkeley's opinion on this cardinal point in his philosophy, is then more distinctly unfolded. He argues that God's knowledge differs in degree, not in kind, from ours; and that when an intending Mind is said to be the supreme power in the universe, this must mean — mind in the human signification of that term, but indefinitely 5 Sec Alciphron, Dial. IV. sect. 16 — 22. VI.] Back to London. 199 higher in degree, and cannot be a mere verbal cover for ignorance and absurdity, as an unperceived Matter is. This part of Alciphron was the occasion of a polemical criticism by Dr. Peter Browne, who, when we last met him, was Provost of Trinity College, Dublin, but who had now for many years been Bishop of Cork. Bishop Browne had indicated a peculiar opinion about the nature of human theological knowledge, in his answer to Toland, and afterwards, in 1728, in his Procedure and Limits of Human Understanding. He had argued that the real attributes of Deity are as unknown and incomprehensible as His essence is ; that it is impossible for us to have direct conceptions of Divine thoughts as they are in themselves. c They can be known by us,' he was wont to say, c only in a secondary or analogical signification of the terms employed to represent them.' This analogical hypothesis of Browne is criticised in no flattering terms by Berkeley in the dialogue. The criticism drew the Bishop of Cork into the controversy. He explained and defended his opinion, in a book entitled Things Divine and Supernatural con- ceived by analogy ivith Things Natural and Hum an , published about a year after Alciphron. Nearly two hundred pages 6 are given principally to an attack upon Berkeley. It will hardly be main- tained now, either that Berkeley's humanizing of the Divine Ideas, or Browne's attempt by what he calls analogy to express the inexpressible, are satisfactory ways of meeting the question which the further development of Berkeley's philosophy had brought him in front of. And in Berkeley's comparison between our power of seeing other men, and our alleged sensible sight of God, one misses the moral depth and sublimity of the Deus absconditus of Pascal. The Minute Philosopher is further interesting for the light it throws upon Berkeley's reasons for accepting Christianity; and also upon his thoughts about what the Christian mysteries actually are. That there is no need to depart from the received rules of reasoning in order to justify the belief of Christians, is his favourite maxim. Probable or matter of fact evidence is with Berkeley, as with Butler, a sufficient ground for Christian faith. Demonstration is out of the question : he that will use his eyes may see enough, he thinks, for the purposes either of nature or of 6 Divine Analogy, ch. VIII. See also and of the Minute Philosopher, by the Letter to the Authors of the Divine Analogy, Rev. Philip Skelton — in Skelton's Works. 200 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. grace. 'And it will be sufficient,' he remarks (anticipating Butler, whose Analogy followed four years after) — c it will be sufficient if such analogy appears between the dispensations of grace and nature, as may make it probable (although much should be unaccountable in both) to suppose them derived from the same author, and the workmanship of one and the same hand.' This was the language of Anglican theology at that time, and Berkeley's Alciphron, though for very different qualities, is probably entitled to as high a place as the Analogy of Butler, as one of the two great English essays in philosophical theology. Those who decline to rest their faith in Christianity, and in a theological ex- planation of the universe, upon a practical instinct of probability, similar to that from which we derive our assurance of the exist- ence of sensible things, and of other human beings like ourselves, must remember that this was the conception most in harmony with the English thinking of that age. The claims of a spiritual intuition of what is supernatural seem to have sustained Pascal in the seventeenth century. They are now again pressed by some whose moral and spiritual experience of religion seems to make them indifferent to questions about its origin which refer us to historical events in the sensible world. But they were hardly recognised in the days of Berkeley and Butler. If they had been brought to their notice, both these philosophical persons might have allowed that their own point of view was one-sided and defective. The last dialogue in Alciphron is perhaps the most important of all for understanding the history of Berkeley's mind in this part of his life. It contains a defence of the possibility of the Christian mysteries, in consistency with his own principles of human knowledge. At first sight, his early polemic against abstractions and scholasticism has a purely sensationalist tendency, unfavour- able to the recognition of what is mysterious, either in nature or in religion. If the material world is to be analysed into a personal experience of sensations, because abstract Matter is inconceivable, we are apt to ask whether, for a like reason, all other inconceivables, along with the words by which men pretend to represent them, should not be tested similarly. If the New Principle reduces Matter, does it not also reduce every other Mystery ? vi.] Back to London. 201 Berkeley does not put this question to himself. But he unfolds and applies a view of what human words may lawfully be employed about which we find glimmering in the Principles of Human Know- ledge. Words, he says, are not to be dismissed as necessarily useless, when they do not stand for individual ideas of sense or imagination — for sensations, or for images of sensations. Language addresses itself to the Will as well as to the Under- standing. Words have c another use, besides that of marking and suggesting distinct ideas, to wit, the influencing our conduct and actions- which may be done either by forming rules for us to act by, or by raising certain passions, dispositions, or emotions in our minds. A discourse, therefore, that directs how to act, or excites to the doing or forbearance of an action, may be useful and significant, although the words whereof it is composed should not bring each a distinct idea into our minds.' Oversight of this has, he thinks, been the occasion of the whole scholastic heresy of abstract ideas. We can form no abstract ideas of grace, original sin, and the Trinity, any more than we can of force or number. But then we may form many true and useful propositions about all of them, fitted to affect our lives and actions. These appeal to the practical reason which regulates the feelings and determinations, not to the speculative intellect which requires particular and distinct ideas. Berkeley cannot be said to have gone to the bottom of this matter. It is to be wished that he had explained more fully his dis- tinction between ideas and notions, and had given us a more satis- factory account of the universalizing reason in man. But he in- tended to recognise the utility and indispensableness of propositions and processes of reasoning the terms of which are not concerned with concrete phenomena of sense and sensuous imagination. That there are such propositions in religion he allowed; but he added, there are such also in science : they lie at the roots of both. Men of science who complain of them in religion must meet the retort that they are themselves all the time employing them in their own deductions. Even the mathematicians are not exempt. Berkeley had them in his eye, at this very point of view, when he was writing his Principles of Human Knowledge more than twenty years before 7 . In Alciphron he speaks more plainly. 'Even the 7 Cf. sect. 1 1 8, 119. 202 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. mathematical sciences themselves, 5 Euphranor is made to say 8 , c which above all others are reckoned the most clear and certain, if they are considered, not as instruments to direct our practice, but as speculations to employ our curiosity, will be found to fall short, in many instances, of those clear and distinct ideas, which, it seems, the Minute Philosophers of this age, whether knowingly or ignorantly, expect or insist upon in the mysteries of religion/ This sentence foreshadows a controversy which Berkeley com- menced soon after Alciphron was published. Berkeley's curiously reasoned defence of religion soon made a noise in the literary world. The most original and ingenious reasonings in the book were ill understood both by friends and foes. Its graceful style, and fine current of imagination, were acknowledged by all who were able to appreciate these qualities. c I have not seen Dean Berkeley, 5 writes Gay the poet to Swift, on the 19th of May, 1732, three or four months after Berkeley's return from Rhode Island, and very soon after the publication of Alciphron, — C I have not seen Dean Berkeley, but have read his book, and like many parts of it; but in general think with you, that it is too speculative, at least for me. 5 c Though I have room, 5 writes Bolingbroke, flippantly, on the 18th of July, c I will not say one word to you about Berkeley 5 s or Delany 5 s 9 book. Some part of the former is hard to be understood ; none of the latter is to be read. I propose, however, to reconcile you to metaphysics, by showing how they may be employed against metaphysicians ; and that whenever you do not understand them, nobody else does ; no, not those who write them 10 . 5 Warburton, with homage to Berkeley as a man, assailed him as a philosopher ; Hoadly, in a remarkable letter to Lady Sundon, shows a more un- friendly spirit n . A superficial attack attributed to Lord Hervey, the c Sporus 5 of Pope, was one of several ephemeral attacks to which Alciphron was exposed in the course of this summer 12 . A more important criticism, directed against the most original 8 Alciphron, Dial. VII. sect. 17. 0 Religion Examined with Candour (1 732), by Patrick Delany, D.D. 10 See Swift's Correspondence. 11 See Hoadly's Life, prefixed to the folio edition of his Works, p. li. 12 It is professedly a Letter from a Country Clergyman. In the Acta Erud. for 1737 there is an analysis of Alciphron, and before that it was translated into French. See Uhlii Sylloge Nova Epist. vol. IV. (lib. X.) pp. 226, 430, for an unfavourable reference. VI.] Back to London. 203 part of Berkeley's new work, appeared later in the year. The Essay towards a Nevj Theory of Vision of 1 709 was appended to Alciphron j and the conception of a Visual Language was, as I have said, explained and applied in the fourth dialogue, in vindication of a constant immediate Providence in the universe. One of the most curious and beautiful of his speculations in this way challenged criticism. On the 9th of September, 1732, an anonymous critical Letter, republished in the first volume of this edition of Berkeley's works, appeared in the London Daily Post Boy. This Letter alone, among the criticisms which Alciphron gave rise to, moved Berkeley to reply. We owe to it his Theory of Vision vindicated and explained^ which appeared in January 1733. In this ingenious tract, Berkeley re-states, not analytically as at first, but con- structively, the (psychological) doctrine about the relations of sight and touch which he had published nearly a quarter of a century before — and this time without that reservation of his conception of the metaphysical meaning of the sensible world as a whole which had embarrassed his juvenile essay. In fact, the Vindication contains the latest, and perhaps the clearest, statement of the grounds on which Berkeley rested his belief in the nature of the material world, in Supreme Mind as its ultimate substance, and in supreme intending Will as the ultimate cause of its changes. That this tract should have been almost forgotten for more than a century, and omitted from all the collected editions of Berkeley's works, is another illustration of his paradoxical antagonism to the unspeculative generation in which he lived. The blot in the tract is its tone of almost polemical bitterness, directed especially against Shaftesbury, unusual with Berkeley, though there are traces of it in Alciphron. • For twelve months after his return from Rhode Island, we can follow Berkeley only in the writings which he was then publishing, and in contemporary allusions to them. London seems to have been his head quarters all that year. The following letters to Thomas Prior, written in the spring of 1733, show a tendency towards Dublin, and reveal some of his less important doings and designs about this time : — 204 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. Dear Tom, I thank you for the good account you sent me of the house, &c, in Arbor Hill 13 . I approve of that and the terms ; so you will fix the agree- ment for this year to come (according to the tenor of your letter) with Mr. Lesly, to whom my humble service. I remember one of that name, a good sort of man, a class or two below me in the College. I am willing to pay for the whole year commencing from the 25th instant; but cannot take the furniture, &c, into my charge till I go over, which I truly pro- pose to do as soon as my wife is able to travel. But, as I told you in my last, my wife expects to be brought to bed in two months ; and having had two miscarriages, one of which she was extremely ill of in Rhode Island, she cannot venture to stir before she is delivered. This circumstance, not foreseen, occasions an unexpected delay, putting off to summer the journey I proposed to take in spring. Mr. Lesly, therefore, or whoever is at present in it, may continue there gratis for about three months to come. I hope our affair with Partinton will be finished this term. We are here on the eve of great events, to-morrow being the day appointed for a pitched battle in the House of Commons. I hope to hear from you speedily, particularly on the subject of my two last letters. I have no objection to you setting the Deanery to Messrs. Skipton and Crook- shanks for two years, as you propose, provided the security be good. My wife gives her service to you ; and my son, who (I thank God) is very well, desires me to send his love and service to Mr. Puddleya. I am your affectionate humble servant, G. BERKELEY. Green-street, March 13, 1732 — 3. London, March 27, 1733. Dear *Tom, This comes to desire you'll exert yourself on a public account, which you know is acting in your proper sphere. It has been represented here, that in certain parts of the kingdom of Ireland, justice is much obstructed for the want of justices of the peace, which is only to be remedied by taking in dissenters. A great man hath spoke to me on this point. I told him the view of this was plain ; and that, in order to facilitate this view, I suspected the account was invented, for that I did » In Dublin. VI.] Back to London. 205 not think it true. Depend upon it, better service cannot be done at present than by putting this matter as soon as possible in a fair light, and that supported by such proofs as may be convincing here. I therefore recommend it to you to make the speediest and exactest inquiry that you can into the truth of this fact ; the result whereof send to me. Send me also the best estimate you can get of the number of papists, dissenters, and churchmen, throughout the kingdom ; an estimate also of dissenters considerable for rank, figure, and estate ; an estimate also of the papists in Ulster. Be as clear in these points as you can l4 . When the above- mentioned point was put to me, I said that in my apprehension there was no such lack of justice or magistrates except in Kerry and Con- naught, where the dissenters were not considerable enough to be of any use in redressing the evil. Let me know particularly whether there be any such want of justices of the peace in the county of Londonderry ; or whether men are aggrieved there by being obliged to repair to them at too great distances. The prime serjeant, Singleton, may probably be a means of assisting you to get light in these particulars. The dispatch you give this affair will be doing the best service to your country. Enable me to clear up the truth, and to support it, by such reasons and testimonies as may be felt or credited here. Facts I am myself too much a stranger to, though I promise to make the best use I can of those you furnish me with, towards taking off an impression which I fear is already deep. If I succeed, I shall congratulate my being here at this juncture. Yours, G. BERKELEY. Green-street, April 14, 17 33. Dear Tom, I thank you for your last, particularly for that part of it wherein you promise the numbers of the justices of the peace, of the Papists also, and of the Protestants, throughout the kingdom, taken out of proper offices. I did not know such inventories had been taken by public authority, and am glad to find it so. Your arguments for proving Papists but three to one, I had before made use of ; but some of the premises are not clear to Englishmen. Nothing can do so well as the estimate you speak of, to be taken from a public office ; which therefore I impatiently expect. 14 This is a subject to which Berkeley also in his Charge to the clergy of the dio- several times refers, in the following letters ; cese of Cloyne. 2o6 Life and Letters of Berkeley, [ch. As to the design I hinted, whether it is to be set on foot there or here I cannot say. I hope it will take effect nowhere. It is yet a secret. I may nevertheless discover something of it in a little time ; and you may then hear more. The political state of things on this side the water I need say nothing of. The public papers probably say too much ; though it cannot be denied much may be said. I would have Petit Rose's fine, and the deficiencies of the last pay- ments of the Deanery farms, paid into Swift and Company to answer my demand. As soon as this is done, pray let me know, that I may draw accordingly. I must desire you, in your next, to let me know what premium there is for getting into the public fund, which allows five per cent, in Ireland ; and whether a considerable sum might easily be purchased therein ? Also, what is the present legal interest in Ireland? and whether it be easy to lay out money on a secure mortgage where the interest should be punctually paid ? I shall be also glad to hear a word about the law- suit. I am, dear Tom, your affectionate humble servant, G. BERKELEY. My wife and child's service to you. April 19, 1733. Dear Tom, Not finding Mr. Percival at home, I got his valet-de-chambre and another Irish servant to witness to the letter of attorney ; which herewith I send you back. You may farm the Deanery to the persons mentioned, since you find their security to be good, for two years. I thank you for your last advices, and the catalogue of justices particularly ; of all which the proper use shall be made. The number of Protestants and Papists throughout the kingdom, which in your last but one you said had been lately and accurately taken by the collectors of hearth-money, you pro- mised, but have omitted to send. I shall hope for it in your next. The enclosed subpcena (as I take it to be) was left two days ago at my lodging by an unknown person. As I am a stranger to what hath been done or is doing in the suit with Partinton, I thought proper to transmit it unto you ; who, upon perusal thereof, will know or take advice what is to be done, without delay, to avoid further expense or trouble, which may be incurred by neglect of this billet-doux. In your next let me vl] Back to London. 207 know your thoughts on this and the whole affair. My wife and child give their service. We are all glad to hear of your welfare. I am, dear Tom, yours sincerely, GEOR. BERKELEY. Dear Tom, I long for the numeration of Protestant and Popish families, which you tell me has been taken by the collectors. A certain person now here hath represented the Papists as seven to one ; which, I have ven- tured to affirm, is wide of the truth. What lights you gave me I have imparted to those who will make the proper use of them. I do not find that any thing was intended to be done by act of parliament here. As to that, your information seems right. I hope they will be able to do nothing anywhere. I give my consent to your setting the Deanery for three years, and for postponing the later payment to the first of July in consideration that it will, as you say, produce punctual payment. As to a gardener, I do not design to hire one into my service, but only employ him by the job. Your letter of attorney I sent back to you, signed and witnessed, the following post after I had received it. The approaching Act at Oxford 15 is much spoken of. The entertain- ments of music, &c, in the theatre, will be the finest that ever were known. For other public news, I reckon you know as much as your affectionate humble servant, GEOR. BERKELEY. My wife sends her service. She is well for one in her circumstances j so is my little boy. Your letter came not to my hands before yesterday. Let me hear if you know any fair man, of a clear estate, that wants two or three thousand pounds at 5^ per cent, on mortgage. London, May 1, 1733. After May we hardly see any more of Berkeley for the remainder of 1733. We may infer that he continued in London. In the end of May we know that he got the books for Yale College con- M Seeker received the degree of Doctor of reference to the amiable daughter-in-law- Laws at Oxford on the occasion here referred of the learned Dodwell, one of the three to, when he preached his Act Sermon, on the celebrated beauties at the Public Act in * Advantages of Academical Education.' In Oxford in 1 733.' the Preface to Monclt Berkeley, there is a 208 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. signed to Captain Alden, master of the Dolphin^ and that in August he settled the deed of conveyance of the Whitehall farm. On the 28th of September his second son George was born, in Green-street, London — who alone of his children prolonged the line to the third generation. The London of 1732 and 1733 still contained some of his old friends. Dr. Samuel Clarke, the former interlocutor in the controversies of Leicester House, died the year after Berkeley's departure to Rhode Island. The rectory of St. James', West- minster, was now occupied by Seeker. Benson was still a Prebendary of Durham and Chaplain to the King. Sherlock was Master of the Temple and Bishop of Bangor, and Gibson, a great theological light of that age, was Bishop of London. Clayton, whom Berkeley left in London in 1728, and who there nego- tiated some of his affairs during his absence, was now settled in his bishopric at Killala, and Butler was in studious retirement in his northern rectory. Of his early friends, Swift had quitted England for ever, and Steele had followed Addison to the grave. John Gay, the common friend of Berkeley and Pope, died in December 1732, and Arbuthnot was approaching his end at Hamp- stead. But Pope was still at Twickenham, publishing his 'Essay on Man^ receiving visits from Bolingbroke, or visiting Lord Bathurst at Cirencester Park. During this, which turned out to be Berkeley's last visit to London, there are sundry symptoms of his growing inclination for a secluded life. Bishop Stock says that after his return from Rhode Island c the Queen often commanded his attendance to discourse with him on what he had observed worthy of notice in America.' If this means that he was now in the way of attending much at Court, it is inconsistent with what he says himself in one of the following letters. He was not, however, forgotten by the Queen. When Hoadly, the Bishop of Salisbury, c who was no friend,' condemned his philosophy, and proclaimed his Bermuda project to be the reverie of a visionary, Berkeley's old ally Sherlock, now one of the Queen's chaplains, carried a copy of Alciphron to the palace, 'asking whether such a work could be the production of a disordered understanding.' This, with the recol- lection of the charm of his conversation, so influenced the Queen, that when the rich Deanery of Down fell vacant, soon after his VI.] Back to London. 209 return from America, he was at her desire nominated, and the King's letter actually came over for his appointment, But his friend Lord Burlington having neglected to announce the royal intentions in proper time to the Duke of Dorset, the Lord- Lieutenant, his Excellency was so offended at the disposal of the richest Deanery in Ireland without his concurrence, that it was thought right not to urge the matter further 16 . In January 1734, Berkeley reappears, writing to his friend Prior. The following interesting letters open a new vista in his history. He was now nominated to the bishopric of Cloyne, in succession to his college friend Dr. Edward Synge, and we have soon to follow him to the remote region in Ireland which was to be his home. The mild enthusiasm of Berkeley, and his unfitness for political agency in the Irish Establishment, were not likely to recommend him, under the rules by which its patronage was then dispensed. But the friendship of the philo- sophic Queen, and perhaps some regard to what was due after the Bermuda disappointment, may explain the ministerial approval of the unworldly social idealist and philosopher for the see of Cloyne — where he shone as a star amid the comparative darkness of the Irish Church in the eighteenth century. The letters also reveal fresh endeavours in study, particularly in mathematics, and intentions to return to Ireland that were frustrated by ill health :— Green-street, London, Jan. 7, 1733 — 4. Dear Tom, I did not intend you should have made the proposal to the B. of D. [Bishop of Derry or of Dromore ?] ; but since you did, am well enough pleased with his answer. Only I would have the matter understood as proposed and transacted by yourself, without my privity, as indeed it was. I had myself thought of a preferment, a sinecure in the North, formerly possessed by old Charles Lesly. I took it to be the chan- cellorship of Connor 17 , and imagined it might have been in the gift of the Crown ; but do now believe it to be that you mention, possessed by lfi Richard Daniel seems to have been pre- sented to the Deanery of Down in Feb. 1732, and he held it till 1 739. 17 Charles Leslie, the Non-juror, author of A Short and Easy Method with the Deists, and other theological and political tracts, was at one time Chancellor of Connor, but deprived at the Revolution. He died in 1721. VOL. IV. 2IO Life and Letters of Berkeley. [CH. Dr. Wetherby 18 , and in the Bishop's disposal. I must desire that your next step may be to inform yourself precisely what the Deanery and that Chancellorship are each at this present time actually set for ; and not to say a word of the notion I have conceived (which is indeed an hypo- thetical one) to any mortal: but only, as soon as you have informed yourself, to send me an account of the foresaid values. My family are, I thank God, all well at present ; but it will be impos- sible for us to travel before the spring. As to myself, by regular living, and rising very early (which I find the best thing in the world), I am very much mended; insomuch, that though I cannot read, yet my thoughts seem as distinct as ever. I do therefore, for amusement, pass my early hours in thinking of certain mathematical matters, which may possibly produce something. I doubt not you have done as I advised in settling accounts with M'Manus ; at least that you have his bonds till he pay what is due. You say nothing of the law- suit; I hope it is to surprise me in your next with an account of its being finished. Perhaps the house and garden on Montpelier-hill 19 may be got a good pennyworth ; in which case, I should not be averse to buying it, as also the furniture of the bed-chambers and kitchen, if they may be had cheap. It is probable a tenement in so remote a part may be purchased at an easy rate. I must, therefore, entreat you not to omit inquiring in the properest manner about it, and sending me the result of your inquiry. You'll be so good as to take care of the inclosed letter. My wife's and son's services wait on you. I am, dear Tom, your affectionate humble servant, G. BERKELEY. London, Jan. 15, 1733 — 4. Dear Tom, I received last post your three letters together; for which advices I give you thanks. I had at the same time two from Baron Wainwright 20 on the same account. That, without my intermeddling, I may have the offer of somewhat, I am apt to think, which may make me easy in point of situation and income, though I question whether the dignity will much contribute to make me so. Those who imagine (as you write) that I may pick and choose, to be sure think that I have been making my court here all this 18 Probably John Wetherby, D.D., then 19 In Dublin. Dean of Cashel and Archdeacon of Connor. 20 John Wainwright, Baron of Exchequer He died in 1736. in Ireland 1732 — 34. VI.] Back to London. 211 time, and would never believe (what is most true), that I have not been at the Court or at the Minister's but once these seven years. The care of my health, and the love of retirement, have prevailed over whatsoever ambition might have come to my share. I approve of the proposal you make from Mr. Nichols for my con- tinuing the tenement upon Arbor Hill 2t , at the same rent, till I go over and can make a judgment thereupon. As soon as any thing is done here, you shall be sure to hear from me ; and if any thing occurs there (or even if there doth not), I should be glad to hear from you. We are all well at your service. I am, dear Tom, your affectionate humble servant, G. BERKELEY. It was something odd that yours of January ist should not come to my hands till the 13th at night. Pray send me as particular an account as you can get of the country, the situation, the house, the circumstances of the bishopric of Cloyne ; and let me know the charges of coming into a bishopric, i. e. the amount of the fees and first-fruits. I remain, yours, &c. Dear Tom, Since my last I have kissed their Majesty's hands for the Bishopric of Cloyne, having first received an account from the Duke of Newcastle's office, setting forth that his Grace 22 had laid before the King the Duke of Dorset's recommendation, which was readily complied with by his Majesty. The condition of my own health, and that of my family, will not suffer me to travel in this season of the year. I must therefore intreat you to take care of the fees and patent, which Mr. Delafoy tells me will be perfected there in consequence of the King's warrant sent to Mr. Cary. Let me know what the fees amount to. There is some proper person who does business of that kind to whom you need only pay the fees ; which I will draw for as soon as you let me know the sum. I shall be glad to hear from you what particulars you can learn about this Bishopric of Cloyne. I am obliged to conclude in haste, dear Tom, your affectionate humble servant, G. BERKELEY. London, Jan. 19, 1733 — 4. n Cf. p. 201. announcing the appointment, is dated Jan. 22 Then one of the Secretaries of State. 19, 1734. The King's Letter to the Duke of Dorset, P 2 212 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. Dear Tom, On the sixth instant the Duke sent over his plan, wherein I was re- commended to the Bishopric of Cloyne. On the fourteenth I received a letter from the secretary's office, signifying his Majesty's having imme- diately complied therewith, and containing the Duke of Newcastle's very obliging compliments thereupon. In all this I was nothing surprised; his Grace the Lord Lieutenant having declared, on this side the water, that he intended to serve me the first opportunity, though at the same time he desired me to say nothing of it. As to the A. B. D. 23 I readily believe he gave no opposition. He knew it would be to no purpose ; and the Queen herself had expressly enjoined him not to oppose me. This I certainly knew when the A. B. was here, though I never saw him. Notwithstanding all which I had a strong penchant to be Dean of Dromore, and not to take the charge of a Bishopric upon me. Those who formerly opposed my being Dean of Down, have thereby made me a Bishop ; which rank, how desirable soever it may seem, I had before absolutely determined to keep out of. The situation of my own and my family's health will not suffer me to think of travelling before April. However, as on that side it may be thought proper that I should vacate the Deanery of Derry, I am ready, as soon as I hear the Bishopric of Cloyne is void, by Dr. Synge's being legally possessed of the See of Ferns, to send over a resignation of my Deanery; and I authorize you to signify as much where you think proper. I should be glad you sent me a rude plan of the house from Bishop Synge's description, that I may forecast the furniture. The great man whom you mention as my opponent concerted his measures but ill ; for it appears by your letter, that at the very time when my brother 24 in- formed the Speaker of his soliciting against me there, the Duke's plan had already taken place here, and the resolution was passed in my favour at St. James's, I am nevertheless pleased, as it gave me an opportunity of being obliged to the Speaker, which I shall not fail to acknowledge when I see him, which will probably be very soon, for he is expected here as soon as the Session is up. My family are well, though I myself have gotten a cold this sharp foggy weather, having been obliged, con- trary to my wonted custom, to be much abroad paying compliments and returning visits. We are all at your service ; and I remain, dear Tom, yours affectionately, GEOR. BERKELEY. London, Jan. 22, 1733 — 4. 33 John Hoadly, D.D., Archbishop of succeeded to the Primacy. Dublin, from 1730 till 1 742, when he 24 Probably Robert. vij Back to London. London, Jan. 28, 1733 — 4. Dear Tom, In a late letter you told me the Bishopric of Cloyne is let for 1,200 pounds per annum, out of which there is a small rent-charge of interest to be paid. I am informed by a letter of yours which I received this day, that there is also a domain of 800 acres adjoining to the episcopal house. I desire to be informed by your next whether these 800 acres are under- stood to be over and above the 1,200 pounds per annum, and whether they were kept by former bishops in their own hands? In my last, I mentioned to you the impossibility of my going to Ireland before spring, and that I would send a resignation of my Deanery, if need was, immediately upon the vacancy of the See of Cloyne. I have been since told that this would be a step of some hazard, viz. in case of the King's death, which I hope is far off. However, one would not care to do a thing which may seem incautious and imprudent in the eye of the world; not but that I would rather do it than be obliged to go over at this season. But, as the bulk of the Deanery is in tithes, and a very inconsiderable part in land, the damage to my successor would be but a trifle upon my keeping it to the end of March. I would know what you advise on this matter. My wife and children are, I thank God, all well at present, and join in service to you. I am, dear Tom, your affectionate humble servant, G. BERKELEY. Not long since I sent you inclosed a letter for my brother Robin, which I desired you to deliver to him. It contained a bill of forty pounds upon Swift and Company, to be received and disposed of by him. But as you make no mention of this letter, and I have had no account of its coming to hand, I begin to apprehend it might have miscarried ; in which case I desire you to inquire at Swift's, &c, to give warning. Pray let me hear next post. Dear Tom, Tins comes to tell you that I have been for several days laid up with the gout. When I last wrote to you I was confined; but at first knew not whether it might not be a sprain or hurt from the shoe : but it soon shewed itself a genuine fit of the gout in both my feet, by the pain, in- flammation, swelling, &c, attended with a fever and restless nights. With my feet lapp'd up in flannels, and raised on a cushion, I receive the visits of my friends, who congratulate me on this occasion as much as on my preferment. 214 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [cm. As to Bishop Synge's furniture, we shall be able to judge upon seeing it, which will be as soon as possible. His stock and his overseer will, I think, suit my purpose, especially if I keep the lands in my own hands ; concerning which I would know your opinion ; as also, whether that domain be reckoned in the income of 1,200 pounds per annum. I conclude with my wife and son's compliments to you. Dear Tom, your affectionate humble servant, G. BERKELEY. London, Feb* 7, 1733-^-4° London, Feb. 19, 1734. Dear Tom, Now I have been confined three weeks by gout, an unusual length for the first fit ; but my friends and physician think it will be of so much the more service to me in carrying off the dregs of my long indisposition, and clearing my head. I have had it successively in my feet, head, stomach, and one knee. It is now got into my feet again, but is com- paratively very gentle. I hope to get soon abroad : but I shall have some business to do beside the taking leave of my friends, and preparing things for my departure for Ireland; where, I am sure, I long to be more than any one there can long to see me. I must, however, neither hurt my health, after the tenderness of a long confinement, nor neglect things absolutely necessary. And to make people concerned as easy as I am able, I by this post send inclosed to Baron Wainwright a formal resignation of my Deanery. Yours, GEOR. BERKELEY. London, Feb. 23, 1733 — 4. Dear Tom, In a late letter, you told me that the wardenship of Tuam, to which I had no title, was inserted in my patent 25 . But some time since I re- ceived a letter from one Mr. Rugge 20 , a class-fellow of mine in the College, dated from Youghall, of which town he tells me I am Warden. Now, it comes into my head that there may be a mistake in the patent of Tuam for Youghall, which mistake may deprive me of a considerable part of the 28 The ' Provostship of Tuam ' — not Youghall— is mentioned by mistake in the King's Letter, as to be held in commendam with the See of Cloyne. ao ' HenryRugge, born [ 682, entered S.C.D, in 1699, became Recorder of Youghall, and represented that town in Parliament from I 72 1 to 1 731.' (Brady's Records, vol. II. p. 169.) Back to London, Bishop s income. I must therefore desire you to look into the patent in order to clear up this point, and let me know how to rectify it. Bishop Synge (from whom I have not yet heard) and Mr. Lingen can tell how this matter stands, and what is to be done. Pray send me the favour of a line by next post on this head. I have not yet received M'Manus's account for the last year of his farming ; so I cannot justly say, but I expected a much greater balance in his hands than 50 pounds. You perceive, by the 20 pounds over- charged for the widows, how requisite it is that his accounts be sharply looked after, especially in the great article of paying the curates, con- cerning which I already wrote you my thoughts. As I confide that affair to your care, I trust you will look sharp, and not suffer me to be imposed on. I need not mention that no deductions are to be made by Mr. Skipton for cures, since, in pursuance to your letter, 1 agreed they should be paid out of the profits of the foregoing year. Pray, in your next, let me know when I may expect Mr. Skipton's payments, that I may order my affairs accordingly ; and whether my brother be gone to Cloyne. I have sent a resignation of the Deanery to Baron Wainwright, witnessed by Dr. King, and in full form. I hope to get abroad in two days, and to be able to put on my gouty shoes. My family is well, and give their service. Yours, G> BERKELEY. London, March 2, 1734. Dear Tom, As to what you write of the prospect of new vacancies, and your advising that I should apply for a better bishoprick, I thank you for your advice. But, if it pleased God the Bishop of Derry were actually dead, and there were ever so many promotions thereupon I would not apply, or so much as open my mouth to any one friend to make an interest for getting any of them. To be so very hasty for a removal, even before I had seen Cloyne, would argue a greater greediness for lucre than I hope I shall ever have. Not but that, all things considered, I have a fair demand upon the Government for expense of time and pains and money, on the faith of public charters : as likewise because I find the income of Cloyne considerably less than Was at first represented. I had no notion that I should, over and above the charge of patents and first fruits, be obliged to pay between £400 and £500, for which I shall never see a farthing in return ; besides interest I am to pay for upwards of ^300, which principal devolves upon my successor. No more was I 2i6 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [en. apprized of three curates, viz. two at Youghal and one at Aghada, to be paid by me. And, after all, the certain value of the income I have not yet learned. My predecessor writes that he doth not know the true value himself, but believes it may be about £1200 per annum, including the fines, and striking them at a medium for seven years. The uncer- tainty, I believe, must proceed from the fines ; but it may be supposed that he knows exactly what the rents are, and what the tithes, and what the payments to the curates ; of which particulars you may probably get an account from him. Sure I am, that if I had gone to Derry, and taken my affairs into my own hands, I might have made considerably above <£iooo a year, after paying the curates' salaries. And as for charities, such as school-boys, widows, &c, those ought not to be reck- oned, because all sorts of charities, as well as contingent expenses, must be much higher on a bishop than a dean. But in all appearance, sub- ducting the money that T must advance, and all expense of the curates in Youghal and Aghada, I shall not have remaining £1000 per ann. ; not even though the whole income was worth X1200, of which I doubt, by Bishop Synge's uncertainty, that it will be found to fall short. I thank you for the information you gave me of a house to be hired in Stephen's Green. I should like the Green very well for situation : but I have no thoughts of taking a house in town suddenly ; nor would it be convenient for my affairs so to do, considering the great expense I must be at on coming into a small bishoprick. My gout has left me. I have nevertheless a weakness remaining in my feet, and, what is worse, an extreme tenderness, the effect of my long confinement. I was abroad the beginning of this week to take a little air in the park, which gave me a cold, and obliged me to physic and two or three days' confinement. I have several things to prepare in order to my journey, and shall make all the dispatch I can. But why I should endanger my health by too much hurry, or why I should precipitate myself, in this convalescent state, into doubtful weather and cold lodgings on the road, I do not see. There is but one reason that I can comprehend why the great men there should be so urgent ; viz. for fear that I should make an interest here in case of vacancies ; which I have already assured you I do not intend to do ; so they may be perfectly easy on that score. I am, dear Tom, your affectionate humble servant, G. BERKELEY. London, March 9, 1733 — 4. Dear Tom, I think what my brother and you write about the impropriety and VI.] Back to Loudon. 217 uselessness of his going now to Cloyne very reasonable, and must intreat you to give him the inclosed letter with your own hands. I have not yet seen Mr. Roberts, but am willing to do all the service I can in relation to the affair you mention ; though I apprehend I am not likely to do much, for two reasons : first, because I can hardly stir abroad without catching cold, such is my tenderness after so long confinement; secondly, because I apprehend there will be council heard, which makes it a judicial case, in which there is no room for favour. I shall, however, endeavour to speak for it in the best manner I can to the Lord Chan- cellor, Lord President, Lord Chief Justice, and to the Master of the Rolls 27 ; which four I take to be persons of the most weight, at least that I know, in the Privy Council. I shall attempt to find them at home ; though in this busy time it is very difficult to come at them there : and as for going to the Parliament House in my present condition, I should run too great a risk to think of it. On Monday I shall have a useful servant, whom I shall employ in hastening things for my departure as soon as possible ; for I sincerely long to be with you. My wife's service and mine. I am, dear Tom, your affectionate humble servant, G. BERKELEY. Dear Tom, I received your letter, containing M'Manus's account for the last year. I have not leisure to examine it at present; but, at first sight, it strikes me that he charges 20 pounds where he should have charged but ten, i. e. to the clergymen's widows. You'll inquire how this comes to pass. I am bond fide making all the haste I can. My library is to be em- barked on board the first ship bound to Cork, of which I am in daily expectation. I suppose it will be no difficult matter to obtain an order from the commissioners to the custom-house officers there to let it pass duty-free, which, at first word, was granted here on my coming from America. I wish you would mention this, with my respects, to Dr. Cog- hill 28 . After my journey, I trust that I shall find my health much better, though at present I am obliged to guard against the east wind, with which we have been annoyed of late, and which never fails to disorder my head. I am in hopes, however, by what I hear, that I shall be able to reach Dublin before my Lord-Lieutenant leaves it. I shall reckon it ul Lord Talbot was then Lord Chancellor ; Lord Wilmington, Lord President; Sir Philip Yorke, Chief Justice ; and Sir John Jekyll, Master of the Rolls. 28 Dr. Marmaduke Coghill, Judge of the Pre- rogative Court of Ireland. See Mant's History of the Church of Ireland, vol. II. p. 409. 2 1 8 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch» my misfortune if I do not. I am sure it shall not be for want of doing all that lies in my power; I am in a hurry. I am obliged to manage my health, and I have many things to do. I must desire you, at your leisure, to look out a lodging for us, to be taken only by the week ; for I shall stay no longer in Dublin than needs must. I shall want three beds for men-servants, one bed for maid- servants, two convenient bed-chambers, a dining-room and parlour Utensils for the kitchen and table ; for though I believe my wife and I shall dine seldom at home, yet my family must. I imagine the house in St. Mary's parish, where I first lodged in my solitude, when I was last in Dublin 29 , might do, if it might be had. There was only a woman and a maid in it ; and I should be glad to have as few of the people in the house as may be. Baron Wainwright I should like to be near ; but in Stephen's Green I should not like to be. But, if the aforesaid conve- niences are not easily to be had in William-street, you may probably find them on the other side the water without difficulty ; and a coach soon carries me wherever I have a mind to visit. I would have the lodging taken for the ioth of April. But say nothing of this providing a lodg- ing, nor of the time, except to my brother, who perhaps may be helpful in looking out for it. You may remember that, upon my being made Dean of Derry, I paid the curates for the current year. The reason assigned why I should do this, will hold good for my successor, viz. because I was to have the whole tithes of the year. Pray be mindful of this. I am, dear Tom, your affectionate humble servant, G. BERKELEY. London, March 17, 1733—4. You will also remember to take bonds for the money, to be reimbursed for the Deanery-house. Dear Tom, Last post I received one from you, wherein you mention orders sent to clear the curates till the 5th instant. I hope you will recollect, and see that I am done by as I myself did by my predecessor on first coming into the Deanery. The same reason that was then assigned for my paying the curates for the year, though I came in so late as May, will surely hold for my successor's doing the same thing. Your account of my income I should be glad to find true. It w idely w Was this in 172S ? vl] Back to London. 219 differs from what Bishop Synge writes ; and both of your accounts differ from my brother's. I would fain know what I might depend on. There may be some uncertainty in the fines or tythes ; but the rents regularly and annually paid must surely be known to the bishop. By this post I inform Bishop Synge of my design to employ the person recommended by him. As for the distance, I shall know by experience how far that is inconvenient. I wish you could get money from Skipton to make up what was wanting in your hands towards paying for the patents ; for I have largely drawn of late, and shall draw again before I set out, on Swift and Company ; so that there will be little left in their hands. I shall have time to receive another letter from you before I leave this. The agent you mentioned for the bill against the heirs of Burton and Harrison never came to me to state the case ; so I have little to say : and by what I find, it is to no purpose, for the bill is not likely to pass. I reasoned as well as I could on the little and wrong lights which I had with my Lord President ; but I found by him, that the Committee of Council have weighty reasons against passing it. I spoke also to another privy counsellor, but I doubt to no effect. There will be pleadings probably, as well as petitions, on both sides, which must determine, and in the mean time procrastinate, the fate of this bill. There is one Mr. Cox 30 a clergyman, son to the late Dr. Cox near Drogheda, who I understand is under the patronage of Dr. Coghill. Pray inform yourself of his character, whether he be a good man, one of parts and learning, and how he is provided for. This you may possibly do without my being named. Perhaps my brother may know something of him. I would be glad to be apprized of his character on my coming to Dublin. No one has recommended him to me; but his father was an ingenious man, and I saw two sensible women, his sisters, at Rhode Island, which inclines me to think him a man of merit, and such only I would prefer. I have had certain persons recommended to me ; but I shall consider their merits preferably to all recommendation. If you can answer for the ingenuity, learning, and good qualities of the person you mentioned, preferably to that of others in competition, I should be very glad to serve him. I must put you in mind of what I mentioned long since, viz. getting Dr. Helsham's 31 note for 200 pounds under my hand, which I allowed to you, and you had allowed to Bishop Synge, who paid that sum out of ,J0 This was the Rev. Marmaduke Cox September 1 736, and held various livings in (son of Dr. Cox, Vicar of St. Peter's, that diocese till his death in 1762. See Drogheda, and Dean of Ferns, from 1694 Brady's Records, vol. II. p. 147. to 1719), who was licensed to the curacy 31 Professor of Natural Philosophy in of Inniscarra, in the diocese of Cloyne, in Trinity College, Dublin. 220 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. my money long ago. You promised when you were here to see it can- celled, but I suppose you might have forgot it. I think the more of it at present, because I have, for want of exactness, paid the sum of sixteen pounds twice over ; and a burnt child, you know, dreads the fire. My wife makes you her compliments. I am, dear Tom, yours affectionately, G. BERKELEY. March 20, 1733 — 4. London, April 2, 1734. Dear Tom, The other day Mr. Roberts called at my lodging ; where, not meeting with myself, he left your letter, a full month after its date. I wish I had seen him, to have known more particulars of the case ; though, on second thoughts, I imagine it was not needful, for all these points will be opened by lawyers before the Attorney-General and before the Committee of Council. I have, in compliance with your desire, talked of this affair with the Lord President, Lord Chancellor, and Master of the Rolls ; to all whom I recommended it, as far as was decent to recommend a judicial affair wherein private property is concerned. I spoke also to one or two more of the privy council; all the members whereof I thought equally judges of the bill. But I find that the committee for Irish bills consists only of the Lords of the Cabinet and the Law Lords of the Council. I tried to find my Lord Hardwicke, the Chief Justice of the King's Bench, and shall try again. To-morrow I propose to speak on the same subject to the Duke of Newcastle. I am in no small hurry, have many things to do, and many things to think of ; but would not neglect or omit to throw in my mite towards forwarding an affair which you represent to be of national concern. I hear of a ship going to Cork, on board of which I design to have my things embarked next week. But it will be impossible for me to go till after Easter ; and if it was possible, would not be decent. I propose, therefore, without fail, to set out from hence either on the Tuesday or at farthest on the Wednesday after Easter-day ; and if the lodging in Dub- lin be secured against that day se'ennight it will be time enough. We would either have a furnished house to ourselves by the week, or else a house with as few inhabitants as may be. I wrote to my brother Robin last week ; which letter I directed to the College. Let him know this when you see him. I thank you for thinking of my library's passing easily through the custom-house. It is to be sent to Messrs. Harper and Morris, as Bishop Synge directed ; who, I hope, hath apprised them of VI.] Back to London, 221 it, and recommended it to their care. I shall have occasion to draw for about a hundred pounds. I hope you'll urge Mr. Skipton to be early in his payment. My wife and son give their service to you. I am, dear Tom, your affectionate humble servant, G. BERKELEY. London, April 16, 1734. Dear Tom, Last Friday evening I saw Mr. Roberts for the first time. He told me he apprehended opposition from Lord Hardwicke. Next day I attempted to find my Lord, but could not. This day I saw his Lordship, but to no purpose ; for he told me the affair of the Banker's bill was finished last night. I then said nothing, but only asked him how it had gone. He told me they had made Harrison's estate liable to one moiety of the demands on the Bank, and that this was just : so the bill is passed, but with alteration ; yet such as it is hoped will not defeat the intention of it. It is very late; and I have time only to add, that I am your affectionate humble servant, G. BERKELEY. I thought I should have set out to-morrow ; but it is impossible before Monday. You shall soon hear again from me. My wife and son make their compliments. With Cloyne thus in view, he was not withdrawn from study. Amidst the hurry of preparations for his journey to Ireland, he wrote the following letter (of some philosophical interest) to his friend Johnson at Stratford : — London, April 4, 1734. Reverend Sir, Your ordering matters so that every year one Scholar of the House be chosen, is quite agreeable to my intentions. As to lending out the books of your library, I think there should be made some public statute by the proper authority, which same authority may alter it, if it prove upon trial to be so inconvenient. But this rests on the trustees or governors of the College. My private opinion is, that you may, for the present, lend out books to any persons residing in the Colony, who have studied either in that or any other College, but always under the caution mentioned in my former letter — upon forfeiture whereof the book is to, be returned within a limited time. 222 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. As to the Bishop of Cork's book 32 , and the other book you allude to, the author whereof is one Baxter 33 , they are both very little read or con- sidered here ; for which reason I have taken no public notice of them. To answer objections already answered, and repeat the same things, is a needless as well as disagreeable task. Nor should I have taken notice of that Letter about Vision 34 , had it not been printed in a news- paper which gave it course, and spread it through the kingdom. Beside, the Theory of Vision I found was somewhat obscure to most people ; for which reason I was not displeased at an opportunity to explain it. Of late I have been laid up with the gout, which hath hindered me hitherto from going to Ireland to be consecrated Bishop of Cloyne, to which his Majesty nominated me near three months ago. The hurry I am now in, providing for my journey to Ireland, doth not allow me time to add any more than my service and best wishes to yourself, Mr. Williams, Mr. Elliot, &c. I am, Rev. Sir, Your faithful humble servant, G. BERKELEY. When you write next, direct for me at Cloyne in Ireland. The polemic of Andrew Baxter, in his Inquiry, was the earliest criticism of considerable size which Berkeley's account of the nature of the material world had encountered, although it had then been published for more than twenty years. Its comparative bulk, however, is almost the only circumstance which entitles Baxter's work, on this subject, to consideration. Warburton's extravagant doge upon the author is qualified by Stewart, but the ingenuity and acuteness which Stewart claims for some of Baxter's observations on Berkeley must also be taken with reserve. At the best he is ingenious and acute in the construction of a c man of straw,' whose defeat requires only a small share of those qualities. 32 Bishop Browne's Divine Analogy. As already mentioned, this book was published in the beginning of 1733; and the eighth chapter contains the defence of his doctrine against the objections of Berkeley. Andrew Baxter, a Scotchman, born at Old Aberdeen, about 1687, and author of an Inquiry into the Nature of the Human Soul, one section in which is entitled ' Dean Berkeley's Scheme against the Existence of Matter and a Material World, examined and shewn inconclusive.' The date of the first edition of Baxter's Inquiry has hitherto puzzled the historians of philosophy. It was published anonymously, by subscription, and obviously some time before this letter was written. The second edition appeared in 1737. Baxter died in 1750. M The letter in the Daily Post Boy of 9th September, 1732. See Berkeley's Works, vol. I. p. 40 r. VI.] Back to London. 223 He deals with the object of his attack as a sceptic; and treats his c scheme 5 as c a complication of all the species of scepticism that have ever yet been broached.' With this view he plays upon the unfortunate word c idea,' the chief source of all the misrepresenta- tion of which Berkeley has been the subject. Assuming, as he does, that Berkeley identifies the real ideas of sense with the illusions of imagination, he is of course easily able to show that a sensible world of this sort is inconsistent with the knowledge which regulates our actions, and that it convicts the Author of our intellectual and practical faculties of deception. Sensible things, in the language of Berkeley, are composed of Ideas or sensations^ by means of 7iotlons of the mind. In our experience we find that they fluctuate as our sensations fluctuate; but, apart from this, the possibility of sensible, or any other, actual existence, in the case of an absolute extinction of all thinking and feeling, Divine and finite, is inconceivable. Baxter never looks at the question from this point of view. He does not see that real ideas of sense may be, although ideas, hard and extended. His most ingenious argu- ment for the existence of a material world is founded upon the opposite assumption; it fails accordingly to prove that matter exists in any other sense than that which Berkeley would allow 35 . Baxter's examination of Berkeley is interesting chiefly as evi- dence that the new conception of the nature and powers of the material world was beginning to engage Scotch metaphysical intellect, which soon after was more profoundly moved by it. Berkeley, through Baxter, Hume, and Reid, first awakened reflection in Scotland. Perhaps he is destined now to revive it, and to recal it to what is real, when it is wasting among con- troversial abstractions ; or to what is spiritual, when it is inclined to an exclusive devotion to external observation and physical science. Nor was Baxter's book the first symptom of an influence which Berkeley seems to have exerted in Scotland earlier and more distinctly than in England. Stewart refers to what must 86 ' If our ideas,' says Baxter, 1 have no parts, and yet if we perceive parts, it is plain we perceive something more than our own perceptions. But both these are cer- tain ; we are conscious that we perceive parts, when we look upon a house, a tree, a river, the dial-plate of a clock or watch. This is a short and easy way of being cer- tain that something; exists without the mind. We are certain of this from consciousness itself ; since we are as conscious that we perceive parts as that we have perceptions at all. And this argument proves at once, and from the same perceptions, the exist- ence of both the parts of our composition. (Inquiry, vol. II. p. 337.) 224 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. have occurred, I think, before the publication even of the first edition of Baxter's Inquiry , when he says 36 that c the novelty of his [Berkeley's] paradoxes attracted very powerfully the attention of a set of young men who were then prosecuting their studies at Edinburgh, and who formed themselves into a Society for the express purpose of soliciting from the author an explanation of some parts of his theory which seemed to them obscurely and equivocally expressed. To this correspondence the amiable and excellent prelate appears to have given every encouragement ; and I have been told by the best authority, that he was accustomed to say that his reasonings had been nowhere better understood than by this club of young Scotsmen 3 ?.' This spring of 1734 involved Berkeley in a controversy, as in- tended by him with the Free-thinkers, but which became in the end a controversy with the Mathematicians. His College Common- place Book shows that his thoughts had been long working in this direction. He had partly followed out the relation of his New Principle to mathematical science and to space, when it was first announced by him in 17 10; afterwards, more distinctly, in the De Motu and in Alctpkron. Baxter, in his Inquiry^ among his other objections to the new conception of matter and space, alleged that it forced the author c to suspect that even mathematics may not be very sound knowledge at the bottom.' Stock says that Addison was connected with this crusade against the mathematicians, for that he had told Berkeley that Garth, in his last illness, was impervious to the consideration of Christianity, on the ground that Dr. Halley, that great mathematician and dealer in demonstration, had convinced him that the Christian religion must be an imposture, because its doctrines were incomprehensible 38 . This story as told is not a very likely one. Garth died in January 36 Dissertation, Part II. sect. 4. bers of Mankind, and the Rev. Dr. Steven- 37 I have failed to find any documentary son, Professor of Logic and Metaphysics in record of this interesting incident. , The the University of Edinburgh, were among Royal Society of Edinburgh is, however, the leading members. They were young said to have taken its rise in the Society men, prosecuting their studies in Edinburgh, referred to, which was called the Ranketiian about 1720 — 24, when Berkeley was in Club. Nor have I been able to determine London and in Dublin, after his return from the exact date of this club, and of the corre- Italy. Perhaps the Society to which Mr. spondence which the members are said to Stewart refers was making its inquiries have held with Berkeley. The Rev. Dr. about that time. Wallace, author of a Discourse on the Num- :iS See also Spence's Anecdotes, p. 140. VI.] Back to London. 225 1719, and Addison in the following June. Berkeley was then in Italy, and there is no evidence that he was in correspondence with Addison. But however this may be, his thoughts, during this spring in London, were employed about a form of religious scepticism, said to prevail among mathematicians, which was founded on the existence of incomprehensibilities in religion. In January 1734, he told Prior, that though he could not read, yet his thoughts seemed as distinct as ever ; and that therefore, c for amusement, 5 he passed his early hours c in thinking of certain mathematical matters which might possibly produce something/ The result was the Analyst^ which appeared in March, on the eve of his departure to Ireland. The general aim of the Analyst^ apart from the involved mathematical details, is clear enough. It is an argumentum ad komlnem. Similar reasoning is to be found in the last dialogue of Alciphron y where it is argued that signs may have another use than that of marking and suggesting ideas : without sig- nifying ideas, they may form rules for us to act by. At the root of all knowledge concerned with ideas, there are practical principles, he thinks, which cannot be analysed into ideas, and are in that sense incomprehensible. It is unreasonable to insist on resolving them into ideas. In this respect religion and science are upon the same footing. Force is as incomprehensible as grace. Both have a practical meaning; but we can have no ideas, in sense or in imagination, of what either force or grace means. So too with the mathematicians. They object to receive religion, because its rudimentary principles cannot be presented and represented in sensations and sense images. Now, the very same thing is found, he tries to show, in mathematics; especially in the new and admired doctrine of fluxions. Its elementary principles do not admit of being reduced into either sensations or images. Fluxions are regulative and not speculative, as the first principles of religion are. In this congenial field, Berkeley shows his characteristic subtlety. He boldly challenges the leaders of mathematical analysis; proves that modern analysts are obliged, even in their demonstrations, to assume what they cannot resolve into finite sensibles ; and concludes that reasoners who can accept mysteries, and even what seem to be contradictions, in their own province, are inconsistent in rejecting religion, merely because it makes VOL. IV. Q 226 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [CH. a similar demand upon them. All knowledge, physical, mathe- matical, and theological, is thus, with him, in the last analysis, practical art rather than speculative science, It must be allowed, I think, that Berkeley's natural ardour, and inclination to push any conception which he accepts to extremes, has led him in the Analyst to a position where he is at any rate very apt to be misunderstood. Not contented with pressing the incomprehensibility, on a sensationalist basis, of the principles of mathematics, and especially of fluxions, he alleges fallacies in the new science of Newton. He speaks as if fluxions involved abso- lute contradictions as well as relative incomprehensibility; and mathematicians complain that he is blind to the Newtonian conception of continuity, confounding it with the monadism of Leibnitz. But it is to' be remembered that he is arguing with persons who are supposed to assume that all signs should signify what is capable of resolution into a sensationalist meaning, and who reject the mysteries of religion, on the ground that they are not open to this analysis, but involve us in contradictions when we attempt so to analyse them. He probably regarded the Newtonian conception of continuity as open to the same objection; as in- capable of reduction into ideas of sense and imagination, and as involving us in contradictions when we treat it as if it could. If this was his thought, his language is sometimes unguarded. Carnot and Lagrange, Euler and D'Alembert, have since tried by various expedients to resolve difficulties in the calculus similar to some of those which Berkeley first brought to light 39 . The mathematicians, as we shall see, did not long leave the Analyst untouched. In the meantime, Berkeley made his escape to his new bishopric in Ireland. The following letter to Prior shows that in the end of April, after repeated postponements, he was at last on the road : — I was deceived by the assurance given me of two ships going for Cork. In the event, one could not take in my goods, and the other took freight for another port. So that, after all their delays and 39 Kant's criticism of Space was partly geometry, and mechanics. But Berkeley founded on the need for showing the pos- had not learned to look at the question sibility of pure mathematics — arithmetic, from this point of view. Dear Tom, St. Albari s, April 30, 1734. VI.] Journey to Dublin. 227 prevarications, I have been obliged to ship off my things for Dublin on board of Captain Leech. From this involuntary cause, I have been detained here so long beyond my intentions, which really were to have got to Dublin before the Parliament, which now I much question whether I shall be able to do ; considering that, as I have two young children 40 with me, I cannot make such dispatch on the road as otherwise I might. I hope Skipton's first payment hath been made ; so that you have got the money you returned, and that the rest is lodged with Swift and Company to answer my draughts ; otherwise I have overdrawn. The lodging in Gervais-street 41 , which you formerly procured for me, will, I think, do very well. I shall want, beside the conveniences I before mentioned, a private stable for six coach-horses ; for so many I bring with me. I shall hope for a letter from you at the post-office in Chester, giving an account of the lodging, where and what it is, &c. My wife thinks that on breaking up of the Duke's kitchen, one of his under-cooks may be got; and that a man-cook would be a great convenience to us. If you can procure a sober young man, who is a good cook, and under- stands pickling and preserving, at a reasonable price, we shall be much obliged. The landlady of the lodging must, in your agreement, be obliged to furnish linen and necessaries for the table, as also to dress our meat. This is to be included in the price that we pay by the week for the lodgings. In your last, you mentioned black cattle and sheep of Bishop Synge's 42 , which I am resolved to purchase, and had long ago signified the same to my brother, if I remember rightly. If I meet with a good ship at Chester, I propose going from thence. As for sending a ship, I doubt this will not come time enough; and write sooner I could not, because of my uncertain situation. However, you can tell what passage-ships are on this side the water, and what is proper to be done. If a ship be sent, you will take care it is the best can be got. I have a coach and six to embark. We propose being at Chester on Saturday evening. I write this on Tuesday morning from St. Alban's. We are on the point of taking coach. So with my little family's compliments and my own, I remain your af- fectionate humble servant, GEORGE BERKELEY. I hope to find a letter at the post-office in Chester, informing where the lodging is taken. A few days after this letter was written at St. Alban's, Berkeley left England. He did not see it again for nearly twenty years 40 Henry and George. 41 In Dublin. 42 His predecessor at Cloyne. Q 2 CHAPTER VII. FIRST YEARS IN THE IRISH DIOCESE. 1734— 1739. On Sunday the 19th of May, 1734, Berkeley was consecrated to the bishopric of Cloyne, in St. Paul's Church, Dublin, by Dr.Theo- philus Bolton, Archbishop of Cashel, assisted by Dr. Nicholas Forster, Bishop of Raphoe, and Dr. Charles Carr, Bishop of Killaloe. The old church which witnessed the consecration service has since been removed, to make way for the unadorned modern structure which now occupies its place in North King Street. Berkeley was now once more in his native country, in circum- stances for concentrating his intellectual powers and benevolent sympathies to the advantage of his countrymen. We have not followed him to Ireland since he left it in September 1724, the newly-appointed Dean of Derry, on his way to London, impatient to resign his deanery in the service of America. His stay in Dublin, in the c lodging in Gervais Street,' on the north side of the Liffey, in this month of May 1734, was probably short. In his letter to Prior he had desired the lodging to be taken c only by the week ; for I shall stay no longer in Dublin than needs must;' and Stock says that c immediately after his consecration he repaired to his manse-house at Cloyne.' He wished when in Dublin to be c near Baron Wainwright,' and alluded to his c brother Robin,' perhaps then living in College 1 . Thomas Prior seems to have been in Dublin at the time, and Bishop Forster, who had presented him for holy orders, a quarter of a century before, in the old College Chapel, was one of those who 1 His brother Robert was married in 1 734, in Dublin. First Years in the Irish Diocese. 229 now assisted at his consecration in St. Paul's. Swift, whose letter to Lord Carteret records Berkeley's departure from Dublin in 1724, was still in his old quarters at St. Patrick's. On a day in the early summer of 1734, Berkeley, with his wife and two infant boys, and their considerable retinue, might have been seen wending their way over the rough roads which then connected the county of Cork, and its secluded Diocese of Cloyne, with the Irish metropolis. Cloyne is more than a hundred and fifty miles from Dublin. The most direct road in those days was through Kilkenny; and thus Berkeley, a wanderer among many men and cities, after years of ingenious thought and holy aspiration, may have been brought again for at least a passing hour within sight of the c famous school' of Kilkenny, the old Castle of the Ormonds, and the banks of the Nore. We have no record of visits to them since he matricu!at?d at Dublin, and curiously none of his remaining writings contain any reference, except the most incidental, to his native county. Before autumn set in, he was settled in his c manse-house ' at Cloyne, ' continuing his studies,' Stock says, c with unabated at- tention,' and applying a fresh and original mind to the discharge of episcopal duties. He was accustomed to rise early in his new home; his mornings were given to study, in company with Plato and Hooker. The Cloyne life seems soon to have become a very sedentary one ; partly perhaps from habits of study formed in Rhode Island, and partly from indifferent health. His health was broken before he left London. He had over-studied, we may suppose; and that too in the anxious crisis of his life: he now looked with hope to a quiet life in his Irish Diocese. The region in which he came to live was in harmony with these growing inclinations. The eastern and northern parts of the County of Cork formed his Diocese. It was bounded on the west by Cork harbour and the river Lee ; on the east by the beautiful Blackwater and the mountains of Waterford ; while the hills of Limerick protected it on the north, and the ocean formed its southern boundary, approaching within three miles of the little town of Cloyne. At that time the Diocese contained forty-four churches, and about fourteen thousand Pjotestants. The Roman Catholic churches were almost twice as many, with a population of more than eighty thousand. The Cathedral and the 230 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. Bishop's residence were in the village of Cloyne, in the barony of Imokilly. This barony, as a glance at the map shows, is a compact territory, apart from the great currents of life, about twenty miles in length, from Cork harbour to the mouth of the Blackwater at Youghall, and extending inwards about twelve miles from the ocean. Except on its north side, Imokilly is surrounded by the ocean or its estuaries. The interior consists of two nearly parallel limestone valleys, extending from west to east, and separated from one another by a low range of hills, partly cultivated, but on which few trees could then be seen. Imokilly was then, as it still is, a fertile region. Its two valleys were well planted, and contained a number of gentlemen's seats. In the northern vale were Midleton, now a considerable town, and Castlemartyr, the residence of the Shannon family of Boyles. The southern valley, about six miles in length, from Aghada and Cork harbour eastward to Ballycottin Bay, contained Rostellan, the ancient seat of the lords of Inchiquin, with its charming demesne, washed by the waters of the harbour ; and, next to Rostellan eastward, Castle Mary, the abode of the Longfields. A mile further on in the valley stood the Cathedral and See-house of Cloyne, with their dependent village, contain- ing perhaps fifteen hundred souls, and the Round Tower, still a conspicuous landmark in all the surrounding country. Eastward of Cloyne was Ballymaloe Castle, then the seat of the Lumleys, and the lands of Shanagary, which touch the spacious expanse of Ballycottin Bay. In more distant times the Fitzgeialds were seneschals of Imokilly, and reigned supreme in both its valleys. Cloyne itself, which consists of four streets meeting in the centre of the little town, is situated on a gentle partly wooded elevation, in the centre of the valley, not three miles east of Cork harbour. It is of great antiquity. Tradition says that the Cathe- dral was founded by St. Colman in the sixth century, and the picturesque Round Tower is probably nearly as old as the Cathe- dral. The bishops of Cloyne originally lived in an old castle, which was at an angle of the four cross ways in the centre of the town. The last bishop who occupied the castle was Dr. St. George Ashe, who was translated to Clogher in 1697. The See- house in which Berkeley lived was built a few years after this, by Bishop Poolcy. vii.] First Years in the Irish Diocese. 231 Cloyne and its surroundings are described, as they appeared in 1796, by Bishop Bennet, one of Berkeley's successors, in a letter to Dr. Parr 2 . c You ask me,' he says, c to explain, at length, the particulars of my situation at Cloyne. This place, which is a dirty Irish village, lies in a valley that seems evidently to have been formed in some distant age by the waters of Cork harbour in their way to the sea ; a branch of'that harbour still reaching a con- siderable way up the S.W. part of it, and the bay of Ballycottin encroaching on it towards the N.E. On every other part extends a chain of hills, well cultivated but without trees. In the middle of the valley, about three miles from the harbour and as much from the sea, rises a small insulated hill, or rather hillock, on which lies the village, church, and house; and as this spot has a few tolerable trees about it, and is ornamented by a fine Round Tower, I do not wonder that an Irishman coming from Dublin, through a naked country for a hundred and fifty miles, should think it a beautiful spot, or that an Englishman landing in Cork harbour, and comparing it with his own rich and well-dressed vallies, should wonder at Berkeley's liking it. The church is large, but not handsome, with one bell only, a very good organ, and its proper appurtenances of vicars choral, and singing boys. The Episcopal House is at the east end of the village, a large irregular building, having been altered and improved by different Bishops, but altogether a comfortable and handsome residence ; the side next the village has a very close screen of shrubs and trees, and the three other sides look to a large garden and farm of four hundred acres. I keep about fifty acres, enough to supply my 2 Parr's Works, vol. VII. pp. 106 — 109. Dr. Bennet was Bishop of Cloyne from 1794 to 1820. He whs an Englishman, educated at Harrow and Cambridge. He was translated to Cloyne from the See of Cork and Ross Parr was his schoolfellow at Harrow, and had a great regard for this accomplished prelate, with whom he long maintained a close correspondence. Some of Bennet's letters are published in Parr's works. ' Sweet,' writes Parr, ' is the refreshment afforded to my soul by the remembrance of such a scholar, such a man, and such a friend as Dr. William Bennet, Bishop of Cloyne.' Much interesting information about the bishopric of Cloyne is contained in his MSS., preserved in the registry of Cloyne. The bishopric, at a distance from Dublin, and an appendage to the See of Cork and Ross, with which it was once and again united, was long the prey of the neighbouring magnates, especially the Fitz- geralds. Some of the demesne lands of which Cloyne was deprived at the Reforma- tion were recovered afterwards, but when Berkeley was there it was still one of the poorer bishoprics of Ireland, and accordingly its bishops held Youghal and Aghada in commendam. The increase of the ecclesi- astical rents later in the century made it much more valuable, and in Bishop Bennet's time the endowment of Cloyne was esti- mated at about £5000 a year. 232 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. stable with hay, and my dairy with milk, in my own hands ; and these fifty acres compose three fields immediately contiguous to the house. The garden is large, four acres, consisting of four quarters, full of fruits, particularly strawberries and raspberries, which it was soon found his lordship had a predilection for- and separated, as well as surrounded by shrubberies, which contain some pretty winding walks, and one large one of nearly a quarter of a mile long, adorned for a great part of its length by a hedge of myrtles six feet high, planted by Berkeley's own hand, and which had each of them a large ball of tar put to their roots 3 : the evidence of this fact is beyond contradiction. At the end of the garden is what we call the Rock Shrubbery, a walk leading under young trees, among sequestered crags of limestone, which hang many feet above our heads, and ending at the mouth of a Cave of unknown length and depth— branching to a great distance under the earth, sancti- fied by a thousand wild traditions, and which, I have no doubt, sheltered the first wild inhabitants of the town in its gloomy wind- ing : and gave rise at last to the town itself, chain being the Irish name for a cave or place of retirement. Caves were, you know, till lately, places of retreat in the Scotch islands, to which the natives fled in the time of invasion; they were the fortresses of the first savages, and gave birth naturally to towns in their neighbourhood, as the Roman camps and Saxon castles did in England at a later period. I have enclosed this place, which is a favourite spot of mine, with a low wall, enlarged its limits, and planted it with shrubs which grow in this southern part of Ireland (where frost is unknown) to a luxuriance of which the tall myrtles I have mentioned may give you some idea. c On Sunday the gates are thrown open, that my Catholic neigh- bours may indulge themselves with a walk to the Cave '. On all other days of the week no one ventures to intrude upon my retire- ment, not even the Prebendary in residence : — 3 In May of this year (1^70), I saw the last remaining myrtle ; but not ' the ball of tar.' 4 The Cave of Cloyne is still a summer resort, and can be explored in dry weather. The See House has undergone many changes since Berkeley lived \n it. The oldest part is the lower S. and W. front, looking into the garden, which contains the great stair- case. Bishop Stopford, in 1754, raised the present front attics, and Berkeley, who kept much company, lived principally in the rooms on the ground floor, near the garden. The walk to the Cave and the Rock Shrub- bery, with its ancient elms, is said to have been a favourite resort of Berkeley for medi- tation and study. vil] First Years in the Irish Diocese. 233 " pavet ipse sacerdos Accessum, Dominumque timet deprendere luci." At least so I found the rule established ; but, as I hate the inso- lence of wealth, I have been employing the carpenters some time past in making that sort of gate which cannot be left open for cattle, or shut against man. c Of Berkeley little is remembered 5 , though his benevolence, I have no doubt, was very widely diffused. He made no improve- ment to the House, yet the part of it he inhabited wanted it much, for it is now thought only good enough for the upper servants. I wish he had planted instead of building — if, indeed, he built anything, for I cannot find any tradition of it. Crowe, one of his predecessors, and Johnson, one of his successors, appear to have contributed most to the comfort of the place ; but had there been a venerable oak or two nursed by the care of this excellent man, with how much respect should 1 have rested under its branches : and in no spot of earth do trees grow with more vigour. There is no chapel in the house ; but a private door from the garden leads to the Cathedral. The bell is in the Round Tower, the gift of Davies, Dean of Ross. C I have thus, I think, run through everything relative to the situation of Cloyne. The neighbourhood is good • the barony of Imokilly, which surrounds it, particularly fertile. Two lords are near me, Shannon and Longueville, hostile to each other, but vying in civility to me. The common people getting rich, from the money spent by the large detachments of the army and navy occa- sionally detained in Cork harbour; and giving any price for fresh provisions. Protestants, comparatively, none. We are twenty English miles from Cork, which lies much further from its own harbour than we do. On the whole, if you survey this place with an English eye, you would find little to commend; but with an Irish one nothing to blame.' Altogether Cloyne was, and is, a place for a recluse, in which a philosopher might bury himself in his thoughts, and among his 5 Still less is remembered now. A recluse student, of cosmopolitan aspirations, Berke- ley seems to have left no deep local mark. Notwithstanding the efforts of my friend Mr. Creed, who now occupies the See-house, I could find only a faint local tradition even of the tar water, during a recent visit to Cloyne. It is strange that the Cathedral should contain no memorial of the greatest name associated with it. 234 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. books — shut off by its geographical position from all the great centres, and reserved for meditative quiet, with its spacious garden, and silent, green, undulating country. Here, with his increasing disinclination to travel, Berkeley was almost as much removed from former friends as he had been at his farm in Rhode Island. The city of Cork took the place of Newport, but Cork was twenty miles from Cloyne, while Newport was only three miles from Whitehall. His first episcopal neighbour at Cork was Dr. Peter Browne, his old Provost at Trinity College, and more recently the assailant of Alciphron, If they had inclination, they had little opportunity either for continued controversy, or for neighbourly intercourse. Browne died about twelve months after Berkeley was settled in Cloyne 6 . He was succeeded by Clayton, Berkeley's College friend and correspondent, who was brought from Killala to Cork, and was his neighbour there till he removed to Clogher in 1745. Though no trace of such intercourse has been found, we may suppose that Clayton and Berkeley sometimes exchanged visits or letters. The country seats in the two valleys of Imokilly, we 6 Bishop Browne died at Cork, on the 25th of August 1735, and was buried in the little chapel at Ballinaspic, near Cork, where he had built a pleasant retreat for study. Here probably his Procedure, and his Divine Analogy were meditated. This summer (18/O) I saw his portrait in the Palace of Cork. Through the kindness of Richard Cau'field, &q., LL.D., of Cork, I have before me a manuscript catalogue of his library, written by his own hand — a small quarto, bound in vellum, labelled on the back, ' Catalogue of Books belonging to Peter, Lord Bishop of Corke.' 1 he library con- tained a considerable store of early ecclesi- astical literature. He left behind him in manuscript a second volume of the Divine Analogy, and other writings, theological and metaphysical. His Sermons were published in 742, in two vols. We have few details of the life of this philosophical bishop, but his mortal part was seen again only a few years ago, nearly a hundred and thirty years after his death, by my friend Dr. Caulfield. A report, it seems, was in circulation, that the vault at Ballin- aspic had been desecrated, and the remains of Bishop Browne stolen. To vindicate his countrymen from the charge, Dr. Caulfield made an examination on Jan. 12, 186 1. After three hours' work the labourers reached the flag that closed the entrance to the vault. The lead coffin, after all, had never been disturbed. I give his own words — ' On the lid, embedded in the de- cayed timber, we found the plate, which required the greatest care to touch, as it was quite corroded, and not much thicker than a sheet of paper. This we succeeded in raising. It was originally square, and in the centre was an oval with a bead pattern, within which were the letters " P. C. & R. 1735." As the lid of this coffin had never been soldered, and had yielded a little to the weight of the decayed timber that lay on it, it was found necessary to take it off, when all that was mortal of Bishop Browne pre- sented itself. There was no appearance of an inner shell. The body was placed in the lead, enveloped in folds of linen, which was not in the slightest degree discoloured. The body was nearly entire, from the middle up ; so perfect were the features that any one who had seen his portrait at the Palace of Cork would readily have detected the resemblance. The coffin was 5 feet 8 inches long.' After an investigation which occupied more than an hour, the lid was replaced, and the entrance closed up. The remains of Bishop Browne were afterwards removed for re-interment beneath the new Cathedral Church of St. Finbarre, at Cork, where they now rest, for ever out of the reach of human eye. vii J First Years in the Irish Diocese. 235 gather from incidental allusions, soon supplied local visitors and resorts. Among the clergy, Isaac Gervais, one of the neighbouring prebendaries of Lismore, soon appeared as a correspondent, and often came to enliven the family circle at Cloyne. The annual visits of Thomas Prior, and his continued correspondence, main- tained that early friendship to the end. We have few remains of Berkeley's own letters during his first year in his Diocese. But here is one written to him by his friend Seeker, the new Bishop of Bristol 7 , which contains some interesting allusions, and comes first in chronological order among the remains of the Cloyne correspondence : — My dear Lord, I return you my heartiest thanks for your very friendly congratula- tions : and we are all very happy that you consider us in the view of neighbours ; for that relation gives us an undoubted right to a visit from you immediately upon our arrival at Bristol. And I take it Master Harry's obligations in point of gallantry to make Miss Talbot 8 that compliment are quite indispensable. Then from Bristol we will beg leave to wait upon you to the palace of my good lord of Gloucester 9 , who indeed, to do him justice, bears with tolerable composure his being restrained from the pleasures of street walking ; but all his honours avail him not, so long as Dicky Dalton continues to beat him at chess. But perhaps, my lord, before the time comes of receiving a visit from you, we may send an old acquaintance to pay you one. For I take it for granted Dr. Rundle 10 will now be made an Irish bishop, and probably of Derry, unless it can be rilled up in such a manner as to vacate some good deanery for him here, which I believe he would rather chuse. His health is much better than it was, and this new prospect seems to have 7 Berkeley Papers. Seeker was nominated with Whiston and Clarke in their endea- to the bishopric of Bristol in December, 1734- vours to promote what they called Primitive 8 Miss Catherine Talbot. This accom- Christianity, and became subject to a charge plished lady, grand-daughter of Bishop Tal- of Deism. The interposition of Gibson, bot, lived in Seeker's family for many years. Bishop of London, stopped his preferment to The above is the only reference by name to the bishopric of Gloucester (which Benson the son Henry in any of the correspondence. was with difficulty induced to accept), and 9 Benson was made Bishop of Gloucester a paper war broke out. Rundle was, how- in 1734, and occupied that See till his death ever, considered good enough for an Irish in 1752. See. He is described as a man of warm 10 Rundle was appointed to the bishopric fancy, and brilliant conversation, apt to be of Derry in 173,=;. He was early patronized carried by his wit into indiscreet expressions, by Talbot, Bishop of Durham, having been, As a bishop, however, he conciliated general like Seeker and Butler, a college friend of good-will in his remote diocese, where he young Talbot. Rundle was also connected died in 1743. 236 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. done him great service. The pamphlet war about him is not quite extinguished, but the attention of the world is almost entirely turned from it to other matters. The parliament hath done nothing yet be- sides giving each side an opportunity of shewing their numbers, which are sufficiently in favour of the court. The Queen is perfectly well again, and Sir R. Walpole's unseasonable gout is going off. It con- tinues doubtful whether any petition will be brought in against the Scotch peers. And it does not appear that we shall have any Church work this session. Dr. Waterland was chosen prolocutor last week, but declines it, upon which Dr. Lisle, archdeacon of Canterbury, was chosen yesterday. There hath lately been a proposal made by the Bishop of London 11 for reprinting by subscription the most considerable tracts against popery that were written in and about King James the Second's time, I think in two folios. Whether such a work would meet with any number of subscribers in Ireland I know not. Your friend, Mr. Pope, is publishing small poems every now and then, full of much wit and not a little keenness 12 . Our common friend, Dr. Butler, hath almost com- pleted a set of speculations upon the credibility of religion from its analogy to the constitution and course of nature, which I believe in due time you will read with pleasure 13 . And now, my good lord, give me leave to ask what are you doing ? As you seem to write with cheerful- ness, and make no complaints of your health, we are willing to believe the best of it. And your diocese, we hope, cannot but leave you some intervals of leisure which you must allow the friends of religion and virtue to promise themselves publick advantages from. My whole family desire to joyn their sincere assurances of the greatest respect and friendship to you and good Mrs. Berkeley, and their com- pliments to the young gentlemen, with those of, My Lord, Your Lordship's most affectionate brother and most obedient servant, THO. BRISTOL. Feb. 1, 1734—5- 11 Bishop Gibson, who soon after carried this proposal into execution, in his well-known work, the Preservative against Popery, which appeared in 1738. 12 It was a few years after this that Pope's famous eulogistic line on Berkeley was published, in the Epilogue to the Satires. 18 Butler's Analogy appeared in June 1 736. He was then rector of Stanhope, and a prebendary of Rochester, by the patronage of Lord Chancellor Talbot, to whom the Analogy is dedicated. He was made Bishop of Bristol in 1738, and translated to Durham in 1750. The Analogy of Bishop Butler has nothing but the name in common with the Analogy of Bishop Browne. vil] First Years in the Irish Diocese. 237 The following letter from Benson, the new Bishop of Gloucester, also preserved in the Berkeley Papers, was received at Cloyne in May :— St. James Street, May 13, 1 7 35, My dear Lord, I write to you immediately upon the receipt of yours, as I can give you the answer you wish to the chief part of your letter, that the person you mention is not to come over with the Bishop of Derry [Rundle], and he is determined to bring no chaplain over with him. There is a cousin- german of his, who has a small living here, whom he thinks himself obliged to provide for, but he does not carry him over with him. If A. [?], Bishop Goodwin's son, shall take orders, he will, I believe, think himself obliged to take him for his chaplain preferably to any other in Ireland; but he tells me he goes over determined to prefer those educated in the countrey, with regard only to their merit and learning. I heartily wish you joy of the birth of your son 14 ; this is one of the greatest blessings Providence can send you, and you are so wise and happy as to understand the value of it. I hope I may by this time give you and Mrs. Berkeley joy on her entire recovery, and may God grant you both life and health to give your boys what is better than all the wealth which you or all the world can give them, a religious and good education. I beg you to write a line to the Baron 15 , and acquaint him with what I acquainted you at the beginning of my letter. I wish we had the Baron in our own Court of Exchequer, more for the clergy's than for his own sake. The clergy have been used extremely ill in that Court, and their only hope was in an appeal to the House of Lords. But the House on Monday was se'nnight passed such a decree upon an appeal in relation to modus, that all their hopes are gone there, and they have great reason to fear that the consequences of this decree will be very fatal. The clergyman who brought the appeal was a distinguished Tory, and he thought, I believe, he should find favour, and all thought at least he would have common justice from that quarter. But several 14 A third son was born in April, and taken away in October, 1735. This appears from the following entries which I found in the registry of Cloyne : — 'Baptised 1735, nth day of April, John Berkeley, son to George, Lord Bishop of Cloyne. H. Wainwright, Captain Maule, godfathers ; Mrs. Margaret Longfield, god- mother.' ' John Berkeley, son of George, Lord Bishop of Cloyne, was buried 16th day of October 1735.' 15 Probably Baron Wainwright. The case referred to in what follows was apparently that in which the dean and chapter of Norwich appeared, in an appeal to the House of Lords in regard to the payment of tithes by the occupiers of demesne lands. Modus is composition for tithes in kind. 238 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. lords of that party appear'd in a cause in which I am not sure if any one even of the Scotch lords would appear. The case was exceedingly clear ; but it was given out that the consequences of this case would affect every man that had an estate, and that it was time to put a stop to the growing wealth of the clergy. My Lord Chancellor and the Bishops of London and Salisbury spoke on one side, and Lord Bathurst and Lord Onslow on the other. Lord Hardwicke, unfortunately, was obliged to attend a cause at Guildhall that day. When the House came to divide, fifteen of the lords present had the modesty to retire to the throne, and not vote at all, but enough staid to make a majority, and the bishops had only the Chancellor and the Duke of Bedford with them. This affair makes a great deal of noise, as it affects the rights of all the parochial clergy, and as the injustice of the case is very notorious — the most notorious, perhaps, of any that has been decided for a hundred years past in the House of Lords. But Lord Bathurst did not seem to think that enough, but talked a great deal, tho' quite forein to the purpose, about the clergy having raised their fines. I am sorry I have not a more agreeable subject to write to you upon ; but, as it is at present the chief subject of discourse, at least among the clergy here, I have made it the greatest part of my letter. I have only room to add many services from the Bishop of Bristol [Seeker] and his family to you and yours. My sister has been very ill, but is now better. — I am, my dear Lord, your most affectionate faithful servant and brother, M. GLOCESTER. The following letter 16 , from Gibson, Bishop of London, reminds us of the Analyst^ and refers to the controversy of which it was the occasion : — Fulham, July 9, 1735. My Lord, I have now before me a letter from your Lordship of so old a date that I know not how to excuse the lateness of this answer, unless you will make allowance for the hurry of our winter campaign, and my re- moving hither, and my holding a Visitation in part of the months of May and June. What your Lordship observes is very true, and appears to be so in experience here, that the men of science (a conceited generation) are the greatest sticklers against revealed religion, and have been very open in their attacks upon it. And we are much obliged to your Lordship for lfl Berkeley Papers. vn. j First Years in the Irish Diocese. 239 retorting their arguments upon them, and finding them work in their own quarters, and must depend upon you to go on to humble them, if they do not yet find themselves sufficiently humbled. If there be a prospect of bringing the Irish to come to our churches, in case the Liturgy were read to them in their own language, the rest of your scheme will bear no deliberation ; nor are the abilities of the per- sons ordained deacons for that purpose to be regarded, so long as they are sober and virtuous. My great doubt is, whether the priests, by terror and persuasion, have not such influence upon the lower people, for whose sake chiefly it is intended, as to hinder them from joining in a Protestant service. And though it might prove so at last, I can see no inconveni- ence in making the experiment. But your Lordship and the Bench of Bishops there must be far better judges of what is prudent and practic- able than we can be. It is taken for granted here, that our Dissenters will bring their Bill for repealing the Test Act next winter, and that whether the Court encourage them or not. It is probable that they rely upon promises which have been made by candidates in the late elections, to secure the dissenting interest in cities and boroughs ; but I cannot think that all these promises will be remembered if the Court should oppose it, nor that the Court will wantonly divest itself at once of the whole Church interest. I find that a new Lord-Lieutenant has been talked of on that side the water, but on this side we hear nothing of it. And I have reason to believe, from a circumstance that happened to come lately to my know- ledge, that my Lord-Lieutenant himself does not think of it at present. I am, my Lord, Your Lordship's very faithful servant and brother, EDM. LONDON. The Analyst had given rise to a controversy which has left its mark in the history of mathematics, if not of theology. Dr. Jurin, under the name of c Philalethes Cantabrigiensis/ was the first to reply, in his Geometry no Friend to Infidelity, to Berkeley's analogical reasoning, and argumentum ad hominem. Berkeley rejoined in a Defence of Free-thinking in Mathematics, which appeared early in 1735, and must have employed some of his studious hours during his first winter at Cloyne. Dr. Jurin parried the blow in the same year, in his Free Thinker no Just Thinker. While Berkeley was thus engaged with Jurin, he had also to meet an attack by Walton, 240 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. a Dublin mathematician and professor, to whom he replied in an appendix to his Defence against Jurin, and afterwards in a combination of reasoning and sarcasm, called Reasons for not replying to Mr. Walton's Full Answer, in which he affects to treat his opponent as a disguised convert. This c Analyst Controversy/ in which Berkeley was thus engaged in his first year or two at Cloyne, was afterwards prolonged by the mathematicians among themselves. It engaged Pemberton and Benjamin Robins, as well as Jurin. The world owes one of the best productions of Colin M'Laurin, the Edinburgh mathematical professor, to the Analyst, which was the occasion besides of more than twenty controversial tracts and pamphlets 17 . Berkeley did not forget his friends on the other side of the Atlantic, in his episcopal seclusion in Ireland. Here is a letter, characteristically full of queries, addressed to Mr. Smibert, at Boston' 8 :— Clqyne, 31st of May, 1735. Dear Mr. Smibert, A gkeat variety and hurry of affairs, joined with ill state of health, hath deprived me of the pleasure of corresponding with you for this good while past, and indeed I am very sensible that the task of answering a letter is so disagreeable to you, that you can well dispense with re- ceiving one of mere compliment, or which doth not bring something pertinent and useful. You are the proper judge whether the following suggestions may be so or no. I do not pretend to give advice ; I only offer a few hints for your own reflection. What if there be in my neighbourhood a great trading city ? What if this city be four times as populous as Boston, and a hundred times as rich ? What if there be more faces to paint, and better pay for painting, and yet nobody to paint them ? Whether it would be dis- agreeable to you to receive gold instead of paper ? Whether it might be worth your while to embark with your busts, your prints, your drawings, and once more cross the Atlantic ? Whether you might not find full business at Cork, and live there much cheaper than in London? Whether all these things put together might not be worth a serious 17 See the annotations in my edition of the Analyst, and the Defetice. In addition to the list of works mentioned there, there is a volume of Mathematical Tracts (1761), by Benjamin Robins, which contains a ' Dis- course on the Methods of Fluxions.* 18 Preserved in the Gent. Mag. VII.] First Years in the Irish Diocese. 241 thought ? I have one more question to ask, and that is, whether myrtles grow in or near Boston, without pots, stones, or greenhouses, in the open air ? I assure you they do in my garden. So much for the climate. Think of what hath been said, and God direct you for the best. I am, good Mr. Smibert, Your affectionate humble servant, G. CLOYNE. A few days later, what follows was written to Johnson, at Stratford : — Cloyne, June 11, 1735. Reverend Sir, It is very agreeable to find that the public examinations appointed in your College have not failed of their design in encouraging the studies of the youth educated therein. And I am particularly pleased that they have given to some of your own family an opportunity of distinguishing themselves. One principal end proposed by me was to promote a better understanding with the Dissenters, and so by degrees to lessen their dislike to our communion; to which methought the improving their minds with liberal studies might greatly conduce, as I am very sensible that your own discreet behaviour and manner of living towards them hath very much forwarded the same effect. The employing young men, though not in orders, to read a sermon, and some part of the Liturgy, in those places where they are unprovided with churches and ministers, I always thought a reasonable and useful institution ; and though some among you were prejudiced against it, yet I doubt not their prejudices will wear off when they see the good effects of it. I should imagine it might be some encouragement to well disposed students to reflect that by employing themselves in that manner they not only do useful service to the Church, but also thereby recommend themselves in the properest manner to Holy Orders, and consequently to missions, whenever vacan- cies shall make way for them, or when the Society shall be enabled to found new ones. My wife is obliged to you for your kind remembrance, and sends her compliments to you. Our little family is increased to three boys, whereof the two eldest past the small pox last winter. I wish you and yours all happiness, and pray God to forward your good endeavours for the advancement of true religion and learning, being very truly, Reverend Sir, Your faithful brother and humble servant, GEORGE CLOYNE. VOL. IV. R 242 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. When any from your College have encouragement to pass over to England, in expectation of Holy Orders and a mission, I would have them, now I am absent myself, to apply to Dr. Benson, the Bishop of Gloucester, as they were used to do to me. He is a most worthy prelate, and attends the meetings of the Society; and in my present situation I cannot do better service, than by recommending your can^ didates to his protection. The social condition of Ireland, especially of the aboriginal population, began to engage Berkeley's thoughts as soon as he was settled in Cloyne. The condition of modern society had long- been in his mind. The South Sea disasters, fifteen years before, moved him then to address his countrymen on this subject. It was at the bottom of his American enthusiasm, which was sustained by the desire to advance the colonial, and also the native Indian population of the western hemisphere. And now in Ireland he had before him a large native Irish population, and a small one of English colonists, unconnected with the other by common national or church sympathies, and in which the natives, long governed in the interest of the stranger, had become unable to govern them- selves. The industry and self-reliance which he had preached as the c means for preventing the ruin of Great Britain' were a thou- sandfold more needed in Ireland, where this gospel of work was unknown, and where the simplest maxims of social or domestic economy were neither practised nor understood. It was a state of society that was fitted to arouse the intellectual activity and benevolence of one less inquisitive, and less devoted to mankind, than the new Bishop of Cloyne, whose favourite motto was non sibi sed toti. The Protestant bishops of Ireland were not then conspicuous leaders of enterprises for the social good of the whole Irish nation, but Berkeley was too independent to suffer his aspi- rations to be confined by ecclesiastical conventionalities. The social state of Ireland occasioned what some readers may think the most fruitful of all Berkeley's writings. Under the influence of surrounding social phenomena, his active mind dis- charged itself in questions. He began to publish the questions in annual instalments. The work was entitled the Querist, and the First Part appeared in 1735. It was published anonymously, and edited by his old friend Dr. Madden of Dublin. Madden, in vil] First Years in the Irish Diocese. 243 conjunction with Thomas Prior, had a few years before founded the Dublin Society for promoting useful arts and sciences in Ireland, to which that country now as then owes so much 1 9. The Quervt was meant to second their endeavours. The com- bined effort was not lost. There was an appreciable amend- ment in the circumstances of Ireland towards the middle of the last century, which can be partly traced to their influence, and partly to the manly patriotism of Swift 20 . But the thoughts proposed in the Querist are of more than transitory interest, and more large and generous than those of Swift. After the lapse of nearly a century and a half, the student of society and the statesman may here find maxims which legislation has not yet outgrown. It is only now that we are fairly resolving c whether a scheme for the welfare of the Irish nation should not take in the whole inhabitants- and whether it be not a vain attempt to project the flourishing of our Protestant gentry, ex- clusive of the bulk of the natives/ Berkeley was probably the first among Protestant ecclesiastics to propose the admission of Catholics to the College of Dublin, without being obliged to attend chapel, or divinity lectures ; and he generously mentions the Jesuits, in their Colleges in Paris, as an example of the greater liberality in this respect of the Church of Rome 21 . The following letter from the Bishop of London, contained in 19 Samuel Madden, D.D., born in Dublin in 1687, a leader in last century of various efforts for promoting the civilization of Ire- land, in conjunction with Berkeley, Prior, and others, and especially in connexion with the Dublin Society. He wrote various works hi literature and social economy, and some of the Essays by the Dublin Society, on flax- husbandry, Irish linens, road making, &c, which appeared in 1737 and the following years : also Memoirs of the Twentieth Cen- tury, or Original Letters of Slate under George VI. He died in 1765. 10 Though I have not found any signs of intercourse between Berkeley at Cloyne, and Swift, there are occasional indications of remembrance. In this very year (1735), there is a letter to Swift from the Rev. Mr. Donellan, dated Cloyne, October 31, in which he mentions some preferment, ' worth at least £300 per annum,' which he had re- ceived from the Bishop of Cloyne ; ' unasked, and unexpected, and without any regard to kindred or application, especially valuable as coming from a person you have an esteem for. . . . The Bishop of Cloyne desires you will accept of his best services.' It is curious that I have not found extant a single letter either from Swift to Berkeley, or from Berkeley to Swift. 2L ' Berkeley,' says Sir J. Mackintosh, ' though of English extraction, was a true Irishman, and the first eminent Protestant after the unhapp y contest at the Revolution, who avowed his love for all his countrymen. Perhaps the Querist contains more hints, then original, still unapplied [in 1829] in legislation and political economy, than are to be found in any equal space.' Disserta- tion, p. an. R 2 244 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. the Berkeley Papers, reminds us of the Analyst^ and connects us with Berkeley in the early part of 1736: — Whitehall, Feb. 7, 1735 — 6. My Lord, I hope this will find your Lordship perfectly at ease, and at liberty to attend your mathematical infidels; for, though I am not a competent judge of the subject, I am sure, from your espousing it with so much zeal, and against such adversaries, that, in pursuing the point, you are doing good service to religion. Here we have now little trouble from professed infidels, but a great deal from semi-infidels, who, under the title of Christians, are destroying the whole work of our Redemption by Christ, and making Christianity little more than a system of morality. But their design is so bare-faced and shocking that they make little pro- gress among serious people. It has been a doubt for some time, whether the Dissenters would trouble this Session with their Bill for repealing the Corporation and Test Acts. But now it is said with some assurance that we are to ex- pect it, though without any probability of success. The Court are openly and avowedly against them, and so are the Tories ; and from what quarter their support is to come, we do not yet see or conceive. It is given out that they do it to know their friends from their foes, and I believe they reckon that the beginning it now, though without success, will make the way for better quarter in some future Session. On the contrary, their bringing in the Bill is so much against the declared judg- ment of many members who otherwise wish them well, that we think they will provoke their friends, and lose much ground by the attempt. Whether they or we judge right, time must show 22 . I shall be glad to see the proportion between Protestants and Papists fairly stated ; not only because the accounts have hitherto been repre- sented very differently, but also because it is a point upon which great stress is laid, upon some occasions, both with them and us. I am, my Lord, Your Lordship's very faithful servant and brother, EDM. LONDON. 22 Contrary to the remonstrances of Sir R. Walpole, the Dissenters insisted on trying the repeal of the Corporation and Test Acts. Walpole opposed his old friends when the repeal was proposed in the House, on the 1 2th of March, 1736, and the proposition was negatived by 251 to 123. The morn- ing after, the Bishop of London went to Walpole to thank him in the name of the bishops for his support of the Established Church. See Lord Hervey's Memoirs of the Reign of George IT, ch. XXIII. vii.] First Years in the Irish Diocese. 245 In the following month Berkeley writes thus to his friend Johnson about American missions and Yale College : — Cloy tie, March 12, 1735 — 6. Reverend Sir, My remote distance from London deprives me of those opportunities which I might otherwise have of being serviceable to your missionaries, though my inclinations are still the same. I am very glad to find persons of Mr. Arnold's character disposed to come over to our Church, which, it is to be hoped, will sooner or later prevail over all their prejudices. It were indeed to be wished that the Society was able to establish new missionaries as often as candidates offer themselves ; but I persuade myself that what their funds will allow them to do will not be wanting in favour of your natives. I have wrote to my friend the Bishop of Gloucester, desiring an allowance from the Society may be obtained for Mr. Arnold towards defraying the expenses of his voyage 23 . But for a salary he must wait till provision can be made, or till a vacancy occurs. It is no small satisfaction to me to hear that a spirit of emulation is raised in our scholars at Newhaven, and that learning and good sense are gaining ground among them. I do not wonder that these things should create some jealousy in such as are bigotted to a narrow way of thinking, and that this should produce uneasiness to you and other well- wishers of our Church. But I trust in God that the prudence and temper of yourself and your associates will, with God's blessing, get the better of misguided and unruly zeal, which will never be a match for the wisdom from above. I have passed this winter at Cloyne, having been detained from Parlia- ment by my ill-health, which is now pretty well re-established. My family are all well, and concur with me in best wishes to you and yours. I am, Reverend Sir, Your most faithful, humble servant and brother, GEORGE CLOYNE. As to your postscript, I can only say that Ireland contains ten times more objects of charity, whether we consider the souls or bodies of men, than are to be met with in New England. And indeed there is so much 23 Jonathan Arnold, the successor of Samuel Johnson at Westhaven in the Congregational ministry, joined the Church of England in 1734. He went to England for orders in 1 736, and, after returning to America, was lost on a second voyage to England in 1739. See Updike, p. 163; also Beardsley's History of the Episcopal Church in Connec- ticut, ch. VIII. 246 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. to be done (and so few that care to do it) here at home, that there can be no expectations from hence. In the summer of this year the following pleasant effusion was sent to his old friend James, then Sir John James, Bart., of Bury St. Edmonds, whose succession took place in 1736, and who seems about that time to have returned from America : — Cloyne, $oth of June, 1736. Dear Sir, In this remote corner, of Imokilly, where I hear only the rumours and echoes of things, I know not whether you are still sailing on the ocean, or already arrived to take possession of your new dignity and estate. In the former case I wish you a good voyage ; in the latter I welcome you, and wish you joy. I have a letter written and lying by me these three years, which I knew not whither or how to send you. But now you are returned to our hemisphere, I promise myself the pleasure of being able to correspond with you. You who live to be a spectator of odd scenes are come into a world much madder and odder than that you left. We also in this island are growing an odd and mad people. We were odd before, but I was not sure of our having the genius necessary to become mad. But some late steps of a public nature give sufficient proof thereof. Who knows but when you have settled your affairs, and looked about and laughed enough in England, you may have leisure and curiosity enough to visit this side of the water ? You may land within two miles of my house, and find that from Bristol to Cloyne is a shorter and much easier journey than from London to Bristol. I would go about with you, and show you some scenes perhaps as beautiful as you have seen in all your travels. My own garden is not without its curiosity, having a number of myrtles, several of which are seven or eight feet high. They grow naturally, with no more trouble or art than gooseberry bushes. This is literally true. Of this part of the world it may truly be said that it is — ' Ver ubi longum, tepidasque praebet Jupiter brumas.' My wife most sincerely salutes you. We should with compliment be overjoyed to see you. I am in hopes soon to hear of your welfare, and remain, dear Sir, your most obedient and affectionate servant, G. CLOYNE. It was in this month of June that the Second Part of the vn.] First Years in the Irish Diocese, 247 Querist was published. In 1 736 too he issued A Discourse addressed to Magistrates and Men In Authority^ occasioned by tke enormous license and Irrellglon of the Times. This is more in the tone of his contro- versial writings against the Free-thinkers in the Guardian^ and in Alclphron i but with particular reference to some appearances in Ireland by a contemptible association of so-called Blasters^ in Dublin, who about this time attracted ecclesiastical attention. The Cathedral registry informs us of the birth of another son, William, before the end of 1736 24 . Early in 1737, there was a letter from Berkeley to Thomas Prior, at Dublin, of whom we have heard nothing for nearly three years, any correspondence between them in these years having been lost. It presents an interesting picture of rural industry at Cloyne, and announces the publication of the Third Part of the Querist : — Cloyne, March 5, 1736 — 7. Dear Tom, I here send you what you desire. If you approve of it, publish it in one or more of our newspapers ; if you have any objection, let me know it by the next post. I mean, as you see, a brief abstract ; which I could wish were spread through the nation, that men may think on the subject against next session. But I would not have this letter made public sooner than a week after the publication of the Third Part of my Querist, which I have ordered to be sent to you. I believe you may receive it about the time that this comes to your hands ; for, as I told you in a late letter, I have hastened it as much as possible. I have used the same editor (Dr. Madden) for this as for the foregoing two Parts. I must desire you to purchase for me six copies of the Third Part of the Querist, which I would have stitched in six pamphlets ; so that each pamphlet shall contain the First, Second, and Third Parts of the Querist. I would have these pamphlets covered with marble paper pasted on white paper, and the leaves cut and gilt on the edges; and you will let me know when they are done — the sooner the better. 24 In the following entry : — December, 1736. Hugh Lumley, James ' William Berkeley, son to George, Lord Mavtle, godfathers, and Mrs. Margaret Long- Bishop of Cloyne, was baptized 10th of field, godmother.' 248 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. Our spinning-school is in a thriving way. The children begin to find a pleasure in being paid in hard money ; which I understand they will not give to their parents, but keep to buy clothes for themselves. Indeed I found it difficult and tedious to bring them to this ; but I believe it will now do. I am building a workhouse for sturdy vagrants, and design to raise about two acres of hemp for employing them. Can you put me in a way of getting hemp-seed ; or does your Society distribute any ? It is hoped your flax-seed will come in time. Last post a letter from an English bishop tells me, a difference between the king and prince is got into parliament, and that it seems to be big with mischief, if a speedy expedient be not found to heal the breach. It relates to the provision for his Royal Highness' s family. My three children have been ill. The eldest and youngest are recovered ; but George is still unwell. We are all yours truly. Your affectionate humble servant, GEOR. CLOYNE. The following is the letter referred to, containing some thoughts about a National Bank, which was sent to Prior for publication in the newspapers, and appeared in the Dublin Journal: — Sir, You tell me gentlemen would not be averse from a national bank, provided they saw a sketch or plan of such bank laid down and proposed in a distinct manner. For my own part, I intended only to put queries, and offer hints, not presuming to direct the wisdom of the public. Besides, it seemed no hard matter, if any one should think fit, to convert queries into propositions. However, since you desire a brief and distinct abstract of my thoughts on this subject, be pleased to take it as follows. I conceive that, in order to erect a national bank, and place it on a right foot, it maybe expedient to enact — 1. That an additional tax of ten shillings the hogshead be laid on wine, which may amount to about ten thousand pounds a-year ; or to raise a like sum on foreign silks, linens, and laces. 2. That the fund arising from such tax be the stock for a national bank ; the deficiencies whereof to be made good by parliament. 3. That bank-notes be minted to the value of one hundred thousand pounds in round numbers, from one pound to a hundred. 4. That these notes be issued either to particular persons on ready money or on mortgage, or to the uses of the public on its own credit. 5. That a house and cashiers, &c, be appointed in Dublin for uttering and vii.] First Years i?i the Irish Diocese. 249 answering these bills, and for managing this bank as other banks are managed. 6. That there be twenty-one inspectors, one third whereof to be persons in great office under the crown, the rest members of both houses, ten whereof to go out by lot, and as many more to come in once in two years. 7. That such inspectors shall, in a body, visit the bank twice every year, and any three of them as often as they please. 8. That no bills or notes be minted but by order of parliament. 9. That it be felony to counterfeit the notes of this bank. 10. That the public be alone banker, or sole proprietor of this bank. The reasons for a national bank, and the answers to objections, are contained in the Querist ; wherein there are also several other points relating to a bank of this nature, which in time may come to be con- sidered. But at present thus much may suffice for a general plan to try the experiment and begin with ; which plan, after a year or two of trial, may be further improved, altered, or enlarged, as the circumstances of the public shall require. Every one sees the scheme of a bank admits of many variations in minute particulars ; several of which are hinted in the Querist, and several more may easily be suggested by any one who shall think on that subject. But it should seem the difficulty doth not consist so much in contriving or executing a national bank, as in bringing men to a right sense of the public weal, and of the tendency of such bank to promote the same. I have treated these points, and endeavoured to urge them home, both from reason and example, particularly in the Third Part of the Querist lately published ; which, with the two former, contain many hints, designed to put men upon thinking what is to be done in this critical juncture of our affairs ; which I believe may be easily retrieved and put on a better foot than ever, if those among us who are most concerned be not wanting to themselves. I am, Sir, your humble servant, The QUERIST. The Third Part of the Querist was the last which appeared. This first edition of the work, in three Parts, is now extremely rare, and was inaccessible to former editors. It contains nearly twice as much matter as the reduced, and now common, edition (published in 1750); in particular, a number of queries about a National Bank for Ireland — a subject much dis- cussed at the time. I have been fortunate enough to obtain the original edition, and I have given some account of it in the 250 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. Appendix to the third volume of the Works^ where the queries omitted in all the later editions are reprinted for the first time. The following letter 25 was written to Berkeley by Bishop Benson in April : — My dear Lord, I must first mention what is first in the thoughts and mouths of every one— the death of my Lord Chancellor 26 . It is lamented so much as a public loss that it seems too selfish to bewail it as a private one. Never loss was so publickly and universally lamented. All degrees and orders and parties of men, however opposite in other respects, all unite in their sorrow upon this account, and none express a greater than the friends of the Established Church. He had given so strong and late an instance of his affection to it, by getting the Bounty of the late Queen, which had been so violently attacked at the end of the last session, so well settled by an Order of Council, and he was ready on all occasions so powerfully to have espoused the interests of the Church, and so able to have defended them, that none more than the clergy express their sorrow on this occasion, and among the clergy none more than the Bp. of London. The Bp. of Oxford will, I doubt not, make a very good Archbishop. Upon his promotion it was proposed to me to remove to Oxford, and that, besides the Commendam I already have, I should have a Canonry of Christ Church, which is vacant, added to it. I am, I thank God, so much contented where I am that I have no desire to move to Oxford, or any other place. My Brother Seeker 27 has since had an offer of the Bpk. of Oxford, but he also has declined accepting it, and it is not as yet disposed of. My Lord Bathurst 28 , whom you mention, has lately said a great deal to me, to assure me of his good intention towards the Church and Uni- versities, to both of which he has of late been looked upon to be so great an enemy. [I will] hope his professions are real, though other persons are not inclined to believe them. My Lord Bolinbroke set himself up for an old Whig, a great patron of republican principles, and a great admirer of such religious ones as Thomas Chubb and some others 25 Berkeley Papers. 26 Lord Chancellor Talbot, son of Bishop Talbot. He was created Baron Talbot in 1733, and is the ancestor of the present Earl of Shrewsbury. 27 Seeker was after all translated to Oxford in 1737, where he succeeded Potter, who was made Archbishop of Canterbury. 28 Allan, first Lord Bathurst, the friend of Pope. The poet as well as the peer are both associated with the sylvan beauty of Cirencester. Lord Bathurst was a centre of the wits of Queen Anne and the first two Georges. He died in 1775, aged 91. vii.] First Years in the Irish Diocese. 251 have been advancing. His Ldp. has endeavoured to proselyte as many of the Tories as he could, but he has made few disciples among them, and most of them, to their honour be it spoken, have declared their detestation of his new scheme, and have acted [like] honest and consistent men. I am rejoiced to hear of the increase of your health and of your family. My best wishes attend them. My humble services wait upon Mrs. Berkeley. My sister 29 is still at Bath, and there is little likelihood of her being able to come to London this Spring. Mr. Walpole, the second son of Sir Robert, is appointed Secretary to the Duke of Devonshire. My Lord Hardwicke 30 has succeeded my Lord Talbot, and he was the only person in the kingdom capable of filling that post. We have had an unhappy contest between the K. and Prince, about settling an allowance for the latter 31 . It has been moved in both Houses to address his Majesty to settle ioo,ooolb. p. an. on his son, which was rejected by a majority of against 204 in the H. of Com., and of 10 in the H. of Lds. I have enclosed with this Mr. Tryon's account of his having rec d . the money. He and his son are Joint Treasurers of the Society. I am, my dear Lord, Most affectionately and faithfully yours, M. GLOCESTER. Si. James Sired, Ar. 1, 1737. The Adventures of Signor Gaudentio di Lucca^ an anonymous work of fiction, published in 1737 32 , which gained some applause as an elegant production of imaginative benevolence, has been some- times attributed to Berkeley. It describes a journey to a Utopian community, called Mezoranians, supposed to be flourishing in the centre of Africa, and to have been accidentally visited by Signor 29 Mrs. Seeker. 30 Philip Yorke, Lord Hardwicke, suc- ceeded Lord Talbot as Lord Chancellor. There had been a rivalry between them. 31 See Lord Hervey's Memoirs, chap. XXVIII — XXX. The Prince's claim, and the relative debates in Parliament, was the great subject about this time. The debate in the Commons was on the 22nd of February, when the Prince was defeated by 234 to 204; and on the following day, by 103 to 40 in the House of Lords, where Lord Carteret moved the grant. The dis- putes between the Prince of Wales (after his marriage) and the king were the scandal of that, the preceding, and the following year. 32 Other editions of Gaudentio di Lucca followed — at Dublin in 1738, at London 1748, and at Edinburgh 1 761. The book was translated into French in 1 746. 252 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. Gaudentio, an Italian gentleman, in the course of his travels. Like the Republic of Plato, the Utopia of More, or the New- Atlantis of Bacon, this romance was meant to paint an ideal society, founded on purer principles than those of European civilization. Berkeley's Bermuda enterprise, his former connec- tion with Italy, his fondness for Plato, some vague resemblance in the ingenuity of the fancy, and the amiable spirit of Gaudentio di Lucca^ may have given rise to the supposition that he was the author. There is no sufficient ground in the qualities of the work, in the absence of any definite testimony, to justify this conjecture. It was at first favoured by the biographer of Berkeley in the Bzographia Britannha^ and again by others ; but Stock afterwards withdrew the statement, on the assertion of George Berkeley, c that his father did not write and never read through the Adventures of Signor Gaudentio di Lucca 33 .' Berkeley's employments about this time were hardly consistent with a diversion of his energy to writing a romance, and we may fairly infer that he, at any rate, was not the author. The work is now assigned, on what seems to be sufficient evidence, to Simon Berington, a Catholic priest 34 . The only break in Berkeley's secluded life at Cloyne, during the many years of his residence there, was in the autumn of 1737, when he went to Dublin with his family for some months, to attend to his parliamentary duties in the Irish House of Lords. That more than three years should have elapsed after his consecration before he took his seat in Parliament was a want of conformity to the custom of his order which adds to the 33 Biog. Brit. vol. III. — ' Addenda ; ' and Gent. Mag. vol. L. p. 125. See also Dun- lop's History 0/ Fiction ; Southey's Common- place Book; and Pinkerton's Correspon- dence. 31 ' This well-known fiction,' says Sir G. Cornewall Lewis, ' which has long been erroneously ascribed to Bishop Berkeley, was in fact the work of Simon Berington, a Catholic priest. The statement in the Gent. Mag. which assigns to him the authorship of this work, is confirmed by the traditions of his family in Herefordshire, as I have ascertained from authentic infor- mation.' Methods of Observation and Reason- ing in Politics, vol. II. p. 273, note. The Rev. Simon Berington was the son of a Herefordshire gentleman. The authorship of Gaudentio di Lucca was first attributed to this excellent person by a correspondent of the Gent. Mag. (vol. LV. p. 747), where he is described as a Catholic priest who had chambers in Gray's Inn, (where he was keeper of a library for the use of the Romish Clergy), and author of a Dissertation on the Mosaical account of the Creation, Deluge, Sec, (London, 1750), — the learning and other qualities of which resemble Gaudentio di Lucca. Berington lived at one time in Staffordshire. The authorship of Gaudentio has also, but without evidence, been at- tributed to a Dr. Swale of Huntingdon. See Notes and Queries for 1850. vil] First Years in the Irish Diocese. 253 evidence of his recluse tendencies. The Journals of the House give the following information : — Die Mercurii, 2 Nov, 1737. — c The Rev. George Berkeley, Doctor of Divinity, being by Letters Patents, dated 5 die Martii, 7 0 Georgii Secundi Regis, created Bishop of Cloyne, was this day in his robes introduced between the Right Rev. the Lord Bishop of Kildare 35 , and the Right Rev. the Lord Bishop of Corke and Ross 36 , also in their robes. The Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod, and Ulster King at Arms, in his coat of arms, carrying the said Letters Patents, preceding his Lordship, presented the same to the Lord Chancellor, on his knee, at the Woolsack, who gave them to the Clerk of the Parliaments, which were read at the table. His Writ of Summons was also read. Then his Lordship came to the table, and took the oaths, and made and subscribed the Declaration, pursuant to the Statutes, and was afterwards conducted and took his place on the Lords and Bishops bench.' And with this ceremonial we have the philosophic Bishop in a new scene. In the following winter he took his part in parliamentary business. That Session was opened on the 4th of October 1737, by a speech by the Duke of Devonshire, then the Lord Lieu- tenant. Parliament was prorogued on the 23rd of March. From the Journals, Berkeley seems to have been present on the following days: — 1737. November 9, 10, 14, 18, 21, 29; December 10, 23. 1738. January 3, 5 ■ February 14, 18, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 27, 28; March 3, 6, 10, 11, 18, 20, 22, 23. The Discourse to Magistrates^ as I have said, was partly occa- sioned by an impious society in Dublin, which, according to Stock, c it put a stop to.' He adds that Berkeley c expressed his sentiments on the same subject in the House of Lords, the only time he ever spoke there. The speech was received with much applause.' I have not been able to find any other account of this speech. From the Journals of the House, however, it appears that, on the 17th of February 1738, it was ordered c that the Lords' Committees on religion do meet immediately after the rising of the House, and examine as to the causes of the present noto- rious immorality and profaneness, and that the Judges do assist.' During February the subject received continued attention. On the M Charles Cobb, D.D. 30 Robert Clayton, D.D. 254 Life cutd Letters of Berkeley. [ch. i oth of March the Earl of Granard reported from c the Committees for Religion.' As this Report contains some curious information about the Blasters, it is presented in the appended note 37 . 37 ' The Lords' Committees for Religion, appointed to examine into the causes of the present notorious immorality and profane- ness, beg leave, before they report to your Lordships what progress they have made in that inquiry, to observe, that an uncommon scene of impiety and blasphemy appeared before them, wherein several persons must have been concerned; but by reason of their meeting late in the Session, they have not been able to prepare a full and satisfactory account thereof for your Lordships : how- ever, they think it their duty to lay it be- fore your Lordships, as it hath appeared to them, that before the conclusion of this Session, some measures may be taken to put a stop to the spreading of these impieties, which it is to be hoped, in the next Session of Parliament, your Lordships will be able, by proper laws and remedies, wholly to extinguish and prevent for the future. ' The Lords' Committees have sufficient grounds to believe (though no direct proof thereof upon oath hath yet been laid before them) that several loose and disorderly per- sons have of late erected themselves into a Society or Club under the name of Blasters, and have used means to draw into this impious Society several of the youth of this kingdom. ' What the practices of this Society are (besides the general fame spread through the whole kingdom) appears by the examina- tions of several persons, taken upon oath before the Lord Mayor of this City, in rela- tion to Peter Lens, painter, lately come into this kingdom, who professes himself a Blaster. ' By these examinations, it appears, that the said Peter Lens professes himself to be a votary of the devil ; that he hath offered up prayers to him, and publickly drank to the devil's health ; that he hath at several times uttered the most daring and execrable blasphemies against the sacred name and Majesty of God; and often made use of such obscene, blasphemous, and before un- heard-of expressions, as the Lords' com- mittees think they cannot even mention to your Lordships : and therefore choose to pass over in silence. ' As impieties and blasphemies of this kind were utterly unknown to our ancestors, the Lords' committees observe, that the laws framed by them must be unequal to such enormous crimes, and that a new law is wanting, more effectually to restrain and punish blasphemies of this kind. ' The Lords' committees cannot take upon them to assign the immediate causes of such monstrous impieties ; but they beg leave to observe, that of late years there hath ap- peared a greater neglect of religion and all things sacred, than was ever before known in this kingdom ; a great neglect of Divine Worship, both publick and private, and of the due observance of the Lord's Day : a want of reverence to the laws and magis- trates ; and of a due subordination in the several ranks and degrees in the community; and an abuse of liberty, under our mild and happy constitution : a great neglect in educa- tion ; and a want of care in parents and masters of families, in training up their chil- dren in reverence and awe ; and keeping their servants in discipline and good order ; and instructing them in moral and reli- gious duties ; a great increase of idleness, luxury and excessive gaming : and an ex- cess in the use of spirituous and intoxicating liquors. ' Wherefore the Lords' Committees are come to the following resolutions, viz. : — Resolved, that it is the opinion of this Committee, that his Majesty's Attor- ney-General be ordered to prosecute Peter Lens with the utmost severity of the law. Resolved, that it is the opinion of this committee, that an humble address be presented to his Grace the Lord Lieutenant, that he would be pleased to order that proclamation may issue with a reward for apprehending the said Peter Lens ; and that he would be further pleased to give it in direc- tion to the Judges in their several circuits, to charge the magistrates, to put the laws in execution against immorality and profane cursing and swearing and gaming, and to inquire into atheistical and blasphemous Clubs. Resolved, that it is the opinion of this Committee, that the Bishops be de- sired, at their visitations, to give it in particular charge to their clergy to exhort their people to a more frequent and constant attendance on divine service. vii.] First Years in the Irish Diocese. 255 The following letter 38 , addressed to him at this time by his wife's uncle, Bishop Forster, refers to this subject: — My Lord, I have y e favour of y r letter that came by last post, and hope y r family, which, y u say, have been twice laid down with colds, is up again, and that y e season of y e year that is coming in wil bring y u relief from y r colic. I am persuaded y u have made a true representation of y e present state of y e Church, and, God knows, it is a melancholy one. When y e laity form themselves into a party in opposition to y e clergy, how can we expect any good success from our labours among them ? Men wil never receive instruction from those to whom they bear ill wil, and their con- tempt of our labours wil, I fear, bring an increase of vice and infidelity among us. However, it is our duty to be circumspect, and give no offence ; to be diligent in y e discharge of our office, and moderate in y e demands of our temporaltys ; that y e laity may see that y e cause of reli- gion more at heart than any worldly gain. These are y e likelyest means, with God's blessing, to allay those heats that are raised against us ; but, if violent measures be taken on both sides, what hope can we have of a reconciliation? The clergy in this part of y e country have had their share in y 3 common calamity ; but I find that angry spirit that has been awfully stirred up in y e minds of y e people against them begins to abate, and they receive their dues with less opposition than they did some time ago; and I have good hopes that time and patience on our side will bring y e people to reason. Your account of y e new society of Blasters in Dublin is shocking : the zeal of all good men for y e cause of God should rise in proportion to y e impiety of these horrid blasphemers. I am glad to hear both y e King and his ministry are determined to give no countenance to innouators in Church affairs ; there is reason to believe they have ill designs against y e State as wel as y e Church. I pray God give peace in our time on earth, and bring us safe to heaven, Resolved, that it is the opinion of this Committee, that the visitors of the university, and of all schools, do ex- hort and require the fellows and masters, carefully to instruct the youth committed to their care in the principles of religion and morality ; and to inculcate a due reverence to the laws and religion of their country.' The grandson of the Lord Granard who conducted this investigation married, in 1766, Georgiana, daughter of Augustus, fourth Earl of Berkeley. She is referred to in the Preface to Monck Berkeley, p. cxxiv. 38 Berkeley Papers. 256 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. where there is no contention. We are happily freed from those two pernicious bills y 11 mention, and may be content now with a blank session. I am, my Lord, Y r Lordship's most faithfull brother and humble servant, N. RAPHO. Rapho, Feb. 20, 1731 — 8. If y r lordship's health and leisure wil allow, I should desire y u would, on y e return of y e bills, favour me with an account of such of them as relate to y e Church. There is no proof that the Blasters deserved the notoriety which these proceedings conferred upon them. The parliamentary Journals give us no further information about their history, and it does not seem that this legislative notice of their existence conferred any permanent influence upon them. The following letter 39 from his friend the Bishop of Gloucester was addressed to Berkeley when he was at Dublin : — Berry Street, Westminster, Feb. 7, 1737 — 8. My dear Lord, I was much pleased to hear that you were come to Dublin and at- tended the Session of Parliament there. For, though I love to be in my Diocese as much as I can, and wish that some of my brethren loved it more, yet it is so necessary for supporting the interest of the Church that the Bishops should be present in Parliament, that it is our duty, I think, to appear there ; and if we take care to shew that it is not our private interest which brings us thither and rules us there, we may be able to do some good, or at least to hinder a good deal of mischief. A great deal is designed against us, and every opportunity is watched and waited for to put it in execution. The Queen's death 40 is a severe blow, and those who would not be persuaded, while she lived, how zealous a friend she was to our Church and Constitution, have, since her death, been fully convinced of it. Both the King and the Minister seem firmly resolved to suffer no innovation, and to keep things as they are both 39 Berkeley Papers. chap. XXXV1II—XL., for a remarkable 40 The ' philosophic Queen' Caroline died account of her last illness and death. Nov. 20, 17.17. See Lord Hervey's Memoirs, vil] First Years in the Irish Diocese. 257 here and in Ireland. And the great man you mention is, I believe, in the same way of thinking ; but there are so few others in it, that, not- withstanding this support, we stand, I fear, upon very dangerous ground. Not that I think the danger so near as you apprehend. There are some few wise men who would be for saving the Church upon political con- siderations, and some few good men who would be for preserving it upon religious ones ; and those who are for destroying it, though many, yet are so divided, that though they agree to pull down, yet they differ so much about what they would have erected in the place, that this may be a means of keeping the old building up. Though the memory of Crom- well is not publicly drank to on this as it is on your side the water, yet we have those who are silly enough to think that he was a Republican, and venerate him upon that account. I made your compliments to my Lord Chancellor 41 , who desired his in return to you, and spoke with great esteem and regard of you. I have sent your letter to Mr. Wolfe's lodgings. He is not in town, but they promised it should be sent safely to him 42 . We are likely to do little in Parliament, and you will think, I believe, the less the better. The less harm it certainly is so, but when so many good things are so much wanted to be done, it is very shameful to see us sit so idle. It looks as if a power of doing harm only, and none of doing good, was lodged with us. The King is still very disconsolate ; he sees no company, nor is enter- tained with any diversions. He is very thoughtful and serious, and if serious people were about him, a great deal of good both to himself and the nation might come from the situation and turn of mind he is at present in. There has been talk of a reconciliation between the Prince and him, but I could never find there was any sufficient ground for it. Severe colds have been general here as well as in Ireland. I have escaped pretty well, but I am sorry to hear you and your family have had so large a share of this epidemical evil. My humble service and best wishes of health wait upon Mrs. Berkeley, and always attend all your family. I am very exact in my diet and regular in my hours, and both agree very well with me. I am better, I thank God, both in my health and spirits now than I have been for many years. The Bishop of Derry's [Rundle] recovery is very surprising ; but I wish that what some reckon the cure does not prove the ruin of his health, and that is, his return to flesh and wine. While the Queen lived I had fair hopes of seeing the Baron here. 41 Lord Hardwicke. 42 This confirms the Wolfe connection. The ' hero of Quebec ' was then only about VOL. IV. twelve years old. His parents were living at Greenwich where the two sons were at school. S 258 Life mid Letters of Berkeley. [ch. The prospect is since much clouded, but it perhaps may brighten up again. It would be great joy to myself and to the Bishop of Oxford's [Seeker] family to hear that you and yours design to visit England. James 43 had deserted it before I got to London, and he does not talk of returning before. I shall have left it again. Our Lords have made a less important order in their House than that you mention to be made in yours, and that is, that I should print a ser- mon preached before them January 30th 44 . The Bishop of Carlisle not coming up, it came to my turn sooner than it should. This order, how- ever, ought to have weight enough to excuse me to my friends for trou- bling them with one of the sermons, above all, as the order does not extend so far as to oblige them to read it. I am, my dear Lord, Ever most affectionately and faithfully yours, M. GLOCESTER. From the following note to Johnson at Stratford, which again speaks of infirm health, the Berkeley family seem to have returned to Cloyne early in the summer of 1738 : — Dublin, May 11, 1738. Reverend Sir, I should not have been thus long in arrear in regard to my corre- spondence with you, had I not been prevented by ill health, multiplicity of business, and want of opportunities. When I last heard from you I was at Cloyne, and am returning thither now with my family, who, I bless God, are all well except myself, who for a long time past have been troubled with an habitual colic, nor am I yet freed from it. My wife sends you her compliments, and we both join in good wishes to you and your family. The accounts you sent me from the College at Newhaven were very agreeable, and I shall always be glad to hear from you on that or any other subject. I am sensible you have to do with people of no very easy or tractable spirit. But your own prudence will direct you when and how far to yield, and what is the proper way to manage with them. I pray God preserve you and prosper your en- deavours. And I am, Reverend Sir, Your very faithful servant and brother, G. CLOYNE. 43 Sir John James (?). almost the only published production of his, 44 This was a Sermon preached before but Archdeacon Rose has an interesting the House of Lords, by Bishop Benson, on volume of Benson's Sermons and Charges Ps. LXXXIII. 5—8, published in 1738— in MS. vn.] First Years in the Irish Diocese. 259 The following letter 45 to Colonel Thomas Evans of Milltown, near Charleville., whose daughter was married to Dean Bruce's 46 son, illustrates Berkeley's amiable disposition. It is the only scrap I can find belonging to the months which immediately fol- lowed his return from Dublin : — Cloyne, 7 ler 7, 1738. To Thomas Evans, Esq., at Mill-towne. Sir, Two nights ago I received the favour of your letter, but deferred answering it till I should have seen Dean Bruce at my visitation ; from which the Dean happened to be detained by the illness of his son. I am- very sorry there hath arisen any difference between you ; but, as you have been silent as to particulars, and as the Dean hath mentioned nothing of it to me, either by word of mouth, letter, or message, I can do no more than in general terms recommend peace and good neigh- bourhood, for the providing of which my best endeavours should not be wanting. In the meantime give me leave to assure you that I have not the least reason to entertain ill thoughts of your conduct; and that where no blame is imputed all apology is useless. Upon the whole, since the Dean hath not stirred in this matter, I hope it may die and be forgotten. My wife presents her compliments, and I remain, Sir, y r very obedient humble servt., G. CLOYNE. The Cloyne register records the baptism of Berkeley's daughter Julia, in October 1738 4 ". In November we are introduced to the Rev. Isaac Gervais 48 , *"' See Brady's Records, vol. III. p. 1 18. 46 Reverend Jonathan Bruce, Vicar of Charleville, Co. Cork, descended from Sir Andrew Bruce of Earlshall in Scotland. From 1724 to his death at Charleville, in 1758, he was Dean of Kilfenora. See Brady's Records, vol. II. pp. 37 — 40, for an account of the family. 47 The entry is as follows : — 'Julia Berkeley, daughter of George, Lord Bishop of Cloyne, was baptised Oc- tober the 15th 1738. Godfathers, the Rev. Mr. Robert Berkeley, and Hugh Lumley, Esq. ; Mrs. Longfield and Mrs. Maule, god- mothers.' The Maules in these entries were connected with Bishop Maule, one of Berkeley's predecessors, who held the bishopric of Cloyne 1726 — 31, when he was translated to Dromore. He had two sons, Captain Thomas Maule, and James Maule, who married a daughter of Lord Barrymore in 1727. 'Mrs. Longfield' was of Castle Mary ; ' Hugh Lumley ' was of Ballymaloe ; and ' the Rev. Robert Berkeley ' was the Bishop's brother. 48 Isaac Gervais was a native of Mont- pelier, born about 1680, and carried out of France, on the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, in 1^85 — a member of one of the Huguenot families who then fled from France, and settled in Youghall, Waterford, and other parts of Ireland. He was Vicar Choral of Lismore in 1708, Prebendary of Lismore in 17^3, and became Dean of Tuam 26o Life and Letters of Berkeley. then a prebendary in the cathedral church of Lismore, a vivacious and every way pleasant clerical neighbour, of French extraction, who often visited Berkeley, and with whom he had much friendly correspondence during the remaining years of his life. The fol- lowing note is the earliest dated among the fragments which have been preserved of that long continued correspondence : — Cloyne, November 25, 1738. Reverend Sir, My wife sends her compliments to Mrs. Gervais and yourself for the receipt &c, and we both concur in thanks for your venison. The rain hath so defaced your letter that I cannot read some parts of it. But I can make a shift to see there is a compliment of so bright a strain, that if I knew how to read it I am sure I should not know how to answer it. If there was anything agreeable in your entertainment at my house, it was chiefly owing to yourself, and so requires my acknowledgment, which you have very sincere. You give so much pleasure to others, and are so easily pleased yourself, that I shall live in hopes of your making my house your inn whenever you visit these parts, which will be very agreeable to me. The year which thus introduces Mr. Gervais upon the scene is the last in which we have any account of Berkeley's wandering beyond the limits of his diocese, until he left it to return no more. We shall see him in the interval devoting himself more than ever to his neighbourhood and to his study. in 1743. He died in Feb. 1756, and was buried at Lismore. His son, Henry Ger- vais, was Archdeacon of Cashel 1 7 72 — 90, and to him we owe the letters from Berkeley to his father. Among the descendants of Dean Gervais is the present distinguished Archbishop of Dublin. CHAPTER VIII. PHILANTHROPY, THEOLOGY, AND PHILOSOPHY AT CLOYNE. TAR- WATER. 1739— I 75 2 ' Berkeley is almost invisible in 1739 and 1740. His corre- spondence in these two years is nearly a blank. Any letters he may have sent to Prior, or Johnson, or Gervais, have been lost. Nor have we even the reflected light of any addressed to him by Seeker, or Benson, or Gibson. I have not found a trace of corre- spondence with Pope after Berkeley's return from Italy, though, according to Stock, the beauty of Cloyne was painted for the bard of Twickenham by the same hand which in former days had depicted Inarime. The period in his life on which we are now entering, as well as retrospective references in letters which follow, are illus- trated in a curious local history of Cork, published while Berkeley was alive. c On the 5th of November 1739/ we are told 1 , c war was proclaimed in Cork against the king of Spain 2 . The river Lee was frozen up towards the end of this year by the hardest frost in the memory of man, after which a great scarcity followed, so that wheat sold in the following summer for forty-two shillings the kilderkin; but in two years after it fell to six shillings and sixpence the kilderkin. Great numbers of the poor perished during the summers of 1741 and 1742/ It was a time of famine in the county, followed by widespread disease. Epidemic fever and bloody flux devastated the whole neighbourhood for years. The 1 The Ancient and Present State of the 2 The commencement of the Maritime County of Cork. By Charles Smith. Dublin, War. I750- 262 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch, shadow of death again fell on the episcopal palace of Cloyne in one of these troubled years, as appears from the following entry in the cathedral register : — c Sarah Berkeley, daughter of the Right Rev. George, Lord Bishop of Cloyne, was buried the 26th day of March 1740 3 .' Berkeley's benevolent simplicity, as well as some of his notions in political economy, are shown in stories which belong to this time. At the commencement of the hard frost, in the long- remembered winter of 1739 — 40, he came down to breakfast one Sunday without a grain of powder in his Cloyne-made wig — for his own dress as well as that of his servants, was made at the village of Cloyne. His wife expressed her surprise at his unwonted appearance. 'We shall have a famine forthwith, 5 he replied, c and I have desired that none of the servants put any powder in their wigs; neither will I.' The chaplain, the secretary, and the whole party took the hint. During all that winter, every Monday morning, he gave twenty pounds to be distributed among the poor of Cloyne, besides what they received out of his kitchen 4 . He practised the maxims of his Querist, in encouraging local handicraft, and he indulged his benevolent heart in giving with both hands. These dark years of famine and disease had in the end conse- quences of lasting interest in Berkeley's history, and even in the history of philosophic thought. The suffering in his neighbourhood turned his attention to medicine. His American experience sug- gested the medicinal properties of tar-water. Reading and meditating about tar-water, in his library and in his walks about Cloyne, deepened the philosophical speculations of his early years. The Cork frost of 1739 — 40 was thus the occasion of a chain of thought the most curious of any even in the mental experience of Berkeley. His thought too was now more than formerly sustained by much and curious reading : conclusions about the principles of things, reached in the early part of his life, were, at this advanced stage, made broader and more pro- found, perhaps darker too, by solitary pondering of Greek and Eastern lore. 8 I find no record of the birth of this 4 Preface to Monck Berkeley, p. ccccxiii. daughter. She seems to have been the last- Part of the story is given by Stock, born child, who died soon after her birth. viil] Philanthropy and Philosophy at Cloyne. 263 But we shall first follow his familiar life and correspondence in the years immediately after the famine. Here are some letters to Prior, which show what he was then busy about :— - Cloyne, Feb. 8, 1740 — 1. Dear Tom, I should have complied with your desire sooner, but I was not so well able to say what method I thought best to take in this epidemical bloody flux, that distemper not having been rife in this town till very lately, though it had made a great progress in other parts of this county. But this week I have cured several by the following course ; than which nothing is easier or cheaper. I give to grown people a heaped spoonful of rosin powdered fine, in a little broth ; and this is repeated at the distance of six or eight hours till the blood is staunched. To children I give a bare spoonful not heaped. A farthing's worth of rosin (if I may judge by my own short experience) will never fail to stop the flux of blood, with a regular diet. Broth seems to me the most proper diet ; and that simple, of mutton or fowl, without salt, spice, or onions. I doubt not clysters of the same broth and rosin would likewise have a good effect ; but this I have not yet tried. In the first place, make some private experiments of this as you have opportunity. If, after the bloody flux is over, a looseness remain, chalk in boiled milk and water may remove it. I have also known tow, dipped in brandy and thrust into the fundament, to be effectual in strengthening that sphincter. What you call a felon is called in the books a phlegmon, and often is the crisis fol- lowing a fever or other distemper. I believe tar-water might be useful to prevent (or to perfect the cure of) such an evil; there being, so far as I can judge, no more powerful corrector of putrid humours. But I am making a farther enquiry, and more experiments, concerning the virtues of that medicine, which I may impart to you before it be long. I find what you say of the two plain looms to be true, you having allowed me for them. I desire you not to forget the wheels ; and to procure what seed you can, if not what I wrote for. My wife and all here join in wishing you all happiness, and hoping to see you here in May. Adieu, dear Tom, your most faithful humble servant, G. CLOYNE. I thank you for thinking of the French book. Let me hear your success in using the rosin. 264 Life and Letters of Berkeley. Cloyne, Feb. 15, 1740 — 1. Dear Tom, . I must desire you to take up what money I have in Henry's and Alderman Dawson's hands, and lodge it in the bank of Swift and Com- pany. You have their notes, so I need not draw. Upon paying this money into Swift, you will send me his account balanced. Our weather is grown fine and warm ; but the bloody flux has increased in this neighbourhood, and raged most violently in other parts of this and the adjacent counties. By new trials, I am confirmed in the use of the rosin, and do therefore send you the following advertisement, which you will communicate to the printer 5 . We are all yours, particularly your affectionate G. CLOYNE. [A dvertisement?[ . Mr. Faulkner, The following being a very safe and successful cure of the bloody flux, which at this time is become so general, you will do well to make it public. Give a heaped spoonful of common rosin, powdered, in a little fresh broth, every five or six hours, till the bloody flux is stopped ; which I have always found before a farthing's worth of rosin was spent. If, after the blood is staunched, there remain a little looseness, this is soon carried off by milk and water boiled with a little chalk in it. This cheap and easy method I have often tried of late, and never knew it fail. I am your humble servant, A. B. Cloyne, Feb. 24, 1740 — 1. Dear Tom, I find you have published my remedy in the newspaper of this day. I now tell you that the patients must be careful of their diet, and especially beware of taking cold. The best diet I find to be plain broth of mutton or fowl, without seasoning of any kind. Their drink should be, till they are freed both from dysentery and diarrhoea, milk and water, or plain water boiled with chalk, drunk warm, e.g. about a large heaped spoonful to a quart. Sometimes I find it necessary to give it every four hours, and to continue it for a dose or two after the blood hath been stopped, to prevent relapses, which ill management has now and then 5 Cf. Faulkner s Dublin Journal. viii.] Philanthropy and Philosophy at Cloyne. 265 occasioned. Given in due time (the sooner the better), and with proper care, I take it to be as sure a cure for a dysentery as the bark for an ague. It has certainly, by the blessing of God, saved many lives, and continues to save many lives in my neighbourhood. I shall be glad to know its success in any instances you may have tried it in. We are all yours. Adieu, G. CLOYNE. Cloyne, May 19, 1741. Dear Tom, The Physico-Theology you mention of Dr. Morgan 6 is not the book I want ; but I should nevertheless be glad to have it, and therefore desire you to get it, with the French book of Mr. Bouillet 7 . Though the flax-seed came in such quantity and so late, yet we have above one half ourselves in ground ; the rest, together with our own seed, has been given to our poor neighbours, and will, I doubt not, answer, the weather being very favourable. The distresses of the sick and poor are endless. The havoc of man- kind in the counties of Cork, Limerick, and some adjacent places, hath been incredible. The nation probably will not recover this loss in a century. The other day I heard one from the county of Limerick say that whole villages were entirely dispeopled. About two months since I heard Sir Richard Cox 8 say that five hundred were dead in the parish where he lives, though in a country I believe not very populous. It were to be wished people of condition were at their seats in the country during these calamitous times, which might provide relief and employment for the poor. Certainly if these perish, the rich must be sufferers in the end. Sir John Rawdon 9 , you say, is canvassing for an English election. If he doth not lose it, I doubt his country will lose him. Your journey hither is, it seems, put off for some time. I wish you would hasten : the sooner the better, both for your own health and the 6 Thomas Morgan, M.D., published Philo- sophical Principles of Medicine, &c, about 1730, but 1 have not found a work having the above title. 7 John Bouillet (1690 — 1 77°)» a French medical writer, author of Avis et Remedes contre la Peste (1721), and Sur la maniere de trailer la Petite Verole (1736). 8 Sir Richard Cox, Bart., of Dunmanway, Co Cork, and M.P. for Cloghnakilty, born 1702, died 1766. He was a grandson of the celebrated Sir Richard Cox, Lord Chan- cellor of Ireland in Queen Anne's reign. See Harris's Ware, vol. II. p. 207. 9 Cf. p. 67. 266 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [CH. pleasure of your friends in this family, where we all expect you, and think we have an annual right in you. You have not said a word this age about our suit with Partinton. Pray how stands that matter ? Adieu, dear Tom. I am your affectionate humble servant, G. CLOYNE. All here salute you. We have tried in this neighbourhood the receipt of a decoction of briar-roots for the bloody flux which you sent me, and in some cases found it useful. But that which we find the most speedy, sure, and effec- tual cure, above all others, is a heaped spoonful of rosin dissolved and mixed over a fire with two or three spoonfuls of oil, and added to a pint of broth for a clyster ; which, upon once taking, hath never been known to fail stopping the bloody flux. At first I mixed the rosin in the broth, but that was difficult, and not so speedy a cure. The Berkeley Papers contain the following rough drafts of three letters, which must have been written by Berkeley about this time, as appears from internal evidence. His warm heart and playful humour characteristically animate these fragments, amidst the prevailing gloom. All of them refer to his old friend Richard Dalton's third marriage. The first is addressed to Dalton himself : — When I expected to have heard you were an exile at Rome or Paris, I am agreeably surprised to hear you are the happiest man in London, married to a young and beautiful nymph. O terque qua- terque beate, in this degenerate age ; when so many are afraid to marry once, you dare to do it a third time. May all happiness and success attend your courage. Were I a Dictator, there should be a Jus trium uxorum 10 for those who magnanimously endeavour to repair the late breaches made upon the public by famine, sickness, and wars. Without compliment, my wife and I do sincerely congratulate your nuptials, and wish your example may prevail with those worthy batchelors Sir John James and Mr. Wolfe 11 , who have not much time to lose. A long continuance of ill health has weaned me from the world, and made me look with indifference on the most dazzling things in it. But, so long 10 A parody on the title of Jus trium lived in Dublin, and was then a bachelor liberorum. about fifty years of age. 11 Perhaps an uncle of General Wolfe, who viii.] Philanthropy and Philosophy at Cloyne. 267 as I live, I shall retain good wishes for my friends, and a sense of their happiness. I look upon you now as a man who may one day be my neighbour, and take it for granted that your roving spirit is fixed in your native land, which I was heartily sorry to think had been forsaken by you and Sir John James, and am as much pleased to think myself mistaken. Sir John tells me his health can stand the climate ; and for everything else I imagine he will give the preference to his country, which, with all its faults about it, I take to be the goodliest spot of Europe. I hope all your family are well and thriving. My little ones are so, amidst a raging epidemic (fever and bloody flux) — three sons and a daughter. But such a daughter ! so bright a little gem ! that, to prevent her doing mischief among the illiterate squires, I am resolved to treat her like a boy and make her study eight hours a day ! It does not appear for whom the next scrap was meant (unless Mr. Wolfe), but it evidently belongs to the same date : — Dear Sir, I have lived so long in this nook, by ill health as well as situation cut off from the ways of men and sequestered from the rest of the world . . . . which nevertheless hath not effaced the memory of my friends, and good wishes for them. You will therefore pardon me if, -having no news to send, I send you instead thereof a letter of advice. Our friend Mr. Dalton is, I hear, married the third time, which shews him to be a prudent man as well as a laudable patriot. Such an example is indeed a public benefit, when the nation is drained by war and hard times, and when our gentlemen con- spire to put marriage out of countenance. It is to be wished you may profit by this example, not only for the public good but for your own. Though you are far from being an old man, I will take the freedom to say you are bordering on what we call an old batchelor, a character not the most useful to the public, nor the most agreeable to him that wears it. The former point needs no common-place to clear it. For the other, give me leave to say, Mr. Dalton and I are better judges than you. Health and affluence may bear you up for some years, but when age and infirmities come on, you will feel and bewail the want of a family of your own, and the comforts of domestic life. A wife and children are blessings invaluable, which, as a man cannot purchase for money, so he would sell them for no price. . . . P.S. Give me leave to add one hint, viz., that Plato (who you know 268 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. was a wise man for a Gentile) sacrificed to nature as an atonement for his not having children. Your godson exceeds my hopes. I wish I had twenty [like] George. I assure you I would rather have them than twenty thousand pounds a year. The fragment which follows, where he speaks more distinctly about the nature of his ill health, was perhaps intended for Sir John James, his old friend and companion in the Rhode Island expedition : — Your letter refreshed me like a shower after a drought. I thought you had been in foreign lands, but am glad to find you have been so long in England, and your health not the worse for it. Give me leave to reckon it at least among the possibilities, that you may sometime or other come to Bath, and from thence take it in your head to make a short trajet to our coast, where you will find me with a wife, three sons, and a daughter — of starlike beauty — rejoicing literally under our fig-trees. Your patriots surely are the most profound or the most stupid of politicians. Why they should freely and with open eyes make such a step seems a most inexplicable riddle. I have long wished well to the public, but my wishes have been so often disappointed, that public affairs are grown more my amusement than concern. But news will alwaies be entertaining. ' Stultorum regum et populorum continet aestus.' I thank you for what you told me. What you sent was very agreeable, as, indeed, a line from you always will be. Here we have no news ; but this, in all this province of Munster great devastations are made by bloody fluxes, fevers, and want, which carry off more than a civil war. Our well-bred friend whom you call the Abbe' acts a becoming part ; I wish we had many more such Abbe's among his brethren. Mr. Dalton, who I expected was abroad with you, is, it seems, made happy the third time (O terque quaterque beatus) ; I wish you would once [marry to have that natural comfort of children] dare to do what he does so often. Without that expedient you will lose the comforts of domestic life, that natural refuge from solitude and years which is to be found in wife and children. Mine are to me a great joy [the chief of the good things of this world], and alone capable of making a life tolerable — so much embittered by sickness as mine has been for several years. I had many symptoms of the stone, and for a long time suspected my .... cholic to be an effect thereof. But of late I am satisfied that it is a scorbutic cholic, and that my original disease is the scurvy. viii.] Philanthropy and Philosophy at Cloyne. 269 An important letter was written by Berkeley in 174 1. In that year Sir John James made known to him his intention of joining the Church of Rome. His regard for the learning and goodness of this gentleman induced him to write to Sir John at great length on the subject, at a time too when Cloyne was a scene of suffering. The letter, which is among the Berkeley Papers 12 , is interesting, as it is almost the only expression we have of his views upon some of the points of difference between Roman and Anglican Theology 13 : it also shows some of the directions that his reading was now taking. Some parts of it are unfortunately wanting, but what remains is as follows : — Cloyne, June 7, 1741. Dear Sir, I would not defer writing, though I write in no small confusion and distress ; my family having many ill of an epidemical fever that rages in these parts, and I being the only physician to them and my poor neigh- bours. You have my sincere thanks for the freedom and friendship with which you are so good to communicate your thoughts. Your making the unum necessarium your chief business sets you above the world. I heartily beg of God that He would give me grace to do the same ; a heart constantly to pursue the truth, and abide in it, wherever it is found. No divine could say, in my opinion, more for the Church of Rome than you have done : — 1 Si Pergama dextrd Defendi possent, etiam hac defensa fuissent.' [Virg. ^neid. II. 291.] The Scriptures and Fathers, I grant, are a much better help to know Christ and His Religion than the cold and dry writings of our modern divines. Many who are conversant in such books, I doubt, have no more relish for the things of the Gospel, than those who spend their time in reading the immense and innumerable tomes of Scholastic Divinity, with which the Church of Rome abounds. The dry polemical theology was the growth of Rome, begun from Peter Lombard, the 12 It was published from the MS., in 1850, by the Rev. James Anderson of Brighton. 13 See also Berkeley's Visitation Charge (now first published in this volume), and one or two allusions in Alciphron. His letters, written some years after this, to the Roman Catholics of Cloyne, and to the Roman Catholic Clergy of Ireland, do not refer to points of doctrine. 270 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. Master of the Sentences 14 ; and grew and spread among the Monks and Friars, under the Pope's eye. The Church of England is not without spiritual writers of her own. Taylor, Ken. Beveridge, Scott, Lucas, Stanhope, Nelson, the author of the works falsely ascribed to the writer of the Whole Duty of Man, and many more, whom I believe you will find not inferior to those of the Church of Rome. But I freely own to you that most modern writings smell of the age, and that there are no books so fit to make a soul advance in spiritual perfection, as the Scriptures and ancient Fathers. I think you will find no Popery in St. Augustine, or St. Basil, or any writers of that antiquity. You may see, indeed, here and there, in the Fathers a notion borrowed from Philosophy (as they were originally philosophers) ; for instance something like a Platonic or Pythagorean Purgatory. But you will see nothing like indulgences, or a bank of merits, or a Romish purgatory, whereof the Pope has the key. It is not simply believing even a Popish tenet, or tenets, that makes a Papist, but believing on the Pope's authority. There is in the Fathers a divine strain of piety, and much of the spiritual life. This, we acknowledge, all should aspire after, and I make no doubt is attainable, and actually attained, in the communion of our Church, at least as well as in any other. You observe very justly that Christ's religion is spiritual, and the Christian life supernatural ; and that there is no judge of spiritual things but the Spirit of God. We have need, therefore, of aid and light from above. Accordingly, we have the Spirit of God to guide us into all truth. If we are sanctified and enlighted by the Holy Ghost and by Christ, this will make up for our defects without the Pope's assistance. And why our Church and her pious members may not hope for this help as well as others, I see no reason. The Author of our faith tells us, He that ' will do the will of God, shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God.' (S. John vii. 17.) I believe this extends to all saving truths. There is an indwelling of Christ and the Holy Spirit; there is an inward light. If there be an ignis fatuus that misleads wild and con- ceited men, no man can thence infer there is no light of the sun. There must be a proper disposition of the organ, as well as a degree of day- light, to make us see. Where these concur nobody doubts of what he sees. And a christian soul, wherein there is faith, humility, and obe- dience, will not fail to see the right way to salvation by that light which lightens the Gentiles, and is a glory to Israel. 14 So named from his Liber Sententiarutn, the standard book of Scholastic Theology, which appeared in 1172. viii.] Philanthropy and Philosophy at Cloyne. 271 There is an invisible Church, whereof Christ is the head ; the mem- bers of which are linked together by faith, hope, and charity. By faith in Christ, not in the Pope. Popes are no unerring rule, for Popes have erred: witness the condemnation and suppression of Sixtus Quintus's Bible by his successor 15 . Witness the successions of Anti-Popes for a long tract of time. There is a secret unction, an inward light and joy, that attends the sincere fervent love of God and His truth, which enables men to go on with all cheerfulness and hope in the Christian warfare. You ask, How I shall discern or know this ? I answer much more easily than I can that this particular man, or this particular society of men, is an unerring rule. Of the former I have an inward feeling, jointly with the internal, as well as exterior, \6yos, to inform me. But for the latter I have only the Pope's word, and that of his followers. It is dangerous arguing from our notion of the expediency of a thing to the reality of the thing itself. But I can plainly argue from facts against the being of such an expedient. In the first centurys of the Church, when heresies abounded, the expedient of a Pope, or Roman oracle, was unknown, unthought of. There was then a Bishop of Rome ; but that was no hindrance or remedy of divisions. Disputes in the Catholic Church were not ended by his authority. No recourse was had to his infallibility ; an evident proof they acknowledged no such thing. The date of his usurpations, and how they grew with his secular power, you may plainly see in Giannoni's History of Naples™ : I do not refer you to a Protestant writer. Men travelling in daylight see by one common light, though each with his own eyes. If one man should say to the rest, Shut your eyes and follow me, who can see better than you all ; this would not be well taken. The sincere Christians of our communion are governed, or led, by the inward light of God's grace, by the outward light of His written word, by the ancient and Catholic traditions of Christ's Church, by the ordi- nances of our national Church, which we take to consist all and hang together. But then we see, as all must do, with our own eyes, by a common light, but each with his own private eyes. And so must you too, or you will not see at all. And, not seeing at all, how can you M The reference is to the Vulgate, authen- ticated by the Council of Trent, and com- manded by Pope Sixtus V in 1590 to be adopted by the Church ; two years after- wards condemned, and ordered to be sup- pressed by his successor Clement VIII. This is presented as a dilemma to Roman Ca- tholics in Gibson's Preservative against Popery. 16 PietroGiannoni(i676 — 1748) devoted twenty years of learned research to this cele- brated History, the freedom and candour of which brought upon him the lasting hostility of the Church. He died in prison at Turin. 272 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. chuse a Church ? why prefer that of Rome to that of England ? Thus far, and in this sense, every man's judgement is private as well as ours. Some, indeed, go further ; and, without regard to the Holy Spirit, or the Word of God, or the writings of the primitive Fathers, or the universal uninterrupted traditions of the Church, will pretend to canvass every mystery, every step of Providence, and reduce it to the private standard of their own fancy ; for reason reaches not those things. Such as these I give up and disown, as well as you do. I grant it is meet that the Law of Christ should, like other laws, have magistrates to explain and apply it. But then, as in the civil State, a private man may know the law enough to avoid transgressing it, and also to see whether the magistrates deviate from it into tyranny : even so, in the other case, a private Christian may know, and ought to know, the written law of God, and not give himself up blindly to the dictates of the Pope and his assessors. This, in effect, would be destroying the law, and erecting a despotic government instead thereof. It would be deserting Christ, and taking the Pope for his master. I think it my duty to become a little child to Christ and His Apostles, but not to the Pope and his courtiers. That many honest and well- meaning men live under such thraldom I freely admit, and am sorry for it. I trust that God will have compassion on them, as knowing how they were educated, and the force of first impressions. But we, who never had their education, cannot plead their prejudices. Light and heat are both found in a religious mind duly disposed. Light, in due order, goes first. It is dangerous to begin with heat, that is, with the affections. To balance earthly affections by spiritual affec- tions is right. But our affections should grow from enquiry and delibe- ration; else there is danger of our being superstitious or enthusiasts. An affection conceived towards a particular Church, upon reading some spiritual authors of that communion, which might have left a byas in the mind, is, I apprehend, to be suspected. Most men act with a byas. God knows how far my education may have byassed me against the Church of Rome, or how far a love of retreat and a fine climate may byas me towards it. It is our duty to try and divest ourselves of all byas whatsoever. Whatever unguarded expressions may be found in this or that Pro- testant divine, it is certainly the doctrine of our Church that no par- ticular Church, or congregation of believers, is infallible. We hold all mankind to be peccable and errable, even the Pope himself, with all that belong to him. We are like men in a cave, in this present life, seeing by a dim light through such chinks as the Divine goodness hath opened viii.] Philanthropy and Philosophy at Cloyne. 273 to us 17 . We dare not talk in the high, unerring, positive style of the Romanists. We confess that ' we see through a glass darkly' (1 Cor. xiii. 12); and rejoice that we see enough to determine our practice, and excite our hopes. An humble, devout penitent believer, not byassed by any terrene affections, but sincerely aiming and endeavouring, by all the means God hath given him, to come at truth, need not fear being admitted into the Kingdom of God without the Pope's passport. There is indeed an invisible Church whereof Christ is head ; linked together by charity, animated with the same hope, sanctified by the same Spirit, heirs of the same promise. This is the Universal Church, militant and triumphant : the militant, dispersed in all parts of Christendom, partaking of the same Word and Sacraments. There are also visible, political or national Churches : none of which is Universal. It would be a blunder to say particular universal. And yet, I know not how, the style of Roman Catholic hath prevailed. The members of this universal Church are not visible by outward marks, but certainly known only to God, whose Spirit will sanctifie and maintain it to the end of time. The Church is a calling, €KK\rjaia : ' Many are called, but few are chosen.' (S. Matt. xxii. 14.) Therefore there is no reckoning the elect by the number of visible members. There must be the invisible grace, as well as the outward sign ; the spiritual life and holy unction to make a real member of Christ's invisible Church. The particular Churches of Jerusalem, Antioch, Alexandria, Rome, &c. have all fallen into error. (Art. XIX.) And yet, in their most corrupt and erroneous state, I believe they have included some true members of that body whereof ' Christ is head ; ' of that building whereof He is 1 the corner stone.' (Ephes. iv. 15 ; ii. 20.) ' Other foundation can no man lay,' but on this foundation. There may be superstructures of 1 hay stubble' (1 Cor. iii. 11, 12), and much contemptible trash, without absolutely annihilating the Church. This I take to have been evidently the case. Christ's religion is spiritual and supernatural ; and there is an unseen cement of the faithful, who draw grace from the same source, are enlightened by he same ' Father of lights' (James i. 17), and sanctified by the same Spirit. And this, although they may be members of different political or visible congregations, may be estranged, or suspected, or even excom- municate to each other. They may be loyal to Christ, however divided among themselves. This is the charitable belief of the true sons of our Church ; however contrary to the damning temper of Rome, and the sour severity of Dissenters. 17 So Plato. Cf. Siris, sect. 367, and its general tone. VOL. IV. - T 274 Life and Letters of Berkeley, [ch. To explain this by a familiar instance. When King Charles II. was at Brussels, he had friends in England of different factions, and suspected, or even hated, each by other ; who yet alike wished the King well, and corresponded with him, though not with one another. The King knew his loyal subjects, though they were not known, owned, or trusted mutually. They all promoted his return, though by different schemes; and, when. he came to his kingdom, they all rejoiced with him. But perhaps you will say there is need of an infallible visible guide for the soul's quiet. But of what use is an infallible guide without an infal- lible sign to know him by 18 ? We have often seen Pope against Pope, and Council against Council. What or whom shall we follow in these con- tests, but the written Word of God, the Apostolical traditions, and the internal light of the \6yos, that irradiates every mind, but is not equally observed by all 19 ? If you say, notwithstanding these helps and lights, that we are still weak, and have weak eyes ; in a word, that we may err : I say, so may you. Man is fallible ; and God knows it ; and God is just. I am more easy on these principles, and this way of thinking, than if I tamely and slothfully gave myself up to be ridden and hoodwinked by the Pope, or by any other visible judge upon earth. The security and repose of souls is pretended or promised to be had in the bosom of the Roman Church. But, I think, least of all to be hoped for, in a Church which, by her doctrine of the priest's intention being necessary to the efficacy of Sacraments, must raise in every think- ing member infinite and indissoluble scruples. Since it is acknowledged that many Infidels and Jews and Mahometans have been ordained, and possessed all degrees of dignity, and administered all Sacraments, in the Church of Rome : therefore all Sacraments derived either mediately or immediately from such, were ineffectual : therefore, no particular mem- ber can know, upon the principles of the Church of Rome, whether he is a Christian or not : therefore, that very Church, which sets up above all others for making men easy and secure within her communion, is, indeed, more than any other, calculated for producing doubts and scruples, such as I do not see possible how they should be solved or quieted upon her principles. You seem to think the numerousness of her sons an argument of her truth. But it is admitted the Mahometans are more numerous than the Christians; and that the Arians, once upon a time, were 18 So argued in tracts contained in Gib- the Scriptures, son's Preservative. The Romanists retort 19 The \6yos, and the 1 inward light,' now by an argumentum ad hominem, as against appear in Berkeley, and more fully after- Protestant defenders of the infallibility of wards in Siris. viii.] Philanthropy and Philosophy at Cloyne. 275 more numerous than the Orthodox. Therefore, that argument con- cludes nothing. As for her miracles, which you think so well attested that thinking Protestants dare not deny them, I declare honestly that the best attested of her miracles that I have met with, and the only that seemed to have any verisimilitude, were those said to be performed at the tomb of Abbe Paris 20 ; and those are not admitted by the Church of Rome herself. I have read, enquired, and observed myself, when abroad, concerning their exorcisms, and miracles 21 ; and must needs say they all appeared so many gross impositions. As for the miracles said to be performed in foreign missions, I can give no credit to them (I judge by what accounts I have seen) ; and, if you will be at the trouble of perusing the Lettres edifiantes et eurieuses, ecrites des Missions Etrangeres, printed at Paris, perhaps you may think of them as I do. As for the Roman Saints and Martyrs, please to read their legends, or even the canonizations of the last century, since Rome hath been enlightened and something reformed by our Reformation, for those of St. Pietro d'Alcantra and St. Magdalena de Pazzi. I believe you never read of anything like them and their marvellous wonders, which never- theless were admitted for authentic by Pope and Cardinals. I myself saw and conversed with a woman at Genoa, a reputed Saint, whose head I met three years after, encircled with rays, to be sold among other pictures in the great square of Leghorn. This same Saint appeared to me very manifestly a vile lying hypocrite, though much extolled and admired. I never saw any character of a Popish Martyr that came up to that of Jerome of Prague, one of the first Reformers ; for which I refer you to Poggius, and ^Eneas Sylvius, who was eye-witness to his behaviour, and afterwards became Pope. Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer were, I think, good men, and acted on good motives. So was Jewell a very good man. I wish you'd read his little Latin book in defence of the Reformation 22 . I have not seen it these thirty years ; but remember I liked it well. Hooker, Usher, Dodwell, Fell, Hammond, and many more Protestants of our Church, had piety equal to their learning. 20 An ascetic who died in France in 1727. the Lettres edifiantes, referred to in the After his death miracles were said to have next sentence, appeared between 1717 and been wrought by his relics and at his grave, 1 776, in 32 vols. which occasioned a famous controversy at 22 Jewell's Apologia Ecclesice Anglicance, the time. They are referred to by Hume which appeared in 1 562, drew great atten- in his Essay on ' Miracles.' See also Doug- tion at the time, and was translated into las's Criterion, and Paley's Evidences of various languages. The Council of Trent Christianity. appointed two of its members to answer it, 21 Cf. pp. 69, 70. The first edition of which was never done. T 2 2j6 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. Basil Kennetft], Chaplain to the factory of Leghorn in Queen Anne's reign, was esteemed and called a Saint by the Papists themselves, as the English merchants there assured me. On the other hand, in so many converts, and such a numerous clergy, that there may be found sundry good and learned men, I make no doubt, whose learning and piety are skilfully made use of and applied by the Court of Rome to extend her influence and credit. You mention monasteries to have been anciently regarded as schools of Divine Philosophy. But there is, by what I can find, no similitude between ancient and modern monks. Compare what St. Bernard, in his treatise De Vita Solitarid, saith of the monks of Thebais, with what you will see in the monasteries of Flanders. I fear there is no corruption, or perversion, worse than that of a monastic life. It seems very expedient that the world should have, among the many formed for action, some also formed for contemplation, the influence whereof might be general and extend to others. But to get men and women to a contemplative life, who are neither fitted nor addicted to contemplation, is a monstrous abuse. To assist the \va-is and fyvyi) of the Soul by meditation was a noble purpose, even in the eyes of Pagan Philosophy 23 . How much more so in the eyes of Christians, whose philosophy is of all others the most sublime, and the most calculated to wean our thoughts from things carnal, and raise them above things terrestrial ! That the contemplative and ascetic life may be greatly promoted by living in community and by rules, I freely admit. The institution of the Essenes among the Jews, or the Republic of Philosophers, that was to have been settled in a city to have been built by the direction of Plotinus 24 , in the territory of Capua, if the Emperor Gallienus had not changed his mind ; — such institutions as these give delightful images, but very different from anything that I could ever see in a Popish convent ; and I have seen and known many of them. I should like a convent without a vow, or perpetual obligation. Doubt- less, a college or monastery (not a resource for younger brothers, not a nursery for ignorance, laziness, and superstition) receiving only grown persons of approved piety, learning, and a contemplative turn, would be a great means of improving the Divine Philosophy, and brightening up the face of religion in our Church. But I should still expect more success 23 This was a growing sentiment with Berkeley now, which showed itself soon after in his writings. Cf. Siris, sect. 302, 358. 24 Plotinus, the Neoplatonist of Alexan- dria, spent the last twenty-rive years of his life at Rome, where he died, A.D. 270. He projected a city in Campania on the model of the Republic of Plato. Berkeley was now drawing towards Plotinus and the Neoplato- nists, as we see soon after this in Siris. viil] Philanthropy and Philosophy at Cloyne. 277 from a number of gentlemen, living independently at Oxford 25 , who made divine things their study, and proposed to wean themselves from what is called the world. You remark on the badness of men and views that seem to have con- curred in the Reformation. That there may be some truth in the charge, I will not deny. But I deny that this can be an argument against the Reformation ; since you seem to grant yourself that the Church of Rome hath been reformed on occasion of our Reformation, which yet you condemn. Evil men and councils may sometimes be the occasion of good. And it is on all hands admitted that God knows how to extract good from evil. The charge of Idolatry on the Church of Rome (which you make so light of) is, I fear, not without foundation. For, although the learned may, and do, distinguish between a relative respect for images, and an absolute worship of them 26 ; yet it cannot be doubted that the use made of them becomes a great snare to the multitude. I myself, by talking to some common people in Italy, found they worshipped images with an adoration as formal and stupid as any heathen idolater. And both I and every other traveller must see (and the best men among themselves are scandalized to see it) that the Blessed Virgin is often prayed to and more worshipped than God Himself. You speak of the unity and peace of the Church of Rome, as an effect of the Spirit of God presiding in it, and of the doctrine of an infallible head. But the fact is denied. Successions of Anti-Popes with horrible dissensions, violent measures and convulsions ensuing thereupon, suf- ficiently show the contrary. The Court of Rome, it must be owned, hath learned the Venetian policy of silencing her sons, and keeping them quiet through fear. But where there breathes a little spirit of learning and freedom, as in France ; or, where distance has lessened respect, as in China; there have often appeared, and ever and anon continue to appear, great struggles, parties, and divisions, both in matters of faith and discipline. And, where they are quiet, their union seems, so far as I can judge, a political union, founded in secular power and arts, rather than an effect of any divine doctrine or spirit. Those who are conversant in history plainly see by what secular arts the Papal power was acquired. To history, therefore, I refer you. In the mean time, I cannot forbear making one remark which I know not 25 Here first Berkeley speaks of Oxford those whom they represent or symbolise — as the scene of an ideal life. after the analogy of family pictures, &c. 26 So in Bossuet's Exposition, sect. 5, where Cf. also references in Berkeley's Italian he defends images as means of sustaining in Tour. devout persons the religious remembrance of 278 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [CH. whether it hath been made by others. Rome seems to have cut her own throat by the forgery of Constantine's Donation 27 , in which there is this remarkable clause : Decernentes sancimus, ut Romana Ecclesia principatum teneat tarn super quatuor sedes, Alexandrinam, Antiochenam, Hierosolymi- tana?n, ac Constantinopolitanam, quam eliam super omnes in universo orbe terrarum Dei ecclesias. Doth not this look like an acknowledgment that the see of Rome oweth her pre-eminence to the appointment of Constantine the Great, and not to any divine right ? 3fc 3jC if- ?fc [In this part of the MS. four pages are wanting. In what follows, chasms are supplied here and there by words within brackets.] many innovations are in theirs, which we account repugnant to the Word of God, and the primitive traditions. Therefore, a Papist of any tolerable reason, though bred up in the Roman Church, may, nevertheless, with a good conscience, occasionally join in our worship ; and I have known this done. May I not therefore* hope that you will continue to do it, and not, in perfect complaisance to the Pope, renounce and damn us all ? In the mean time, you may deliberate, continue your impartial inquiry, and well weigh your steps, before you range under the Pope and receive his mark. I had forgot to say a word of Confession, which you mention as an advantage in the Church of Rome which is not to be had in ours. But it may be had in our communion, by any who please to have it ; and, I admit, it may be very usefully practised. But, as it is managed in the Church of Rome, I apprehend it doth infinitely more mischief than good. Their casuistry seemeth a disgrace, not only to Christianity, but even to- the light of nature. As Plato thanked the gods that he was born an Athenian, so I think it a peculiar blessing to have been educated in the Church of England. My prayer, nevertheless, and trust in God is, not that I shall live and die in this Church, but in the true Church. For, after all, in respect of religion, our attachment should only be to the truth 28 . I might, therefore, own myself a little surprised upon observing that you concluded your letter with declaring — You trust, by God's grace, to live and die in the Church of Rome. I can easily suppose that the expression was a slip ; but I can never suppose that all [the] skill and arts of Rome can destroy your candour. You will pardon the freedom of an old friend, who speaks his thoughts bluntly, just as they come, to one who used to be [a man] of frankness 27 A forgery which appeared in the ninth century, in which Charlemagne is exhorted to imitate the great Constantine. 28 So afterwards in Siris, sect. 368. viii.] Philanthropy and Philosophy at Cloyne. 279 without forms. If I have exceeded in this kind, impute it to haste, as well as my repetitions, inaccuracies, and want of order. You set me a time ; and I have obeyed as I could ; hoping that your own thought will give clearness and method to my broken and indigested hints. To your own thoughts I appeal, trusting that God will give you grace to think for yourself, and to exert that sharpness of judgement, which He has given you, with double diligence, in this most weighty affair. There are some writings of my Lord Falkland's, concerning .the Infallibility of the Roman Church, bound up in the second volume of Dr. Hammond's works, together with some learned arguments in behalf of the Church of Rome 29 . I have not read those writings ; but on the reputation of Lord Falkland, venture to recommend [them] to your perusal. The importance of the subject, together with my esteem and affection for you, have run me into a greater length than I intended : which if you are so good as to pardon this once, I promise to be more succinct and methodical another time, if you think fit to favour me with an answer. In which case I would entreat you to number your paragraphs with figures prefixed, which will govern and shorten my answer. The years I have lived, the pains I have taken, and the distempers I labour under, make me suspect I have not long to live. And, certainly, my remnant of life, be it what it will, could be spun out delightfully in the sun and the fresco, among the fountains and grottos, the music, the antiquities, the fine arts and buildings of Rome, if I could once recom- mend myself to her religion. But I trust in God, those fla . . . things shall never bribe my judgement. Dress therefore your batteries against my reason ; attack me by the dry light * * * assign me some good reason why I should not use my reason, but submit at once to his Holiness's will and pleasure. Though you are conqueror, I shall be a gainer. In the work of truth I am ready to hear and canvass with the best of * * * skill, whatever you shall be so good to offer. To your kind enquiry about my health, I can say that, though I am not well, yet I am less bad than I was a year ago ; and that . . . minal disorders seem to quit me, though with a leisurely pace. [My fam]ily is a great comfort to me. My wife, who is just recovered from an illness, alwaies remembers you with the highest esteem ; and interests herself in your welfare. She sends her compliments ; but knows nothing of the subject of our correspondence. If she did, I doubt it would make her think better of the Church of Rome, in which she liked some things when she was in France. She is become a great farmer of late. In 29 Of the Infallibility of the Church of Rome. A discourse \yritten by the Lord Viscount Falkland (1645). 280 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. these hard times we employ above a hundred men every day in agri- culture of one kind or other; all which my wife directs. This is a charity, which pays itself. At least the Domaine of this see will gain by it. Oh ! that you had a farm of a hundred acres near Oxford ! What a pleasure it would be to improve and embellish the face of nature, to lead the life of a patriarch rather than a friar, a modern cloystered friar ! My wife finds in it a fund of health and spirits, beyond all the fashionable amusements in the world. Dear Sir, you have the best wishes and most hearty prayers of your most obedient and affectionate servant, G. CLOYNE. Sir John James, who was, I believe, the last baronet of the line, died about three months after this letter was written. From Berkeley's friendship for him, and any incidental notices, we may conclude that he was one of a thoughtful and noble nature — who lived above what is called c the world,' making the pursuit of truth and the unum necessarium his chief business 30 . The Rev. Dr. Robert Berkeley, referred to in the preceding- correspondence as c my brother Robin,' was settled in 1741 as Rector of Midleton, about three miles from Cloyne, to spend there the remainder of his long life. He was also for almost half a century Treasurer of Cloyne and Vicar-General of the diocese. He lived at Ballinacurra, near Midleton, in the northern valley of Imokilly. This was a new domestic interest, and much family intercourse naturally followed between Cloyne and Ballinacurra. Robert Berkeley, as already mentioned, was born c near Thurles,' about the end of the seventeeth century. He entered Trinity College, Dublin, in June J 717, and became a Scholar in 1719. He was admitted Treasurer of Cloyne, and also suc- ceeded the Rev. Walter Atkin as Rector of Templenecarrigy in February 1 741 . In June 1 742, he was confirmed Vicar-General by 30 Died, September 28, 1 741. Sir John James, Bart., aged 47 {Gent. Mag.). The Editor of Monck Berkeley's Poems writes as follows : — ' I have often been told by Bishop Berkeley's learned, agreeable friend, Richard Dalton, Esq., that his friend Sir John James, Bart, told Bishop Benson that he had bequeathed his very large estate, excepting a few legacies, to his dear friend Bishop Berkeley. Bishop Benson wrote what he, lovely man, thought the pleasant news to Cloyne, and received in reply " a thunder- ing letter," as Mr. Dalton called it, saying, " Do you tell James that I will not have his fortune. Bid him leave it to his relations. I won't have it." Sir John, on hearing this, bequeathed it to the old Chevalier de St. George — so, of course, his relations got it. He had, after Bishop Berkeley went to Cloyne, become a Papist.' {Preface to Monck Berkeley, p. cccclx, note.) viii. ] Philanthropy and Philosophy at Cloyne. 281 the Chapter. In 1734, he married, at Dublin, Anne Elizabeth Dawson, of the family of Castle Dawson, who died in March 1748, and whose tomb, with a Latin inscription by her husband (the only production of his pen now remaining of which I am aware] may be seen in Midleton churchyard. They had four sons and four daughters 31 . The two letters to Gervais which follow introduce us to the events of 1742. Gervais was probably at Dublin when he wrote. Besides allusions to tar-water, they touch upon the political changes of the time. The long peace which the country had enjoyed, almost since the accession of the House of Brunswick, was ended, and England was now involved in the wars which followed the ac- cession of Maria Theresa to the throne of Hungary, in which the young Queen and Frederick of Prussia were the principal figures. Sir Robert Walpole's administration of more than twenty years, of which the peaceful consolidation of the Hanoverian dynasty was the guiding policy, was about to close. Cloyne, Jan. 12, 1742. You forgot to mention your address ; else I should have sooner acknowledged the favour of your letter, for which I am much obliged, though the news it contained had nothing good but the manner of telling it. I had much rather write you a letter of congratulation than of com- fort ; and yet I must needs tell you for your comfort, that I apprehend you miscarry by having too many friends. We often see a man with one only at his back pushed on and making his way, while another is em- barrassed in a crowd of well-wishers. The best of it is, your merits will 31 The sons were : — I. George, born 1 735, vicar-choral of Cork in 1769, married in 1772, and died in 1804. 2 - Joshua, born 1742, Dean of Tuam from 1782 till his death at Bristol in 1807. 3. William, born 1 747, was licensed by his father to the curacy of Midleton in April 1772, held various ecclesiastical preferments in the diocese of Cloyne, and died in 1814. 4. Robert, died in 1807. Of the four daughters, Arabella married the Right Hon. Sackville Hamilton, M.P. Mary was the wife of the Rev. Dr. Francis Atterbury, praecentor of Cloyne from 1770 till his death in 1822, and grandson of Bishop Atterbury; and Elizabeth and Anne were unmarried. Dr. Berkeley's eldest son George was father of the late General Sackville Berkeley, to whose son, the Rev. Sackville Berkeley, I am indebted for the sight of a Plato presented to his grandfather, in 1 75 1, by Bishop Berkeley. The Plato (Basil. 1556) contains some MS. annotations by an unknown hand. The first page is thus inscribed : ' This book was given as a present by the Rt. Rev. George Berkeley, the Ld. Bp. of Cloyne, to me, the 21st day of November, 1 75 1. George Berkeley, Balli- nacurra, County of Corke, Ireland.' Robert Berkeley, QJZ., Dublin (who possesses an intercs-ting portrait of Berkeley, said to have been taken when he was in Italy), is another grandson of the Rev. George Berkeley. Dr. Robert Berkeley died in August 1787, and was buried at Midleton. 2b 2 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. not be measured by your success. It is an old remark, that the race is not always to the swift. But at present who wins it, matters little ; for all protestant clergymen are like soon to be at par, if that old priest 32 , your countryman, continues to carry on his schemes with the same policy and success he has hitherto done. The accounts you send agree with what I hear from other parts ; they are all alike dismal. Reserve your- self, however, for future times, and mind the main chance. I would say, shun late hours, drink tar-water, ancl bring back (I wish a good deanery, but at least) a good stock of health and spirits to grace our little parties in Imokilly 33 , where we hope, ere it be long, to see you and the sun 32 Cardinal Fleury, who was prime minister of France from 1726 till he died, in January 1743, in his 90th year. He ruled France while Walpole ruled England, both of them in the interest of peace. 33 I have no actual picture of those ' little parties' as they were in Berkeley's time, but I have now before me a distinct one of very similar social ongoings at and around Cloyne, about twenty years after Berkeley's death, in the form of a daily MS. Diary for the year 1773, kept at Ballinacurra by the Rev. William Berkeley, curate of Midleton, mentioned in the note before the last. The Diary contains a careful daily register of the weather in the neighbourhood of Cloyne, and anecdotes of the families in Imokilly (those whom Bishop Berkeley was in the way of visiting, and being visited by,) and their little parties — the Inchiquins, Shannons, Longfields, Lumleys, Fitzgeralds, Haymans, Berkeleys of Ballinacurra, &c. I venture to offer a few extracts taken at random : — • Jan. 1st. At home busy at a sermon. Mary and Betty [his sisters] at Aghada [Dr. Atterbury V]. 4th. Out shooting with J. Hanning at Castle Mary. 6th. Set out for Lismore at half past 10 a.m. — the day remarkably fine and clear. [Then an account of the visit to Lismore, on that and the following days.] 9th. Set out in the little chaise between 9 and 10, and got to Cork quarter before 1 1 — finished my business and left by 2 [for Ballinacurra]. ioth. Large congregation at church. Heard from Stock [afterwards Bishop Stock]. Feb. 2nd. Lord Inchiquin dangerously ill. 4th. Dined at Cloyne with the Registrar [Han- ning]. ioth. Dined at Lord Shannon's, where we met Atterbury, Mary, Julia, Mrs. Pigot, &c. 1 8th. Out sailing in a new boat with Wat. Hayman. Nancy and Julia came to dinner from Castlemartyr. 1 8th. Dined at Mocklers, where we met the Bishop a , Bushe, Kingston, &c. 19th. Dined at the Bishop of Cloyne's — wind very high going there. 26th. Dined at Castle Mary, where were Mr. Lumley [Ballimaloe], Mr. Lawless, &c. 27th. This day eleven years taken prisoner by the French. 28th. Mrs. Daw- son and her daughters went to Cloyne Church. Lambert preached for me at Midleton. March 1st. We heard of poor Capt. Rugge's having had an attack of apoplexy. 2nd. Dined at Ballymaloe. 7th. Yesterday sent down the yawl to look for the vessel in which George [his brother] is coming [from England], but without suc- cess. 9th. Sent down the boat to Cove to enquire whether the vessel be come. About 2 p.m. the boat returned with George. He arrived in the harbour at 5 a.m., having sailed from Bristol on Saturday [this was written on Tuesday] about 9 o'clock, and had a most agreeable passage. 10th. The Bishop dined here. 15th. Rode to Bal'y- maloe and met Mr. Longfield hunting with J. Hanning, &c. Met Mr. Lumley and Mr. Breviter on Cloyne hill. 17th. George read prayers for me at Midleton. All dined at Rostellan. Mrs. Longfield, Miss Uniake, and the Bishop of Cloyne there. 28th. Dined at the Bishop's. 30th. Heard from Stock — a farewell letter on his setting- out to take the grand tour. 31st. Atterbury and Mary here. The Bishop of Cloyne dined here. April 8th. Went in the morn- ing to Cloyne to the Bishop's Court. We all dined at the Bishop's. Grand Concert. 9th. My father [Dr. Robert Berkeley] went to Castle Mary after we came from church, ioth. Set out about 7 a.m. for Cork, and got there to breakfast, returning through Blarney, and dined at Glanmire. The a Charles Agar, D.D., was Bishop of created Baron Somerton in 1795, and Earl Cloyne, 1768-79, when he was translated of Normanton in 1806. to Cashel, and in 1 801 to Dublin. He was viii.] Philanthropy and Philosophy at Cloyne. 283 returned together. My wife, who values herself on being in the number of your friends, is extremely obliged for the Italian psalms you have pro- cured, and desires me to tell you, that the more you can procure, the more she shall be obliged. We join in wishing you many happy new years, health, and success. Cloyne, Feb. 2, 1742. I condole with you on your cold, a circumstance that a man of fashion who keeps late hours can hardly escape. We find here that a spoonful, half tar and half honey, taken morning, noon, and night, proves a most effectual remedy in that case. My wife, who values herself on being in Doctor [his father] dined at Chinnery's. 16th. Lord and Lady Inchiquin, Captain Moore, Miss Bullen dined here. I went in the evening to a concert at the Bishop's, where were Lord and Lady Shannon, Mary, Atterbury, and Annabell, and all the choir. 17th. Dined at Lord Shannon's. The Bishop there. 19th. We all dined at the Bishop's. I rode. The rest visited at Ros- tellan, before they went. Met Lady Shan- non, Atterbury, &c. No music. 23rd. Went in the evening to the Bishop's to the concert, where were all the choir. [There seems to have been a weekly concert at the Bishop's.] May 7th. Dined at the Bishop's. My father, &c, called at Castlemartyr on their way. I went directly to Cloyne. Mr. and Mrs. Uniake dined there. Lord and Lady Shannon came in the evening to the concert. Returned home about 10.30, clear star light. 1 2th. The Bishop of Cloyne, Major and Mrs. Folliott, Mr. and Mrs. Mockler, and R. Uniake dined here. 19th. Sent Paddy for the plants to Castle Mary. list. Captain Rugge dined here. 30th. (Sunday) On our return from church overtook Mr. Lum- ley, who informed us of the arrival of the London East Indiaman in Cork Harbour yesterday afternoon. He and I agreed to go on board her to-morrow. 31st. Set out in my boat for the Indiaman about 10 a.m. with Miss Lumley and Folliott. Took in J. Hanning at Goold's Point. Vast crowds of people. Dined at Cove. June 1st. Went with the Doctor to church and a vestry afterwards. Mr. Lumley dined here. 2nd. Rode to Ballycottin and returned through Cloyne. 1 7th. Captain and Mrs. Rugge, and R. Uniake drank tea here. 25th. Went to see ' Lionel and Clarissa' performed by a set of strolling players who did toler- ably well. 28th. J. Hanning called here. He rode with George and I to Cloyne. We went to wait on the Bishop. Some time afterwards rode with Mr. Lumley to see Mr. Longfield's bleech green and mills. July 2nd. Nancy, Annabella, and I went to Cloyne this evening. The concert as usual. Lady Shannon, Mrs. Uniake, Col. Sandford, Capt. Moore, two Bob Uniakes, and all the singing men there. We all stayed to supper. 22nd. The Bishop of Cloyne, Lord and Lady Inchiquin, Mr. Bullen, and Capt. Moore dined here, and drank tea in the pavilion.' And so on through the summer of 1 773. I might fill many pages with similar extracts. In October the Imokilly families move to Dublin. On the 5th the Bishop goes there, and on the 7th Lord and Lady Inchiquin. fol- lowed by the Longfields on the 8th, and after- wards by Lord and Lady Shannon. The Bishop's Court is held at Dr. R. Berkeley's, at Ballinacurra, in the winter absence. In early winter the country was dull and rainy, but some shooting with J. Hanning now and then on the hill at Castle Mary, or above Cloyne, or on the Common, and occasional visits to Atterbury 's, dinners at Ballymaloe, or Corkbeg, or at Shanagary, and visits to Mockler, Breviter, and Stopford, prebend- aries, or vicars-choral, at Cloyne, and to Lismore, helped to enliven life in that re- mote region. The ' Doctor ' was often at Mr. Hanning's at Cloyne. Towards the end of December ' most dreary, gloomy, dis- mal weather, and great floods in the Black- water, Suir, and Nore.' ' Mr. and Mrs. Folliott and J. Hanning here — played cards in the evening.' ' Mr. Katterfelto, the elec- trician, came from Midleton and exhibited.' On another day ' the Major went to Fer- moy.' The Diary ends when the writer himself goes to Dublin, with Mr. Longfield of Castle Mary as his travelling companion. For the use of this interesting Diary, I am indebted to Dr. Thomas Wise, of London, who. lived for some years at Rostellan Castle. 284 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. your good graces, expresses great gratitude for your care in procuring the psalms, and is doubly pleased with the prospeet of your being your- self the bearer. The instrument she desired to be provided was a large four-stringed bass violin : but, besides this, we shall also be extremely glad to get that excellent bass viol which came from France, be the number of strings what it will. I wrote indeed (not to overload you) to Dean Browne 34 to look out for a six-stringed bass viol of an old make and mellow tone. But the more we have of good instruments, the better ; for I have got an excellent master, whom I have taken into my family, and all my children, not excepting my little daughter, learn to play, and are pre- paring to fill my house with harmony against all events : that if we have worse times, we may have better spirits. Our French woman is grown more attentive to her business, and so much altered for the better, that my wife is not now inclined to part with her, but is nevertheless very sensibly obliged by your kind offer to look out for another. What you say of a certain pamphlet is enigmatical ; I shall hope to have it explained viva voce. As this corner furnishes nothing worth sending, you will pardon me if, instead of other news, I transcribe a paragraph of a letter I lately received from an English bishop. 1 We are now shortly to meet again in par- liament, and by the proceedings upon the state of the nation Sir Robert's fate will be determined. He is doing all he can to recover a majority in the House of Commons, and is said to have succeeded as to some par- ticulars. But in his main attempt, which was that of uniting the Prince and his court to the King's, he has been foiled. The bishop of Oxford was employed to carry the proposal to the Prince, which was, that he should have the £100,000 a year he had demanded, and his debts paid. But the Prince, at the same time that he expressed the utmost respect and duty to his Majesty, declared so much dislike to his Minister, that with- out his removal he will hearken to no terms 3 V I have also had another piece in the following words, which is very agreeable. ' Lady Dorothy, whose good temper seems as great as her beauty, and who has gained on every one by her behaviour in these most unhappy circumstances, is said at last to have gained over Lord Euston 36 , and to have entirely won his affection.' 34 Jemmet Browne, D.D., born at Cork in 35 On the assembling of Parliament, in 1702, Dean of Ross, 1733; Bishop of Kil- December 1741, Walpole was in a minority, laloe, 1743. In 1745 he was translated to After an attempt to recover, he resigned Cork, where he was for several years Berke- on the llth of February, and was created ley's friend and neighbour. In 1772 he Earl of Orford. He died in 1 745. was moved from Cork to Elphin, and in 1 775 36 George Earl of Euston, eldest son of the he was made Archbishop of Tuam. He was second Duke of Grafton, this year married buried at Cork in 1782. It is said he was Dorothy, eldest daughter of the Earl of a nephew of Bishop Peter Browne. Burlington — Berkeley's former patron. viii.] Philanthropy and Philosophy at Cloyne. 285 I find by your letter, the reigning distemper at the Irish Court is dis- appointment. A man of less spirits and alacrity would be apt to cry out, Spes et fortuna valete, &c, but my advice is, never to quit your hopes. Hope is often better than enjoyment. Hope is often the cause as well as the effect of youth. It is certainly a very pleasant and healthy passion. A hopeless person is deserted by himself; and he who forsakes himself is soon forsaken by friends and fortune, both which are sincerely wished you by, &c. In the same month the letter which follows was sent to Prior at Dublin :— Cloyne, Feb. 26, 1741 — 2. Dear Tom, I believe there is no relation that Mr. Sandys and Sir John Rushout have to Lord Wilmington other than what I myself made by marrying Sir John Rushout's sister to the late Earl of Northampton, who was brother to Lord Wilmington 3r . Sandys is nephew to Sir John. As to kindred or affinity, I take it to have very little share in this matter ; nor do I think it possible to foretel whether the ministry will be whig or tory. The people are so generally and so much incensed, that (if I am rightly informed) both men and measures must be changed before we see things composed. Besides, in this disjointed state of things, the Prince's party will be more considered than ever. It is my opinion there will be no first minister in haste ; and it will be new to act without one. When I had wrote thus far, I received a letter from a considerable hand on the other side the water, wherein are the following words : ' Though the whigs and tories had gone had in hand in their endeavours to demolish the late ministry, yet some true whigs, to shew themselves such, were for excluding all tories from the new ministry. Lord Wilmington and Duke of Dorset declared they would quit if they proceeded on so narrow a bottom ; and the Prince, Duke of Argyle, Duke of Bedford, and many others, refused to come in, except there was to be a coalition of parties. After many fruitless attempts to effect this, it was at last achieved between eleven and twelve on Tuesday night ; and the Prince went next morning to St. James's. It had been that very evening quite despaired of ; and the meeting of the parliament came in so fast, that there was a prospect of nothing but great confusion.' There is, I hope, a prospect now of much 37 Anne, sister of George, fourth Earl of died in 1743. (There seems to be some Northampton, married sir John Rushout, confusion in Berkeley's letter.) Mr. Sandys Bart., father of the eighth Baron Northwick. was Chancellor of the Exchequer in Lord Lord Northampton died in 1727. His bro- Wilmington's Cabinet, which succeeded ther was created Earl of Wilmington, and Walpole's in 1742. 286 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. better things. I much wanted to see this scheme prevail, which it has now done ; and will, I trust, be followed by many happy consequences. 'We are all yours. Adieu. Your affectionate humble servant, G. CLOYNE. You say that Swift, &c, acquainted me by letter of their receipt of Purcel's bill ; but I have got no such letter. In March we have the following letter to Gervais, which exhausts the epistolary material of 1742 : — [■Cloyne], March 5, 1*742. Your last letter, containing an account of the Queen of Hungary and her affairs, was all over agreeable. My wife and I are not a little pleased to find her situation so much better than we expected, and greatly applaud your zeal for her interests, though we are divided upon the motive of it. She imagines you would be less zealous were the Queen old and ugly ; and will have it that her beauty has set you on fire even at this distance. I, on the contrary, affirm, that you are not made of such combustible stuff ; that you are affected only by the love of justice, and insensible to all other flames than those of patriotism. We hope soon for your presence at Cloyne to put an end to this controversy. Your care in providing the Italian psalms set to music, the four-stringed bass violin, and the antique bass viol, require our repeated thanks. We have already a bass viol made in Southwark, A.D. 1730, and reputed the best in England. And through your means we are possessed of the best in France. So we have a fair chance for having the two best in Europe. Your letter gives me hopes of a new and prosperous scene. We live in an age of revolutions so sudden and surprising in all parts of Europe, that I question whether the like has been ever known before. Hands are changed at home 38 : it is well if measures are so too. If not, I shall be afraid of this change of hands ; for hungry dogs bite deepest. But let those in power look to this. We behold these vicissitudes with an equal eye from the serene corner of Cloyne, where we hope soon to have the perusal of your budget of politics. Mean time accept our service and good wishes. A letter from the Bishop of Gloucester 39 reflects some light upon Berkeley in the spring of 1743, and refers to ecclesiastical arrange- ments they were both interested in: — 38 The Wilmington Administration was now in power. 110 Berkeley Papers. viii.] Philanthropy and Philosophy at Cloyne. 287 Berry Street, Westminster, April 23, 1743. My Dear Lord, I did not come up to attend the Session till it was half over, and it being now at an end, I am hastening to quit the town and return to my Diocese. Though I came up late, yet, when I was here, I thought I was come up too soon, rinding some points so doubtful that I did not know how to vote at all, and others so clear that I was grieved to be under a necessity of voting against the measures of men with whom I have had a good deal of acquaintance, and of whom, when out of place, I had a good opinion. But it was measures and not ministers I desired to see changed. And as I have now little hope of ever seeing the for- mer, I have less concern about the latter. The taking the Hanover troops into English pay, if it was right in regard to our foreign affairs, was certainly very unpolitic in regard to our domestic ones ; and there is nothing but the necessity which is pretended which can in any degree excuse an action, which it could not but be foreseen must occasion so much jealousy, and which it is too plainly seen has occasioned not only a dislike of Ministers, but some share of disloyalty even to the Throne itself. If this step were allowed to be in reality as necessary, as some have pleaded it to be, yet there cannot be the same plea of necessity for an action which much more wanted it, and that is the method of raising the sum to defray the expense of this measure. There was, I thought, an absolute necessity of doing something to prevent the drinking of that poison which is called gin, but, unhappily, the increasing of the vice was found to be a way to increase the revenue ; and this is the fund chosen to borrow the millions wanted upon. It passed pretty quietly through the House of Commons, but the Lords opposed the Bill in every step of its progress; and the whole Bench of Bishops who were present not only voted, but most of them also protested against it. As to the appointing of Rural Deans, your Lordship must know that all our Dioceses here are divided into Archdeaconries, and every Arch- deaconry into so many Deaneries. In many Dioceses, Rural Deans are still nominally appointed, though in few they exercise any kind of juris- diction. My Diocese consists but of one Archdeaconry, and the Arch- deacon was, when I came into it, near 90 years old ; so that if he were willing, he was incapable to do much duty ; and while he was capable, I found he had scarcely ever done any. So that upon account both of his present infirmity and past neglect, there was great want in the Diocese of somebody to assist both him and me in relation to the duties which are reckoned more peculiarly incumbent upon the Archdeacon. One of 288 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. these is to visit parochially all the churches, chapels, and houses of incumbents within his district. This afforded me a fair handle for ap- pointing Deans Rural to perform this work, and I shall send you a copy of the commission I have given to them. This I thought could not be reckoned improper in this kingdom where this was the ancient and is still the regular form of government in each Diocese. But in Ireland, per- haps, it may be a thing quite new, and your beginning it may give offence both to the rest of the Bishops and to the Archdeacons, and also to the inferior clergy. Your most faithful servant and affectionate brother, M. GLOCESTER. Bishop Benson was an active restorer of the powers of Deans Rural in his own diocese of Gloucester, although he does not encourage his friend to follow his example at Cloyne. The office of Rural Dean does not seem to have been at any time common in Ireland. Berkeley was one of the few Irish bishops who, in last century, attempted to revive the office. According to Harris, the diocese of Cloyne was formerly divided into five rural deaneries, but in Berkeley's time there were only four 40 . Two scraps to Gervais, in the autumn of 1743, afford us our only other glimpses of Berkeley in that year. One of them alludes to his friend's promotion to the Deanery of Tuam, which took place at this time : — [Cloyne], September 6, 1743. The book which you were so good as to procure for me (and which I shall not pay for till you come to receive the money in person) con- tains all that part of Dr.Pococke's travels 41 for which I have any curiosity; so I shall, with my thanks for this, give you no further trouble about any other volume. I find by the letter put into my hands by your son (who was so kind as to call here yesterday, but not kind enough to stay a night with us), that you are taken up with great matters, and, like other great men, in danger of overlooking your friends. Prepare, however, for a world of abuse, both as a courtier and an architect, if you do not find means to 40 See Harris's Ware. In Dansey's Hora Decanicce Rurales (1835), Bishop Benson's letter of commission to those nominated rural deans in the diocese of Gloucester is given. 41 Travels in the Holy Land, by Richard Pococke, D.D., appeared in 1743 — 45. Po- cocke was afterwards Bishop of Ossory. viii.] Philanthropy and Philosophy at Cloyne. 289 wedge in a visit to Cloyne between those two grand concerns. Courtiers you will find none here, and but such virtuosi as the country affords ; I mean in the way of music, for that is at present the reigning passion at Cloyne. To be plain, we are musically mad. If you would know what that is, come and see. [Cloyne], October 29, 1743. A bird of the air has told me that your reverence is to be dean of Tuam. No nightingale could have sung a more pleasing song, not even my wife, who, I am told, is this day inferior to no singer in the kingdom. I promise you we are preparing no contemptible chorus to celebrate your preferment : and if you do not believe me, come this Christmas, and believe your own ears. In good earnest, none of your friends will be better pleased to see you with your broad seal in your pocket than your friends at Cloyne. I wish I were able to wish you joy at Dublin ; but my health, though not a little mended, suffers me to make no excursions farther than a mile or two. What is this your favourite, the Queen of Hungary, has been doing by her emissaries at Petersburgh ? France is again upon her legs. I foresee no good. I wish all this may be vapour and spleen : but I write in sun-shine. The following letters to Dean Gervais, with some political gossip as usual, introduce us to Cloyne in 1744: — [Cloyne], January 8, 1744. You have obliged the ladies as well as myself by your candid judg- ment on the points submitted to your determination. I am glad this matter proved an amusement in your gout, by bringing you acquainted with several curious and select trials 42 ; which I should readily purchase, and accept your kind offer of procuring them, if I did not apprehend there might be some among them of too delicate a nature to be read by boys and girls, to whom my library, and particularly all French books, are open. As to foreign affairs, we cannot descry or prognosticate any good event from this remote corner. The planets that seemed propitious are now retrograde : Russia, Sweden, and Prussia lost : and the Dutch a nominal ally at best. You may now admire the Queen of Hungary without a rival : her conduct with respect to the Czarina and the Marquis 42 The work entitled Causes Celebres, an edition of which appeared shortly before this. VOL. IV. U 2go Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. de Botta hath, I fear, rendered cold the hearts of her friends, and their hands feeble. To be plain, from this time forward I doubt we shall languish, and our enemies take heart. And while I am thus perplexed about foreign affairs, my private economy (I mean the animal economy) is disordered by the sciatica ; an evil which has attended me for some time past ; and I apprehend will not leave me till the return of the sun. Certainly the news that I want to hear at present is not from Rome, or Paris, or Vienna, but from Dublin ; viz., when the Dean of Tuam is declared, and when he receives the congratulations of his friends. I con- stantly read the news from Dublin ; but lest I should overlook this article, I take upon me to congratulate you at this moment ; that as my good wishes were not, so my compliments may not be behind those of your other friends. You have entertained me with so many curious things that I would fain send something in return worth reading. But, as this quarter affords nothing from itself, I must be obliged to transcribe a bit of an English letter that I received last week. It relates to what is now the subject of public attention, the Hanover troops, and is as follows : — ' General Campbell (a thorough courtier) being called upon in the House of Commons to give an account whether he had not observed some instances of partiality, replied, he could not say he had: but this he would say, that he thought the forces of the two nations could never draw together again. This, coming from the mouth of a courtier, was looked upon as an ample confession : however, it was carried against the address by a large majority. Had the question been whether the Han- over troops should be continued, it would not have been a debate : but, it being well known that the contrary had been resolved upon before the meeting of parliament, the moderate part of the opposition thought it was unnecessary, and might prove hurtful to address about it, and so voted with the court.' You see how I am forced to lengthen out my letter by adding a borrowed scrap of news, which yet probably is no news to you. But, though I should shew you nothing new, yet you must give me leave to shew my inclination at least to acquit myself of the debts I owe you, and to declare myself, &c. i Cloyne, March 16, 1744. I think myself a piece of a prophet when I foretold that the Pre- tender's Cardinal feigned to aim at your head, when he meant to strike you, like a skilful fencer, on the ribs. It is true, one would hardly think the French such bunglers : but this popish priest hath manifestly bungled viii.] Philanthropy and Philosophy at Cloyne, 291 so as to repair the breaches our own bunglers had made at home. This is the luckiest thing that could have happened, and will, I hope, confound all the measures of our enemies, I was much obliged and delighted with the good news you lately sent, which was yesterday confirmed by letters from Dublin. And though particulars are not yet known, I did not think fit to delay our public marks of joy, as a great bonfire before my gate, firing of guns, drinking of healths, &c. I was very glad of this opportunity to put a little spirit into our drooping Protestants of Cloyne, who have of late conceived no small fears on seeing themselves in such a defenceless condition among so great a number of Papists elated with the fame of these new enterprises in their favour. It is indeed terrible to reflect, that we have neither arms nor militia in a province where the Papists are eight to one, and have an earlier intelligence than we have of what passes : by what means I know not ; but the fact is certainly true. Good Mr. Dean (for Dean I will call you, resolving not to be behind your friends in Dublin), you must know that to us who live in this remote corner many things seem strange and unaccountable that may be solved by you who are near the fountain head. Why are draughts made from our forces when we most want them? Why are not the militia arrayed ? How comes it to pass that arms are not put into the hands of Protestants, especially since they have been so long paid for ? Did not our ministers know for a long time past that a squadron was forming at Brest ? Why did they not then bruise the cockatrice in the egg ? Would not the French works at Dunkirk have justified this step ? Why was Sir John Norris 43 called off from the chase when he had his enemies in full view, and was even at their heels with a superior force? As we have two hundred and forty men-of-war, whereof one hundred and twenty are of the line, how comes it that we did not appoint a squadron to watch and intercept the Spanish Admiral with his thirty millions of pieces of eight ? In an age wherein articles of religious faith are canvassed with the utmost freedom, we think it lawful to propose these scruples in our political faith, which in many points wants to be enlightened and set right. Your last was wrote by the hand of a fair lady to whom both my wife and I send our compliments as well as to yourself : I wish you joy of being able to write yourself. My cholic is changed to gout and sciatica, the tar-water having drove it into my limbs, and, as I hope, carrying it off by those ailments, which are nothing to the cholic. 43 A well-known Admiral, in the former in favour of the exiled Stewart family, and the half of last century. The country was agi- French king declared war against England tated about this time by efforts in France in the month of March. U % 292 Life and Letters of \ Berkeley. [ch. In 1744, Berkeley comes more prominently into the light than he has done since he settled in his c serene corner' at Cloyne. H;s medical experiments in Imokilly determined the course of his reading and speculation, in a way very characteristic of him. He had been devoted to tar-water for years. He heard of its medical virtues first when he was among the Indians in the Narra- gansett country, and he now bethought himself of it as a remedy for the diseases which followed the famine in his neighbourhood at Cloyne. Its apparent success in some diseases led him to experi- ment upon it in others, in which on trial it seemed not less efficacious. The wide medicinal efficacy of this simple drug led him to speculate about the causes of this efficacy. He satisfied himself that tar contained an extraordinary proportion of the vital element of the universe; and that water was the menstruum by which this element might be drawn off, and conveyed into vege- table or animal organisms. Well made tar-water, thus saturated with the essence of life^ must, he began to think, be a Panacea for the diseases to which the vital part of creation is liable. He exulted in the view of a discovery by which the physical maladies of this mortal life might all be mitigated, if not subdued, — a dis- covery which was to overshadow every other discovery, and to open a new vista of happiness to mankind. What enthusiasm could be more likely to take possession of one so susceptible and benevolent. Body and mind are so connected in this sentient life that whatever confirms the animal health affords new conditions of intellectual activity and spiritual growth. A physically healthy race of men might make incalculable advances in the warfare with error and prejudice, and thus the future history of mankind might be a happy contrast to its past. For years he had himself been a sufferer from a complication of diseases which had withdrawn much of his former energy. This might be restored now. The very conception kindled an enthusiastic zeal for tar- water, hardly inferior to that with which nearly twenty years before he had projected the Bermuda College. Tar-water was his ruling thought and enthusiasm in the last twelve years of his life. An apparatus for manufacturing it was set up in one of the rooms of his house. The nauseous drug was the great medicine in his family, and he tried, by offering it in the least unpalatable form, and enveloping it in a halo of philosophical imagination and viii.] Philanthropy and Philosophy at Cloyne. 293 reason, to make it the medicine for his neighbours and for all the world. His friends were urged to join him in experimenting upon tar-water, or in celebrating its medicinal virtues. Among others, Thomas Prior devoted himself to the well-intended work in Dublin, and with characteristic fidelity announced in the Gentleman s Magazine, and in pamphlets of his own, cures attri- buted to tar-water. The most lasting effect of Berkeley's tar-water enthusiasm has been the curious and beautiful work of speculation in which he celebrated the virtues of the new medicine. In the spring of 1744, he offered to the world, A Chain of Philosophical Reflexions and Enquiries concerning the Virtues of Tar- njater, and divers other subjects connected together and arising one from another. This work cost him more thought and research, he used to say, than any other he ever undertook. No one who examines its contents can be surprised to hear this. The book is full of fruit gathered in the remote by-ways of science and philosophy. Berkeley's growing inclination towards Platonism, and his affectionate study of Greek philosophy, partly shown in Alciphron, is much more conspicuous in these Philosophical Reflec- tions. The supposed universal medicinal efficacy of tar-water produced in his thoughts a speculation — founded on the history of ancient philosophy, and on supposed results of ancient and modern physical research — which, by subtle transitions, ascended from the vital spirit of vegetables and animals to the vital spirit of the universe, and then to the dependence of life in all its forms upon Mind. Berkeley was thus led, in his contemplative old age, to ponder more deeply those necessary relations of Intelligence to sensible things which had engaged the impetuous logical activity of his youth. The issue was a series of c aids to reflection/ upon the interpretability of Nature; upon Space and Time, Free-will and Necessity, Matter and Form, the Soul of Things, and the ineffable mysteries of Deity; passing one into another, in the most unexpected involutions and evolutions, all embedded in Ancient Philosophy, in this wonderful little book, which far transcends the unspeculative and unlearned age in which it appeared, and shows supposed novelties that minister to modern conceit, to be as old as the Neoplatonic, or even the Pre-Socratic age. 294 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. No work of Berkeley's so rapidly engaged popular attention. This was not due to its philosophy, however, but to its vast medical promise. A second edition, in which the name Sins was given to it by its author, appeared a few weeks after the first. Tar-water within a month became the rage in England as well as in Ireland. Manufactories of tar-water were established in London, Dublin, and other places in the course of the summer. The anger of the professional physicians was roused against the ecclesiastical intruder into their province. Pamphlets were written against the new medicine, and other pamphlets were written in reply. A tar- water controversy ensued, productive of writings not less numerous or bulky than those yielded by the c Analyst contro- versy' some years before. The infection spread to other countries. Shis was soon translated, in whole or in part, into French, German, Dutch, and Portuguese ; its doctrines were discussed, and tar-water establishments were set a-going in various parts of Europe and America 44 . In studying the philosophical growth of Berkeley's mind, and apart from the medicinal uses of tar-water, Siris should be compared with the Principles of Human Knowledge^ published more than thirty years before. Each supplements the other; in the two combined 44 It would be endless to quote contem- porary expressions of the interest excited by a panacea, previously undiscovered, but which Hippocrat-s and Sydenham supposed to exist somewhere in nature, and which was now referred to tar -water by a personage so distinguished as the Bishop of Cloyne. I have mentioned some of these in the Preface to Siris*. Here are a few more. In Nichols's Ilhistrations (vol. I. p. 644) we have the following, in a letter from C. Pratt, dated April 29, 1744 : ' The book most talked of at present is a pam- phlet of Bishop Berkeley upon the vir- tues of Tar-water, which he recommends as the universal medicine for all complaints. There is a deal of abstruse inquiry into the nature of Fire, Air, and Light, and the Lord knows what. It closes in some conceits upon the Trinity. You know how wild ingenious enthusiasts are ; but the book deserves to be read for the elegance of its style, a thing rarely met with in this age of bombast.' [The same letter refers to Aken- side's Pleasures of Imagination, and Arm- strong's Art of Health, as new books. ] ' Tar and turpentine,' says Smith, in his Natural History of the County of Cork (1750), 'are products of these [fir] trees. The former has of late obtained a place among the best of medicines, and its virtues have been cele- brated by an Essay that surpasses everything that has yet been wrote upon any medicine yet discovered.' Tar-water was, some years after this, commemorated by the novelist Fielding : — ' Such a panacea one of the greatest scholars and best of men did lately apprehend that he had discovered. It is true he was no physician, and yet perhaps no other modern hath contributed so much to make his physical skill useful to the public. I mean the late Bishop of Cloyne in Ireland, and the discovery is that of the virtues of tar-water.' Fielding then goes on to describe how he had tried it for dropsy with good effect. (Introduction to his Voyage to Lisbon.) See also Hardinge's Life of Sneyd Davies, p. 165 ; Abp. Herring's Correspondence with William Duncombe, Esq., pp. 70, 74, and many contemporary allusions, and verses on the subject, in the Gent. Mag. and elsewhere. a Siris [o-etpis], dimin. from fffipd, a chain. viil] Philanthropy and Philosophy at Cloyne. 295 we have the philosophical meaning of his life in its most com- prehensive form. There is one vein of speculation in Siris of which there is almost no trace in any of Berkeley's earlier works, and of which it is difficult to make a satisfactory biographical analysis. He had somehow come to entertain the opinion, which he shared with many of the ancient philosophers, that Fire, Light, or ^Ether is the c animal spirit ' of this sensible world. This notion runs through Siris, and he luxuriates in it in a way which the reader is rather at a loss to reconcile with what he was accustomed to in the Principles of Human Knowledge, or even in Alciphron. In fact, in Alcipkron he puts a somewhat analogous theory into the mouth of a sceptical interlocutor 45 . The wilderness of physical hypothesis over which we have to travel in the Fire Philosophy of Berkeley, one is apt to think an unnecessary obstruction on the path, especially under that conception of an immediately acting pro- vidential Mind being the constant energy in the universe which satisfied him formerly. What need for this interposed sether, or fiery spirit — this 'plastic medium' — to connect the Universal Mind with the visible and tangible changes of which we are conscious ? Its immediate recommendation was that it gave the unity which a panacea presupposes. Still, some growing tendency to mystical contemplation must have been at work, clouding the lucid and argumentative phenomenalism of his Trinity College years; and the inclination was encouraged at Cloyne by much solitary reading of Platonists and Neoplatonists, as well as of chemists and alchemists. Its marked existence in his later years is among the most interesting of his mental characteristics 46 . 45 Cf. Dial. VI. sect. 13, 14. In Alciphron as well as in Siris, however, he refers fondly to the saying of the ancient sages of the East, — that God has light for his body, and truth for his soul. Cf. Alciphron, Dial. IV. sect. 1 5 ; Shis, sect. 1 79. Light or iEther is, with Berkeley, the fiery spirit of the universe. 46 The ' Fire Philosophy ' runs through a now rare work, entitled The Analogy of Divine Wisdom in the Material, Sensitive, Moral, and Spiritual System of Things, by Richard Barton, B.D. The second edition (234 pp.) was published at Dublin in 1750. This edition is an expansion of a smaller work published several years before. Grew's Anatomy of Plants, Tacquet's mathematical works, and other references are common to this author and Berkeley. In Part III. an analogy is unfolded between the Holy Ghost and the universal aether or elemental fire. 1 The properties of elemental fire or aether,' says the author, ' are so well expressed by an eminent philosopher and divine that his language shall be pretty nearly used.' Several quotations from Siris are then given. Sir Isaac Neiu'ons account of the Mther, with some additions by way of Appendix, by B. R., M.D. [Dr. Bryan Robinson ?], is the title-page of a tract published in Dublin in 1745, in which the same subject, on one of its aspects, is considered. But Newton's aether is not Berkeley's. 296 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. When we compare Siris with the Principles we find other dis- tinctive features. The universals of intellect, for instance, overshadow here the ideas of sense and imagination. Siris may, in this respect, almost be taken as some of the unfinished part of the Principles of Human Knowledge. The things of sense are looked at in it as only the shadows of reality. Intellectual light is sought for in the universal and constructive activities of mind; — in which we participate with Deity, through which sensible things consist, and by which their various relations are scientifically explicable. Phenomenon oftener than idea is applied in Siris to the objects of sense and imagi- nation — contrary to Berkeley's habit of language in his earlier writings; while Ideas (not in the Lockian, but in a Platonic meaning) are accepted as the real causes or active principles of things. A position intermediate between Aristotle and Plato, in regard to the cardinal question of philosophy, is contemplated. c Aristotle,' says Berkeley, c held that the mind of man was a tabula rasa, and that there were no innate ideas. Plato, on the contrary, held original ideas in the mind, that is, notions which never were, nor can be in the sense, such as being, bearing, good- ness, likeness, purity. Some perhaps may think the truth to be this : — that there are properly no ideas, or passive objects, in the mind, but what were derived from sense : but that there are also besides these her own acts or operations : such are notions 47 .' An increased eclecticism and tolerance of intellectual temper also marks Berkeley's mental condition when Siris was written. He is more of an eclectic now, less inclined to regard the New Principle of his youth as the settlement of all the diffi- culties of speculation. He sees that there is more to ponder in the universe than that esse is percipi. This intuition of his youth is presented more modestly, and rather as the beginning than as the end and completion of philosophy. The experience of life, and his Greek reading, had perhaps helped to teach him that the strange universe in which we find ourselves is not so easily and perfectly intelligible as it seemed in long past days in Dublin. There is a feeling of its mysteriousness, which was growing upon him even in the days of Alcipkron and the Analyst. There is a welcome recognition of Theism in any form of faith that preserves " Siris, sect. 308. viii.] Philanthropy and Philosophy at Cloyne. 297 the supremacy of Spirit in the universe — even when it might be called Pantheism by the unspeculative, and a willingness to receive into spiritual communion diversified forms of ancient and modern religious belief. Ecclesiastical life and episcopal office had not spoiled the philosopher : he had been perfected by suffering, and his tone is more unworldly than ever. Berkeley's latest work in philosophy breathes more than any of his works the philosophic spirit. For Siris was his last word in speculation. Except a few tracts, it was his last printed word of all. And its closing sentences worthily express his own spiritual growth in later life. He is found larger, more liberal, and more modest, as he advances. He leaves us with the parting thought, that c in this mortal state we must be satisfied to make the best of those glimpses within our reach.' Yet he has discovered that c the eye, by long use, comes to see even in the darkest cavern •' and that there is c no subject so obscure but we may discern some glimpse of truth by long poring on it.' Truth, he has learned, is the cry of all, but the game only of a few. Certainly, where it is the chief passion, it doth not give way to vulgar cares and views ; nor is it contented with a little ardour in the early time of life, active perhaps to pursue, but not so fit to weigh and revise. He that would make a real progress in knowledge must dedicate his . age as well as youth, the later growth as well as first fruits, at the altar of truth 48 .' Such was the spirit of Berkeley in the episcopal palace of Cloyne. His words impress the difference between the enthusiastic argu- mentative pursuit of one conception into its logical consequences, in the Principles, and the intuitive weighing and revision of truth in Sirts, in his contemplative old age. The following letter to Prior, with the prefixed lines, shows what Berkeley was absorbed in during this summer : — To drink or not to drink ! that is the doubt, With pro and con the learn'd would make it out. Britons, drink on t the jolly prelate cries : What the prelate persuades the doctor denies. But why need the parties so learnedly fight, Or choleric Jurin so fiercely indite ? Sure our senses can tell if the liquor be right. 48 Siris, sect. 3,67, 368. 298 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. What agrees with his stomach, and what with his head, The drinker may feel, though he can't write or read. Then authority 's nothing : the doctors are men : And who drinks tar-water will drink it again. Dear Tom, Cloyne, June 19,1744. Last night being unable to sleep for the heat, I fell into a reverie on my pillow, which produced the foregoing lines ; and it is all the answer I intend for Dr. Jurin's letter, for that I am told is the writer's name of a pamphlet addressed to me, and which was sent me from London 49 . When you cause these lines to be printed in the public papers, you will take care to have them transcribed, that the verses may not be known to be mine. Because you desire remarks on the affidavits (things very obvious to make), I send them back to you, who will remark yourself. I send you at the same time a Letter 50 which I formerly wrote, before you sent the affidavits, as you will see by the date, but never sent, having changed my mind as to appearing myself in that affair, which can be better managed by a third hand. Let one of the Letters, cut and stitched in marble paper, be sent to every body in Dublin to whom a book was given ; and let one of the copies be sent Mr. Tnnys, to be printed in the same size in London ; also for the magazine, where you talk of getting it inserted. I wish you to send the two volumes of Universal History, the six tomes of Wilkins's Councils^, and the books from Innys, in a box together, to be left for me at Mr. Harper's in Cork. All here are yours. Adieu. Yours affectionately, G. CLOYNE. We have additional evidence of his tar-water zeal in the follow- ing letter to Sir Thomas Hanmer 52 , whose name reminds us of Swift, and of the now distant days of Berkeley's life spent in London under Swift's guidance : — Cloyne, August 21, i744« Sir, As I am with particular esteem and respect your humble servant, so I heartily wish your success in the use of tar-water may justify the kind things you say on that subject. But, since you are pleased to consult me *° See Editor's Preface to Siris. Londinensem, A.D. 1 71 7, the well-known 50 Berkeley's First Letter to Thomas Prior, work of David Wilkins, a learned divine, on Tar-water. See Works, vol. III. p. 463. appeared in four folios in 1736 — 37. The affidavits refer to alleged cures. 52 Printed in the Correspondence of Sir 51 Concilia Magna; Britannia: et Hiber- Thomas Hanmer, Bart. (1838). nice, a Synodo Verolamiensi, A.D. 446, ad viii.] Philanthropy and Philosophy at Cloyne. 299 about taking it, I shall without further ceremony tell you what I think, how ill soever a physician's air may become one of my profession. Cer- tainly, if I may conclude from parallel cases, there is room to entertain good hopes of yours : both giddiness and relaxed fibres having been, to my knowledge, much relieved by tar-water. The sooner you take it, so much the better. I could wish you saw it made yourself, and strongly stirred. While it stands to clarify, let it be close covered, and afterwards bottled, and well , corked. I find it agrees with most stomachs, when stirred even five or six minutes, provided it be skimmed before bottling. You may begin with a pint a day, and proceed to a pint and a half, or even a quart, as it shall agree with your stomach. And you may take this quantity either in half-pint or quarter-pint glasses, at proper intervals in the twenty-four hours. It may be drunk indifferently, at any season of the year. It lays under no restraint, nor obliges you to go out of your usual course of diet. Only, in general, I suppose light suppers, early hours, and gentle exercise (so as not to tire) good for all cases 53 . With your tar-water I wish you may take no other medicines. I have had much experience of it, and can honestly say I never knew it do harm. The ill effects of drugs shew themselves soonest on the weakest persons ; such are children ; and I assure you that my two youngest children (when they were one three, and the other not two years old) took it, as a preservative against the small-pox, constantly for six months together without any inconvenience. Upon the whole, I apprehend no harm and much benefit in your case, and shall be very glad to find my hopes confirmed by a line from yourself, which will always be received as a great favour by Sir, your most obedient and % most humble servant, GEORGE CLOYNE. The last epistolary scrap in 1744 is a letter to Prior, again with a playful poetical effusion, still full of tar- water. The letter contains the only intimation of Berkeley having a sister which I have anywhere found. The verses, which appeared in the Gentleman* s Magazine for October 1744, are as follows : — On Sikis and its Enemies. By a Drinker of Tar- Water. How can devoted Siris stand Such dire attacks ? The licens'd band, With upcast eyes and visage sad, Proclaim, 1 Alas ! the world 's run mad, 53 Cf. Siris, sect. 1—3. 300 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [CH. * The prelate's book has turn'd their brains ; ' To set them right will cost us pains. ' His drug too makes our patients sick ; 'And this doth vex us to the quick.' And, vex'd they must be, to be sure, To find tar-water cannot cure, But makes men sicker still and sicker, And fees come thicker still and thicker. Bursting with pity for mankind, But to their own advantage blind, Many a wight, with face of fun'ral, From mortar, still, and urinal, Hastes to throw in his scurvy mite Of spleen, of dullness, and of spite, To furnish the revolving moons With pamphlets, epigrams, lampoons, Against tar-water. You 'd know why — Think who they are : you '11 soon descry What means each angry doleful ditty, Whether themselves or us they pity. Dear Tom, The doctors, it seems, are grown very abusive. To silence them, I send you the above scrap of poetry, which I would by no means have known or suspected for mine. You will therefore burn the original, and send a copy to be printed in a newspaper, or the Gentleman's Magazine. I must desire you to get some bookseller in Dublin to procure me the History of the Learned, and the %entk?nan , s Magazine, two pamphlets that come out monthly. For the time past I would have the History or Memoirs of the Learned for the months of May, June, and July past, and the Magazine for last July. For the future, I would be supplied with them every month 54 . It is to be noted, that tar-water is best made in glazed earthen vessels. I would have the foregoing sentence inserted in the English edition, and next Irish edition of the Letter, at the end of the section that recites the manner of making tar-water 55 . It is very lately I made this remark, that it is finer and clearer when so made than if in unglazed crocks. • r " , The History of the Works of the Learned, number for November 1 739, Hume's Trea- giving a view of the state of learning through- tise of Human Nature was handled roughly, out Europe, and containing abstracts of The Gent. Mag. commenced in Jan. 1731. new books, commenced in January 1 737, S5 Cf. Works, vol. III. p. 493. and was continued for several years. In the viii.] Philanthropy and Philosophy at Cloyne. 301 Pray send the numbers of our tickets in this lottery. My sister wrote to Mrs. Hamilton 56 , but has got no answer. Perhaps her niece might have been cured of her sore eye since she left Dublin. I am, dear Tom, your affectionate humble servant, GEORGE CLOYNE. Sept. 3, 1744- P. S. When you send the other books, I desire you to put up with them two dissertations of Whiston's, upon our Saviour's miracles, and upon the Eternity of Hell Torments, if this can be got in town ; also half a guinea's worth (z. e. 25) Gifts io Maid-Servants, printed by Falkner. September 3, 1744. The tar-water philosophical enthusiasm, though for medical purposes it lasted through the rest of his life, did not blind Berkeley to other social interests. The movement of Prince Charles Edward, in 1 745 57 , occasioned his Letter to the Roman Catholics of Cloyne, full of humane and liberal spirit. It was widely circulated in the Dublin Journal and otherwise, and, by general consent, helped greatly to restrain the Irish of that communion from joining the young Chevalier. In 1744, its author had as- cended, in t Sms 9 to the heights of Neoplatonic speculation; in 1745, in descending to deal with men, he showed himself ready to observe and act, and to treat those of a different communion in a spirit worthy of a Christian bishop. His generous patriotism recommended him to the well-known Earl of Chesterfield, who was made Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in August 1745. Under his short administration, at a critical time in the internal history of these islands, Ireland enjoyed unusual tranquillity and prosperity. Berkeley was not a stranger to Lord Chesterfield, and the new Lord Lieutenant was anxious to advance him to a more lucrative ecclesiastical position than Cloyne. Chesterfield's biographer tells the story thus 58 : — c Soon after Lord Chesterfield's return from his first embassy in Holland, Dr. Berkeley presented him with his Minute Philosopher, which was just then ™ The widow of the Dean of Dromore (?). 57 Berkeley's younger brother William, ' an excellent officer,' is said to have held a command in Fifeshire in the '45, and to have been well remembered there when his grandnephew, Monck Berkeley, was at the University of St. Andrews, nearly forty years after. See Preface to Monck Berkeley. 58 Dr. Maty's Memoirs of the Earl of Chesterfield. 302 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. published, and met with uncommon approbation. His lordship esteemed the author still more than the book ; but there was no intimacy between them. When he came to Dublin, with the power as well as desire of rewarding merit, he embraced the first opportunity of showing his regard for so respectable a character, and accordingly made an offer to the Doctor of changing his bishopric of Cloyne for that of Clogher, which was of much greater value. This consideration had no influence upon a philosopher, who had nothing little in his composition. He could not bear even the suspicion of having been bribed to write in favour of the government, and therefore declined the exchange.' Stock says that c he had enough already to satisfy all his wishes ; and, agree- ably to the natural warmth of his temper, he had conceived so high an idea of the beauties of Cloyne, that Mr. Pope had once almost determined to make a visit to Ireland on purpose to see a place which his friend had painted out to him with all the brilliancy of colouring, and which yet to common eyes presents nothing that is very worthy of attention. 5 Mrs. Berkeley tells a somewhat different story. She says that her husband ' never had an idea of Cloyne as a beautiful situation.' This is hardly consistent with more than one of his previous letters. About the corre- spondence with Pope (who died in May 1744), I am also scep- tical j at least I have found no traces of letters between them after Berkeley removed to Ireland. As to the Clogher preferment, it seems that he told his wife soon after they went to Cloyne, c that his resolution was never to change his see ; because, as he after- wards confessed to the Archbishop of Tuam 59 and the late Earl of Shannon, he had very early in life got the world under his feet, and he hoped to trample on it to his latest moments 60 .' The Primacy soon after became vacant, and there was a desire to have Berkeley nominated. He remained notwithstanding at Cloyne, where he had indulged in so many years of solitary thought. The Jetters to Dean Gervais which follow, allude to some contemporary politics, and one of them refers to the death of his old friend Swift, who had been dead to all literary and active service during years of silence and an eclipse of reason. r ' 9 Jcmmett Browne. 00 See Biog. Brit.,vo\. III.— 4 Addenda and Corrigenda.' viii.] Philanthropy and Philosophy at Cloyne. 303 [Cloyne], June 3, 1745. I congratulate with you on the success of your late dose of physic. The gout, as Dr. Sydenham styles it, is amarissimum natures pharmacum. It throws off a sharp excrement from the blood to the limbs and extre- mities of the body, and is no less useful than painful 61 . I think, Mr. Dean, you have paid for the gay excursion you made last winter to the metropolis and the court 62 . And yet, such is the condition of mortals, I foresee you will forget the pain next winter, and return to the same course of life which brought it on. As to our warlike achievements, if I were to rate our successes by our merits, I could forebode little good. But if we are sinners, our enemies are no saints. It is my opinion we shall heartily maul one another, without any signal advantage on either side. How the sullen English squires who pay the piper will like this dance, I cannot tell. For my own part, I cannot help thinking that land expeditions are but ill suited either to the force or interest of England ; and that our friends would do more if we did less on the continent. Were I to send my son from home, I assure you there is no one to whose prudent care and good nature I would sooner trust him than yours. But, as I am his physician, I think myself obliged to keep him with me. Besides, as after so long an illness his constitution is very delicate, I imagine this warm vale of Cloyne is better suited to it than your lofty and exposed situation of Lismore. Nevertheless, my wife and I are extremely obliged by your kind offer, and concur in our hearty thanks for it. [Cloyne], Nov. 24, 1745. You are in for life. Not all the philosophers have been saying these three thousand years on the vanity of riches, the cares of greatness, and the brevity of human life, will be able to reclaim you. However, as it is observed that most men have patience enough to bear the misfortunes of others, I am resolved not to break my heart for my old friend, if you should prove so unfortunate as to be made a bishop. The reception you met with from Lord Chesterfield was perfectly agreeable to his Excel- lency's character, who being so clair-voyant in everything else could not be supposed blind to your merit. Your friends the Dutch have shewed themselves, what I always took them to be, selfish and ungenerous. To crown all, we are now told the 61 Cf. Sim, sect. 63, 80. Gervais was evidently fond of going to Dublin. 304 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. forces they sent us have private orders not to fight. I hope we shall not want them. By the letter you favoured me with, I find the regents of our university have shewn their loyalty at the expense of their wit. The poor dead Dean, though no idolater of the Whigs, was no more a Jacobite than Dr. Baldwin. And had he been even a Papist, what then ? Wit is of no party 63 . We have been alarmed with a report that a great body of rapparees is up in the county of Kilkenny : these are looked on by some as the forerunners of an insurrection. In opposition to this, our militia have been arrayed, that is, sworn : but alas ! we want not oaths, we want muskets. I have bought up all I could get, and provided horses and arms for four-and-twenty of the Protestants of Cloyne, which, with a few more that can furnish themselves, make up a troop of thirty horse. This seemed necessary to keep off rogues in these doubtful times. May we hope to gain a sight of you in the recess ? Were I as able to go to town, how readily should I wait on my Lord Lieutenant and the Dean of Tuam. Your letters are so much tissue of gold and silver : in return I am forced to send you from this corner a patch-work of tailors' shreds, for which I entreat your compassion, and that you will believe me, &c. [Cloyne], Jan. 6, 1746. Two days ago I was favoured with a very agreeable visit from Baron Mountnay and Mr. Bristow 04 . I hear they have taken Lismore in their way to Dublin. We want a little of your foreign fire to raise our Irish spirits in this heavy season. This makes your purpose of coming very agreeable news. We will chop politics together, sing Io Pcean to the Duke, revile the Dutch, admire the King of Sardinia, and applaud the Earl of Chesterfield, whose name is sacred all over this island except Lismore ; and what should put your citizens of Lismore out of humour with his Excellency I cannot comprehend. £ut the discussion of these points must be deferred to your wished-for arrival. 03 Swift died October 19, 1745. Imme- diately after his death some members of Trinity College, Dublin, proposed to place his bust in the College Library. It was sup- posed that the Whig Provost, Baldwin, would object to this, as well as the senior Fellows. The surmise was ungrounded : the bust was admitted without any objection, and is now in the library. 64 Richard Mountnay, of the Inner Temple, London, was a Baron of the Exchequer in Ireland, 1 741— 68. The Rev. Peter Bris- tow was a vicar choral of Cork, 1 733 — 69. He wrote a comedy, called The Harlequins, printed at London in 1 753. viii.] Philanthropy and Philosophy at Cloyne. 305 [Cloyne], Feb. 6, 1746. You say you carried away regret from Cloyne. I assure you that you did not carry it all away: there was a good share of it left with us: which was on the following news-day increased upon hearing the fate of your niece. My wife could not read this piece of news without tears, though her knowledge of that amiable young lady was no more than one day's acquaintance. Her mournful widower is beset with many temporal blessings : but the loss of such a wife must be long felt through them all. Complete happiness is not to be hoped for on this side Gascony. All those who are not Gascons must have a corner of woe to creep out at, and to comfort themselves with at parting from this world. Certainly if we had nothmg to make us uneasy here, heaven itself would be less wished for. But I should remember I am writing to a philosopher and divine ; so shall turn my thoughts to politics, concluding with this sad reflection, that, happen what will, I see the Dutch are still to be favourites ; though I much apprehend the hearts of some warm friends may be lost at home, by endeavouring to gain the affection of those lukewarm neighbours. [Cloyne], Feb. 24, 1746. I am heartily sensible of your loss, which yet admits of alleviation, not only from the common motives which have been repeated every day for upwards of five thousand years, but also from your own peculiar know- ledge of the world and the variety of distresses which occur in all ranks from the highest to the lowest : I may add, too, from the peculiar times in which we live, which seem to threaten still more wretched and unhappy times to come. ' /Etas parentum, pejor avis, tulit Nos nequiores, mox daturos Progeniem vitiosiorem.' Nor is it a small advantage that you have a peculiar resource against distress from the gaiety of your own temper. Such is the hypochondriac melancholy complexion of us islanders, that we seem made of butter, every accident makes such a deep impression upon us 65 ; but those elastic spirits, which are your birthright, cause the strokes of fortune to rebound without leaving a trace behind them ; though, for a time, there is and will be a gloom, which, I agree with your friends, is best dispelled at the court and metropolis, amidst a variety of faces and amusements. VOL. IV. 68 Cf. Alciphron, Dial. II. sect. 17. X 306 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. I wish I was able to go with you, and pay my duty to the Lord Lieutenant : but, alas ! the disorder I had this winter, and my long re- treat, have disabled me for the road, and disqualified me for a court. But if I see you not in Dublin, which I wish I may be able to do, I shall hope to see you at Cloyne when you can be spared from better company. These sudden changings and tossings from side to side betoken a fever in the state. But whatever ails the body politic, take care of your own bodily health, and let no anxious cares break in upon it. We have also in 1746 three interesting letters to Prior at Dublin. In the first of these, the letter signed Eubulus [apropos of the progress of the Young Chevalier in England), was enclosed, to be inserted in the Dublin Journal. To the Publisher. Sir, As several in this dangerous conjuncture have undertaken to advise the public, I am encouraged to hope that a hint concerning the dress of our soldiers may not be thought impertinent. Whatever unnecessarily spends the force or strength of a man lessens its effect where it is necessary. The same force that carries one pound a hundred yards will carry two pounds but fifty yards ; and so in pro- portion. The body of a man is an engine. Its force should be managed to produce its full effect where it is most wanted ; and ought not, there- fore, in t me of action, to be dissipated on useless ornaments. There is a weight on our soldiers neither offensive nor defensive, but serving only for parade. This I would have removed ; and the loss will not be much, if the man's vigour grows as his pomp lessens, spectemur agendo being the proper motto and ambition of warriors. Sleeves, facings, caps, flaps, tall caps, double breasts, laces, frogs, cockades, plaited shirts, shoulder-knots, belts, and buttons more than enough are so many drawbacks or obstacles to a soldier's exerting his strength in the proper way, in marching, fighting, and pursuing. Sup- pose two armies engage equal in strength, courage, and numbers, one clad in judges robes, the other in sailor's jackets ; I need not ask on which side the advantage lies. The same holds proportionably in other cases, where the difference is less notorious. Our sailors seem the best dressed of all our forces ; and what is sufficient for a sailor may serve for a soldier. Their dress, therefore, I would recommend to the landmen, or if any other can be contrived yet more succinct and tight ; that so our men may march and fight with the viii.] Philanthropy and Philosophy at Cloyne. 307 least incumbrance, their strength being employed upon their arms and their enemies. Soldiers thus clad will be more light, clever, and alert ; and, when the eye hath been a little used to them, will look much better than in more cumbersome apparel. I may add too, that something will be saved to the men in the article of clothing. I am, Sir, your humble servant, EUBULUS. Dear Tom, The above letter contains a piece of advice which seems to me not unseasonable or useless. You may make use of Faulkner for conveying it to the public, without any intimation of the author. I send you this inclosed bill on Swift, &c, which you will tender to them, and see that I have credit for it in their books. There is handed about a lampoon against our troop, which hath caused great indignation in the warriors of Cloyne. I am informed that Dean Gervais had been looking for the Querist, and could not find one in the shops, for my Lord Lieutenant 66 , at his desire. I wish you could get one handsomely bound for his Excellency ; or at least the last published relating to the Bank, which consisted of excerpts out of the Three Parts of the Querist. I wrote to you before to procure two copies of this for his Excellency and Mr. Liddel. Adieu, dear Tom. Your faithful humble servant, G. CLOYNE. February, 1746. Dear Tom, I perceive the Earl of Chesterfield is, whether absent or present, a friend to Ireland ; and there could not have happened a luckier incident to this poor island than the friendship of such a man, when there are so few of her own great men who either care or know how to befriend her. As my own wishes and endeavours (howsoever weak and ineffectual) have had the same tendency, I flatter myself that on this score he honours me with his regard, which is an ample recompence for more public merit than I can pretend to. As you transcribed a line from his letter relating to me ; so, in return, I send you a line transcribed from a '■ r ' Lord Chesterfield, who was Lord He had Ireland in charge during the period Lieutenant from August 31, 1745 till of the Jacobite rising in Scotland. April 25, 1746— nine days after Culloden. X 2 308 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. letter of the Bishop of Gloucester's relating to you. I formerly told you I had mentioned you to the Bishop when I sent your scheme. These are his words : — * I have had a great deal of discourse with your Lord Lieutenant. He expressed his good esteem of Mr. Prior and his character, and commended him as one who had no view in life but to do the utmost good he is capable of. As he has seen the scheme, he may have opportunity of mentioning it to as many of the cabinet as he pleases. But it will not be a fashionable doctrine at this time/ So far the Bishop. You are doubtless in the right, on all proper occasions, to cultivate a correspondence with Lord Chesterfield. When you write, you will per- haps let him know in the properest manner the thorough sense I have of the honour he does me in his remembrance, and my concern at not having been able to wait on him. Adieu, dear Tom, G. CLOYNE. June 23, 1746. May we hope to see you this summer ? Cloyne, July 3, 1746. Dear Tom, I. send you back my Letter, with the new paragraph to be added at the end, where you see the A. Lord Chesterfield's letter does great honour both to you and to his Excellency. The nation should not lose the opportunity of profiting by such a Viceroy, which indeed is a rarity not to be met with every season, which grows not on every tree. I hope your Society 67 will find means of encouraging particularly the two points he recommends, glass and paper. For the former you would do well to get your workmen from Holland rather than from Bristol. You have heard of the trick the glassmen of Bristol were said to have paid Dr. Helsham and Company. My wife with her compliments sends you a present 68 by the Cork carrier who set out yesterday. It is an offering of the first fruits of her painting. She began to draw in last November, and did not stick to it closely, but by way of amusement only at leisure hours. For my part, I think she shows a most uncommon genius ; but others may be supposed to judge more impartially than I. My two younger children are be- ginning to employ themselves the same way. In short, here are two or three families in Imokilly bent upon painting ; and I wish it was more 67 The Dublin Society. subsequent history of which I have not been 68 A portrait of Berkeley, afterwards in able to trace, possession of the Rev. Mervyn Archdall, the viii.] Philanthropy and Philosophy at Cloyne. 309 general among ladies and idle people as a thing that may divert the spleen, improve the manufactures, and increase the wealth of the nation. We will endeavour to profit by our Lord Lieutenant's advice, and kindle up new arts with a spark of his public spirit. Mr. Simon 69 has wrote to me, desiring that I would become a member of the Historico-physical Society. I wish them well, but do not care to list myself among them : for in that case I should think myself obliged to do somewhat which might interrupt my other studies. I must therefore depend on you for getting me out of this scrape, and hinder Mr. Simon's proposing me, which he inclines to do, at the request, it seems, of the Bishop of Meath. And this, with my service, will be a sufficient answer to Mr. Simon's letter. It was in 1746 that Prior published his Authentic Narrative of the Success of Tar-mater. Appended to this work are two Letters from Berkeley to Prior. The Narrative is dedicated to the Lord Chesterfield, who, as we have seen, had a great regard for the author 70 . In the following year Berkeley published a Letter on the same subject to Dr. Hales 71 . Berkeley's abode at Cloyne was celebrated as a home of the arts. A contemporary allusion illustrates the modest represen- tation of his letter to Prior. c The episcopal house [of Cloyne],' says Smith 72 , c was rebuilt by Bishop Crowe, in which he died. His present lordship [Bishop Berkeley] has successfully trans- planted the polite arts, which before flourished in a warmer soil, to this northern climate. Painting and music are no longer strangers in Ireland, nor confined to Italy. In the episcopal palace of Cloyne, the eye is entertained with a great variety of good paintings, as well as the ear with concerts of excellent music. There are here some pieces of the best masters ; as a Magdalen by Sir Peter Paul Rubens; some heads by Van Dyke and Kneller, 60 Mr. James Simon of Dublin was the better a communicative disposition, without author of the Essay on Irish Coins, which selfish views. As he had every scheme at was presented to the Physico-Historical heart which he thought for the advantage Society of Dublin, Dec. 7, 1747, and referred of his country, and was an intimate friend by them to Dr. Corbet (Dean of St. Patrick's), of Bishop Berkeley, he caught his enthu- and Harris (editor of Ware). On their re- siasm, and became a public advocate of tar- commendation it was published. See Notes water.' Maty' 's Life of Chesterfield, and Queries for 1857, p. 9. Simon was of 71 See Works, vol. III. p. 489. Berkeley's French extraction. two Letters to Prior are also given in the 7 " ' Mr. Prior, a gentleman who had an same volume, estate of about £500 a year, and what is 72 History of Cork, vol. I. p. 139. 310 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. besides several good paintings performed in the house; — an example so happy that it has diffused itself into the adjacent gentlemen's houses, and there is at present a pleasing emulation raised in this country to vie with each other in these kinds of per- formances. 5 The love of art as well as the love of truth, which distinguished Berkeley's youth, followed him into his contemplative old age. He had himself no ear for music, but he kept an Italian master in the house for the instruction of his children on the bass-viol. And a weekly concert at the bishop's was one of the favourite entertainments of the neighbouring families of Imokilly 73 . A letter to Prior, later in the same year, speaks of episcopal employment and preferment, and alludes to the c Oxford Scheme :' — Cloyne, Sept. 12, 1746. Dear Tom, I am just returned from a tour through my diocese of 130 miles, almost shaken to pieces. What you write of Bishop Stone's preferment is highly probable. For myself, though his Excellency the Lord Lieutenant might have a better opinion of me than I deserved ; yet it was not likely that he would make an Irishman Primate 74 . 73 Berkeley retained the famous Pasqui- lino four years in the palace at Cloyne to teach his children music. George Ber- keley ' was esteemed the finest gentleman- performer on the violoncello in England ; as his brother [William], who died at six- teen, was a wonderfully fine performer on the violin. Bishop Berkeley had a con- cert at his house every evening in winter, when he did not go from home. Signor Pasquilino was to have a fine concert at Cork. One day at dinner the Bishop said, " Well, Pasquilino, I have got rid of a great many tickets for you among my neighbours, to Lord Inchiquin, Lord Shannon, Mr. Lum- ley, &c." To which Pasquilino bowing said — " May God pickle your Lordship, I pray him!" All the company laughed im- moderately. The poor Italian said, " Veil, in de grammar dat my Lord gave me to teach me Inglish, it is printed, pickle, to keep from decay." Bishop Berkeley invited his brother, the Rev. Dr. Robert Berkeley (father of the Dean of Tuam, and of Mrs. Hamilton, lady of Sackville Hamilton, Esq.), to send his seven children, one fixed evening in each week, to learn music and dancing of his children's masters.' Preface to Monck Berkeley's Poems, p. ccccxi. In the dearth of anecdotes illustrative of Berkeley one is tempted to gather these crumbs. 71 The Primacy was vacated by the death # of Archbishop Hoadly (brother of Bishop Hoadly) in July 1746. His succes- sor was Dr. George Stone, an Englishman, educated at Christ Church, Oxford, who was in succession Dean of Ferns, and of Derry ; Bishop of Ferns, of Kildare, and of Derry ; and who was raised to the Pri- macy March 13, 1747, when he was about forty years of age — a singularly rapid course of promotion. He was more known as a secular politician than as an ecclesiastic ; and abo on account of his personal grace and dignity, which occasioned his being desig- nated — ' the beauty of holiness.' He ruled the Irish Church till his death, in Lon- don, in 1764. A character of Archbishop Stone is given by Campbell, in his Philo- sophical Survey of Ireland ; also in Mant's History. viil] Philanthropy and Philosophy at Cloyne. 311 The truth is, I have a scheme of my own for this long time past, in which I propose more satisfaction and enjoyment of myself than I could in that high station, which I neither solicited, nor so much as wished for. It is true, the Primacy or Archbishopric of Dublin, if offered, might have tempted me by a greater opportunity of doing good ; but there is no other preferment in the kingdom to be desired upon any other account than a greater income, which would not tempt me to remove from Cloyne, and set aside my Oxford scheme ; which, though delayed by the illness of my son, yet I am as intent upon it, and as much resolved as ever. I am glad you have a prospect of disposing of my debentures soon. Adieu. Your affectionate humble servant, G. CLOYNE. This letter to Gervais glances as usual at politics : — [Cloyne], Nov. 8, 1746. Your letter, with news from the Castle, found me in bed, confined by the gout. In answer to which news I can only say, that I neither expect nor wish for any dignity higher than I am encumbered with at present. That which more nearly concerns me is my credit, which I am glad to find so well supported by Admiral Lestock. I had promised you that before the first of November he would take King Lewis by the beard. Now Quimpercorrentin, Quimperlay, and Quimperen, being certain extreme parts or excrescences of his kingdom, may not improperly be styled the beard of France. In proof of his having been there, he has plundered the wardrobes of the peasants, and imported a great number of old petticoats, waistcoats, wooden shoes, and one shirt, all which were actually sold at Cove : the shirt was bought by a man of this town for a groat. And if you won r t believe me, come and believe your own eyes. In case you doubt either the facts or the reasonings, I am ready to make them good, being now well on my feet, and longing to triumph over you at Cloyne, which I hope will be soon. The letters which follow, written to Prior, then at Dublin, in January, February and March, 1747, bring almost the only light that falls on Berkeley in the course of that year : — Dear Tom, Your manner of accounting for the weather seems to have reason in it ; and yet there still remains something unaccountable, viz. why there 312 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. should be no rain in the regions mentioned. If the bulk, figure, situation, and motion of the earth are given, and the luminaries remain the same, should there not be a certain cycle of the seasons ever returning at certain periods ? To me it seems, that the exhalations perpetually sent up from the bowels of the earth have no small share in the weather; that nitrous-exhalations produce cold and frost ; and that the same causes which produce earthquakes within the earth produce storms above it. Such are the variable causes of our weather ; which, if it proceeded only from fixed and given causes, the changes thereof would be as regular as the vicissitudes of the days, or the return of eclipses. I have writ this extempore, Valeat quantum valere potest. In my last I mentioned my cousin's death. My brothers and I are his heirs at law. I know nothing of his circumstances. He has been captain of a man of war for about twenty years, and must have left something. It is true he always commanded great ships, which have the fewest opportunities of getting, his very first having been a sixty gun ship : but still, as I said, there must be some- thing probably worth looking after. I would therefore be advised by you what course to take. Would it not be right to employ your friend the solicitor, Mr. Levinge, to enquire at the late Captain George Berkeley's house in Lisle street, and see what is become of his effects ? Also to examine whether he has left a Will, and what it contains 75 ? If this be the right way, pray lose no time. Adieu, dear Tom. Your affectionate humble servant, G. CLOYNE. Cloyne, Feb. 6, 1746 — 7. Dear Tom, Desire your friend Mr. Levinge, without delay, to enter a caveat, in my name, in Doctor's Commons, against any one's taking out administration. Cloyne, Feb. 9, 1746 — 7. Dear Tom, You ask me if I had no hints from England about the Primacy. I can only say, that last week I had a letter from a person of no mean 75 I have obtained from Doctors' Com- mons a copy of Captain George Ber- keley's Will, referred to in this and the following letters. It is dated November 19, 1746, and it was proved on the 23rd of January, 1 747* He describes himself as of 4 Lisle Street, Westminster.' He bequeaths £,100 'to my cousin Captain William Ber- keley.' The Earl and Countess of Berkeley, and Lord Dursley, receive small bequests. There is no reference to Bishop Berkeley, nor any light upon the relationship of Captain George Berkeley to Earl Berkeley. Brome and Young are mentioned as exe- cutors, and his mortgage is left to the former. There were two witnesses. viil] Philanthropy and Philosophy at Cloyne. 313 rank in England, who seemed to wonder that he could not find I had entertained any thoughts of the Primacy, while so many others of our bench were so earnestly contending for it. He added, that he hoped I would not take it ill if my friends wished me in that station. My answer was, that I am so far from soliciting, that I do not even wish for it ; that I do not think myself the fittest man for that high post ; and that there- fore I neither have, nor ever will, ask it. I hear it reported that my cousin died worth above eighteen thousand pounds. He had spent the summer at the Earl of Berkeley's hunting- seat in Wiltshire. He came to town in an ill state of health, which he hoped Dr. Mead would have set right, but was mistaken. Had I known his illness, perhaps it might have been better for him. The Earl of Berkeley's agent, one Mr. Young, who was also my cousin's agent, pre- tends to be executor, with another gentleman, one Mr. Brome. By all means take the readiest method, that some person whom you know at London gets a sight of the original Will ; and you will do a good service to, dear Tom, your faithful servant, G. CLOYNE. I am unknowing in these matters ; but think that the best advice how to proceed. Cloyne, Feb. 10, 1746 — 7. Dear Tom, In my other letter that comes to you this post, I forgot to say what I now think very necessary, viz. that you must be so good as to get your friend by all means to send a copy of the Will, written in a close hand, by post, without loss of time. In a letter from England, which I told you came a week ago, it was said that several of our Irish bishops were earnestly contending for the Primacy. Pray who are they ? I thought Bishop Stone was only talked of at present. I ask this question merely out of curiosity, and not from any interest, I assure you ; for I am no man's rival or competitor in this matter. I am not in love with feasts, and crowds, and visits, and late hours, and strange faces, and a hurry of affairs often insignificant. For my own private satisfaction, I had rather be master of my time than wear a diadem. I repeat these things to you, that I may not seem to have declined all steps to the Primacy out of singularity, or pride, or stupidity, but from solid motives. As for the argument from the opportunity of doing good, I observe that duty obliges men in high stations not to decline occasions of doing good ; but duty doth not oblige men to solicit such high stations. Adieu. Yours, G. CLOYNE. 3' 1 4 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. Cloyne, Feb. 19, 1746 — 7. Dear Tom, It was very agreeable to hear you had taken proper measures to procure a copy of my cousin's Will, and to enter the caveat. The ballad you sent has mirth in it, with a political sting in the tail ; but the speech of Van Haaren is excellent. I believe it Lord Chester- field's. We have at present, and for these two days past had, frost and some snow. Our military-men are at length sailed from Cork harbour. We hear they are designed for Flanders. I must desire you to make, at leisure, the most exact and distinct inquiry you can into the characters of the Senior Fellows, as to their behaviour, temper, piety, parts, and learning ; also to make a list of them, with each man's character annexed to his name. I think it of so great consequence to the public to have a good Provost that I would willingly look before hand, and stir a little, to prepare an interest, or at least to contribute my mite, where I properly may, in favour of a worthy man, to fill that post when it shall become vacant. Dr. Hales, in a letter to me, has made very honourable mention of you. It would not be amiss if you should correspond with him, especially for the sake of granaries and prisons. Adieu. Yours, GEORGE CLOYNE Cloyne, Feb. 20, 1746 — 7 Dear Tom, Though the situation of the earth with respect to the sun changes, yet the changes are fixed and regular : if therefore this were the cause of the variation of winds, the variation of the winds must be regular, i. e. regularly returning in a cycle. To me it seems that the variable cause of the variable winds are the subterraneous fires, which, constantly burn- ing, but altering their operation according to the various quantity or kind of combustible materials they happen to meet with, send up exhalations more or less of this or that species ; which, diversely fermenting in the atmosphere, produce uncertain variable winds and tempests. This, if I mistake not, is the true solution of that crux. As to the papers about petrifications which I sent to you and Mr. Simon, I do not well remember the contents. But be you so good as to look them over, and show them to some other of your Society ; and if, after this, you shall think them worth publishing in your collections, viii.] Philanthropy and Philosophy at Cloyne. 315 you may do as you please : otherwise I would not have things hastily and carelessly written thrust into public view. As to your query, there were two mad women recovered, it seems, by a method we made use of, though not, as you have been told, by sweat- ing. When you come, you shall know the particulars Yours, GEORGE CLOYNE. Cloyne, March 22, 1746 — 7, Dear Tom, There is another query which arises on the Will, viz. whether a mort- gage be not a freehold, and whether it can be bequeathed without three witnesses ? This, and the two other queries of the residue, &c, I would have stated to Mr. Kelly and my wife's cousin. He is a very sensible man, and would consider the matter, as a friend, more attentively than those who, of greater name, might offer their first thoughts. Pray give him the usual fee for the best lawyer ; and if he refuses to take it, tell him you cannot take his advice if he does not take his fee. As to what you say, that the Primacy would have been a glorious thing ; for my part I could not see (all things considered) the glory of wearing the name of Primate in these days, or of getting so much money ; a thing every tradesman in London may get if he pleases. I should not choose to be Primate in pity to my children ; and for doing good to the world, I imagine I may upon the whole do as much in a lower station. Adieu, dear Tom. Yours affectionately, G. CLOYNE. I have discovered the following letter to Prior in the Philo- sophical Transactions (No. 480). It is annexed to a communication from Mr. James Simon to the Royal Society, c Concerning the Petrifactions of Lough Neagh in Ireland/ which was read in the Society on the 9th of February, 1747. The property of turning wood into stone had long been attributed to the water of Lough Neagh. The tradition was confirmed by Simon, who had previously sent his paper to the Bishop, through Prior. This explains the allusion to c papers about petrifactions.' The letter is another illustration of Berkeley's interest in the observations and speculations of natural science, which Siris had so lately exemplified : — 3i6 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. Cloyne, May 20, 1746. Dear Sir, I here send you back the curious Dissertation of Mr. Simon, which I have perused with pleasure ; and though variety of avocations gives me little time for remarks on a subject so much out of my way, I shall never- theless venture to give my thoughts briefly upon it, especiaily since the author hath been pleased to invite me to it by a letter. The author seems to put it out of doubt, that there is a petrifying quality both in the Lake and in the adjacent earth. What he remarks on the unfrozen spots in the Lake is curious, and furnisheth a sufficient answer to those, who would deny any petrifying virtue to be in the water, from experiments not succeeding in some parts of it; since nothing but chance could have directed to the proper places, which probably were those unfrozen parts. Stones have been thought by some to be organized vegetables, and to be produced from seed. To me it seems that stones are vegetables unorganized. Other vegetables are nourished and grow by a solution of salt attracted into their tubes or vessels. And stones grow by the accre- tion of salts, which often shoot into angular and regular figures. This appears in the formation of crystals on the Alps : and that stones are formed by the simple attraction and accretion of salts, appears in the tartar on the inside of a claret-vessel, and especially in the formation of a stone in the human body. The air is in many places impregnated with such salts. I have seen at Agrigentum in Sicily the pillars of stone in an ancient temple corroded and consumed by the air, while the shells which entered into the compo- sition of the stone remained entire and untouched. I have elsewhere observed marble to be consumed in the same manner ; and it is common to see softer kinds of stone moulder and dissolve merely by the air acting as a menstruum. Therefore the air may be presumed to contain many such salts, or stony particles. Air, acting as a menstruum in the cavities of the earth, may become saturated (in like manner as above-ground) with such salts as, ascending in vapours or exhalations, may petrify wood, whether lying in the ground adjacent, or in the bottom of the Lake. This is confirmed by the author's own remark on the bath called the Green Pillars in Hungary. The insinuating of such salts into the wood seems also confirmed by the author's having observed minute hexagonal crystals in the woody part of the petrifactions of Lough-Neagh. A petrifying quality or virtue shews itself in all parts of this terraqueous globe — in water, earth, and sand ; in Tartary, for instance, and Afric, in viii.] Philanthropy and Philosophy at Cloyne. 317 the bodies of most sorts of animals : it is even known that a child hath been petrified in its mother's womb. Osteocolla grows in the land, and coral in the sea. Grottoes, springs, lakes, rivers, are in many parts remarkable for this same quality. No man therefore can question the possibility of such a thing as petrified wood ; though perhaps the petri- fying quality might not be originally in the earth or water, but in the vapour or steam impregnated with saline or stony particles. Perhaps the petrifaction of wood may receive some light from con- sidering amber, which is dug up in the King of Prussia's dominions. I have written these hasty lines in no small hurry ; and send them to you, not from an opinion, that they contain anything worth imparting, but merely in compliance with your and Mr. Simon's request. And yet, before I have done I must needs add another remark, which may be useful for the better understanding of the nature of stone. In the vulgar definition, it is said to be a fossil incapable of fusion. I have nevertheless known stone to be melted, and when cold to become stone again. Such is that stuff, by the natives called Sciara, which runs down in liquid burning torrents from the craters of Mount iEtna, and which, when cold and hard, I have seen hewed and employed at Catania and other places adjacent. It probably contains mineral and metallic par- ticles ; being a ponderous, hard, grey stone, used for the most part in the basements and coinage of buildings. Hence it should seem not impossible for stone to be cast or run into the shape of columns, vases, statues, or relievo's ; which experiment may perhaps, some time or other, be attempted by the curious ; who, follow- ing where nature has shewn the way, may (possibly by the aid of certain salts and minerals) arrive at a method for melting and running stone, both to their own profit, and that of the public 76 . I am, dear Sir, Your most humble servant, G. CLOYNE. The following anonymous letter, the manuscript of which is in Berkeley^ writing, appeared in the Gentleman' *s Magazine 11 . It is connected with the physical speculations about earthquakes in 76 Simon, in a note, confirms this by the testimony of ' a relation of his in France,' who had known of ' run ' stone pillars. 77 Vol. XX. p. 166. The same number contains the account of the Eruption of Vesuvius in 1 7 1 7, 'as it appeared to that diligent observer of nature, Mr. Berkeley, now Bishop of Cloyne,' given to the Philos, Trans, by Dr. Arbuthnot. Cf. p. 78. 3 i8 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. ;the letters to Prior, and refers also to his tour in Sicily in 1718, as well as to the famous earthquake at Catania : — To the Publisher. Sir, Having observed it hath been offered as a reason to persuade the public that the late shocks felt in and about London were not caused by an earthquake, because the motion was lateral, which it is asserted the motion of an earthquake never is, I take upon me to affirm the contrary. I have myself felt an earthquake at Messina in the year 1 7 1 8, when the motion was horizontal or lateral. It did no harm in that city, but threw down several houses about a day's journey from thence. We are not to think the late shocks merely an air-quake (as they call it), on account of signs and changes in the air, such being usually observed to attend earthquakes. There is a correspondence between the subterraneous air and our atmosphere. It is probable that storms or great concussions of the air do often, if not always, owe their origin to vapours or exhalations issuing from below. I remember to have heard Count Tezzani, at Catania say, that some hours before the memorable earthquake of 1692, which overturned the whole city, he observed a line extended in the air (proceeding, as he judged, from exhalations poised and suspended in the atmosphere) ; also that he heard a hollow frightful murmur about a minute before the shock. Of 25,000 inhabitants 18,000 absolutely perished, not to mention others who were miserably bruised and wounded. There did not escape so much as one single house. The streets were narrow and the buildings high, so there was no safety in running into the streets ; but in the first tremor (which happens a small space, perhaps a few minutes, before the downfall), they found it the safest way to stand under a door-case, or at the corner of the house. The Count was dug out of the ruins of his own house, which had overwhelmed above twenty persons, only seven whereof were got out alive. Though he rebuilt his house with stone, yet he ever after lay in a small adjoining apartment made of reeds plastered over. Catania was rebuilt more regular and beautiful than ever. The houses indeed are lower, and the streets broader than before, for security against future shocks. By their account, the first shock seldom or never doth the mis- chief, but the repliches (as they term them) are most to be dreaded. The earth, I was told, moved up and down like the boiling of a pot, terra bollente di sotto in sopra, to use their own expression. This sort of sub- sultive motion is ever accounted the most dangerous. viil] Philanthropy and Philosophy at Cloyne. 319 Pliny, in the second book of his natural history, observes, that all earth- quakes are attended with a great stillness of the air. The same was observed at Catania. Pliny further observes, that a murmuring noise precedes the earthquake. He also remarks, that there is signum in ccelo, prceceditque motu futuro, aut interdiu, aut paulo post occasum sereno, ceu tenuis linea nubis in longum por recta spatium ; which agrees with what was observed by Count Tezzani and others at Catania. And all these things plainly show the mistake of those who surmise that noises and signs in the air do not belong to or betoken an earthquake, but only an air-quake. The naturalist above cited, speaking of the earth, saith, that varie quatitur, up and down sometimes, at others from side to side. He adds, that the effects are very various : cities, one while demolished, another swallowed up ; sometimes overwhelmed by water, at other times con- sumed by fire bursting from the earth. One while the gulf remains open and yawning ; another, the sides close, not leaving the least trace or sign of the city swallowed up. Britain is an island — maritima auiem maxime quatiuntur, saith Pliny — and in this island are many mineral and sulphureous waters. I see no- thing in the natural constitution of London, or the parts adjacent, that should render an earthquake impossible or improbable. Whether there be any thing in the moral state thereof that should exempt it from that fear, I leave others to judge. I am your humble servant, A. B. After March 1 747 we lose sight of Berkeley for nearly two years. His extant correspondence is a blank for the remainder of that year, and all through 1748. The domestic circles in both the vales of Imokilly were saddened in March 1748, by the death of Dr. Robert Berkeley's wife at Ballinacurra. Early in 1749, Berkeley reappears in this pleasant fragment of a letter to Prior, who had lent him some pictures : — Cloyne, Feb. 2, 1749. Three days ago we received the box of pictures. The two men's heads with ruffs are well done ; the third is a copy, and ill-coloured : they are all Flemish : so is the woman, which is also very well painted, 3 2 o Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. though it hath not the beauty and freedom of an Italian pencil. The two Dutch pictures, containing animals, are well done as to the animals : but the human figures and sky are ill done. The two pictures of ruins are very well done, and are Italian. My son William had already copied two other pictures of the same kind, and by the same hand. He and his sister are both employed in copying pictures at present ; which shall be dispatched as soon as possible ; after which they will set about some of yours. Their stint, on account of health, is an hour and half a day for painting. So I doubt two months will not suffice for copying : but no time shall be lost, and great care taken of your pictures, for which we hold ourselves much obliged. Our Round Tower stands where it did ; but a little stone arched vault on the top was cracked, and must be repaired : the bell also was thrown down, and broke its way through three boarded stories, but remains entire. The door was shivered into many small pieces, and dispersed ; and there was a stone forced out of the wall. The whole damage, it is thought, will not amount to twenty pounds. The thunder-clap was by far the greatest that I ever heard in Ireland 78 . Berkeley's Word to the Wise, one of the most characteristic of his performances, belongs to 1749. It condenses the spirit of the Querist, in the form of an appeal to the Roman Catholic clergy of Ireland to preach the gospel of work and self-reliance to their flocks. It recals some of the tones which thirty years before 78 This thunderstorm was on the loth of January. The following is a more detailed account: — 'After several weeks of tem- pestuous weather, and continual violent rain, on Monday night, being the 9th of January 1 749, were seen several flashes of lightning, attended with frequent claps of thunder, which considerably increasing, on the fol- lowing night, a flash of lightning passed from west to east in a direct line through this county. It first killed some cows to the south of Cork, and in its progress struck the Round Tower of the Cathedral of Cloyne. It first rent the vaulted arch at the top, tumbled down the bell and three lofts, and passing perpendicularly to the internal floor, which is about eight feet higher than the outward foundation, the protruded column of air or lightning, or both together, by the igneous matter bursting and expanding and not finding sufficient room, vented itself by a violent explosion, forced its way through one side of the Tower, and drove the stones through the roof of an adjacent stabling — the door, though secured by a strong iron lock, was thrown above sixty yards distance, into the churchyard, and shattered to pieces, which passage for the air greatly contributed to the saving of the Tower. A few pigeons that frequented the top of the steeple were scorched to death, not a feather of them being left unsinged.' — Smith's Hist, of Cork, vol. II. p. 397. A similar account of this accident is given in Bishop Bennet's MS., where it is added that, with the same bad taste which distinguishes all the architecture of that era, the vaulted stone roof of the Tower was never repaired, but the height was lowered more than six feet, and a vile battlement, in imitation of the worst English churches, substituted in its stead — all which may still be seen. The Round Tower of Cloyne, which is 92 feet high, is one of the best in Ireland. The bell used for the Cathedral, which is a few yards away, hangs within the Tower. viil] Philanthropy and Philosophy at Cloyne. 321 sounded through his Address to the People of Great Britain. It was like the good bishop, whose heart and philosophy declined confine- ment to a part of Christendom, that this episcopal appeal was addressed to those whom the popular voice in Ireland accepted as the moral and spiritual guides of the people. The example of candour and humanity was not lost. The Catholic clergy, as in 1745, willingly co-operated with their Protestant brethren. In the Dublin Journal^ they returned c their sincere and hearty thanks to the worthy author ; assuring him that they are determined to comply with every particular recommended in his Address, to the utmost in their power.' They add that c in every page it contains a proof of the author's extensive charity; his views are only towards the public good ; the means he prescribeth are easily complied with; and his manner of treating persons in their circumstances so very singular, that they plainly show the good man, the polite gentleman, and the true patriot.' A gleam of social prosperity seems to have rested upon Ireland about that time; notwithstanding an inequality in the laws and arrangements of society, which has been since gradually dis- appearing, until hardly any remnant is now to be found. Less has been done in the way of bridging over ecclesiastical differences, by that recollection of a common humanity and Christendom, the want of which then made Berkeley's approach seem c so very singular' to persons in the circumstances of the Catholic clergy of Ireland. It may be doubted too, when we look at Ireland as it is, and as it has been, whether work and self-reliance are means to social happiness c easily complied with/ either by the Roman Catholics or the Protestants of that country. Later in the same year, the following letter to his old friend Dr. Samuel Johnson 7 5 proves Berkeley's liberal interest in the Con- gregationalist College of Newhaven, while it contains practical suggestions about a projected College at New York : — Reverend Sir, Cloyne, August 23, 1749. I am obliged for the account you have sent me of the prosperous estate of learning in your College of Newhaven. I approve of the regu- lations made there, and am particularly pleased to find your sons have made such progress as appears from their elegant address to me in the 79 The University of Oxford conferred the degree of Doctor in Divinity on Johnson in February 1743. VOL. IV. Y 322 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. Latin tongue. It must indeed give me a very sensible satisfaction to hear that my weak endeavours have been of some use and service to that part of the world. I have two letters of yours at once in my hands to answer, for which business of various kinds must be my apology. As to the first, wherein you enclosed a small pamphlet relating to tar- water, I can only say in behalf of those points in which the ingenious author seems to differ from me, that I advance nothing which is not grounded on experience, as may be seen at large in Mr. Prior's Narrative of the Effects of Tar- Water, printed three or four years ago, and which may be supposed to have reached America. For the rest, I am glad to find a spirit towards learning prevails in those parts, particularly New York, where you say a College is projected, which has my best wishes. At the same time I am sorry that the con- dition of Ireland, containing such numbers of poor, uneducated people, for whose sake charity schools are erecting throughout the kingdom, obligeth us to draw charities from England ; so far are we from being able to extend our bounty to New York, a country in proportion much richer than our own. But as you are pleased to desire my advice on this undertaking, I send the following hints to be enlarged and improved by your own judgment. I would not advise the applying to England for Charters or Statutes (which might cause great trouble, expense, and delay), but to do the business quietly within yourselves. I believe it may suffice to begin with a President and two Fellows. If they can procure but three fit persons, I doubt not the College from the smallest beginnings would soon grow considerable. I should conceive good hopes were you at the head of it 80 . Let them by all means supply themselves out of the seminaries in New England. For I am very apprehensive none can be got in Old England (who are willing to go) worth sending. Let the Greek and Latin classics be well taught. Be this the first care as to learning. But the principal care must be good life and morals, to which (as well as to study) early hours and temperate meals will much conduce. If the terms for Degrees are the same as at Oxford and Cambridge, this would give credit to the College, and pave the way for admitting their graduates ad eundem in the English Universities. Small premiums in books, or distinctions in habit, may prove useful encouragements to the students. 80 This College was founded at New York in 1 754, and Dr. Johnson was appointed in the Charter the first President. viii.] Philanthropy and Philosophy at Cloyne. 323 I would advise that the building be regular, plain, and cheap, and that each student have a small room (about ten feet square) to himself. I recommended this nascent seminary to an English bishop, to try what might be done there. But by his answer it seems the Colony is judged rich enough to educate its own youth. Colleges, from small beginnings, grow great by subsequent bequests and benefactions. A small matter will suffice to set one agoing. And when this is once well done, there is no doubt it will go on and thrive. The chief concern must be to set out in a good method, and introduce from the very first a good taste into the Society. For this end, its prin- cipal expense should be in making a handsome provision for the President and Fellows. I have thrown together these few crude thoughts for you to ruminate upon and digest in your own judgment, and propose from yourself, as you see convenient. My correspondence with patients that drink tar-water obliges me to be less punctual in corresponding with my friends. But I shall be always glad to hear from you. My sincere good wishes and prayers attend you in all your laudable undertakings. - I am, your faithful, humble servant, q clqYNE Communications to his American friends are the only relics of Berkeley's correspondence in 1750. The first is a note to Dr. Johnson : — ReVt sir, Cloyne July 17, 1750. A few months ago I had an opportunity of writing to you and Mr. Honyman'by an inhabitant of Rhode Island government. I would not nevertheless omit the present occasion of saluting you, and letting you know that it gave me great pleasure to hear from Mr. Bourk, a passenger from those parts, that a late sermon of yours at Newhaven hath had a very good effect in reconciling several to the church. I find also by a letter from Mr. Clap that learning continues to make notable advances in your College. This gives me great satisfaction. And that God may bless your worthy endeavours, and crown them with success, is the sincere prayer of, Rev. Sir, Your faithful brother and humble servant, G. CLOYNE. P.S. — I hope your ingenious sons are still an ornament to Yale College, and tread in their father's steps 81 . B1 One of these sons, William Samuel American revolution, and aided in framing Johnson, became one of the leaders of the the constitution of the United States. He was Y % 324 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. On the same day he wrote what follows to Mr. Clap, the Presi- dent of Yale College : — Rev. Sir, Mr. Bourk, a passenger from Newhaven, hath lately put into my hands the letter you favoured me with, and at the same time the agree- able specimens of learning which it enclosed, for which you have my sincere thanks 82 . By them I find a considerable progress made in astro- nomy and other academical studies in your College, in the welfare and prosperity whereof I sincerely interest myself, and recommending you to God's good providence, I conclude with my prayers and best wishes for your Society. Rev. Sir, your faithful, humble servant, G. CLOYNE. In 1750, a small tract entitled Maxims of Patriotism, Was printed at Dublin. It is in the spirit of the Querist and the Word to the Wise, and is to be found in every edition of Berkeley's works. It is curious, however, (and hitherto unknown,) that on the title- page of the original edition these Maxims are attributed to c a Lady/ Perhaps we owe them to Mrs. Berkeley, although two years after this they were included by Berkeley in his Miscellany. The Essay on Spirit, attributed to Berkeley's old friend Dr. Clay- ton, formerly Bishop of Cork, now Bishop of Clogher, also appeared this year, and made a great noise. It was the occasion of some thirty pamphlets. Little of permanent value emerged from the wordy war. I do not find that Berkeley took any part in it, though he and Malebranche were mentioned in the Essay as holding a philosophy corresponding to that of Spinoza 83 . The year 3751 opened in clouds at the episcopal residence of afterwards President of Columbia College, from 1787 till 1800, when he retired to Stratford, where he died in 1819, at the age of 92. 82 The 1 specimens of learning ' here men- tioned were some calculations by • Berkleian Scholars,' which Mr. Clap sent to Berkeley. The subject of one of them was 1 The Comet at the time of the Flood, which appeared in 1680, having a periodical revolution of 575? years, which Mr. Whiston supposes to have been the cause of the Deluge;' and of another, 1 The remarkable Eclipse of the Sun in the tenth year of Jehoiakim, mentioned in Herodotus, Lib. 1. cap. 74, and in Usher's Annals.' 83 ' The opinion of Spinoza was, that there is no other Substance in nature but God - that modes cannot subsist or be conceived without a substance ; that there is nothing in nature but modes and substances ; and that therefore everything must be con- ceived as subsisting in God. Which opin- ion, with some few alterations, hath been embraced and cultivated by P. Malebranche and Bp. Berkeley' {Essay on Spirit, p. 2). Cf. Appendix to Chevalier Ramsay's Philo- sophical Principles (175O. According to Berkeley, at any rate, if men 1 subsist in God,' they do so freely or responsibly — whatever that involves. Intelligent effi- ciency, or causation proper, is the essential principle in his philosophy. VIH.] Philanthropy and Philosophy at Cloyne, 325 Cloyne. A complication of diseases was gaining ground upon the aged philosopher, and death visited his family. The young artist William, his favourite son, by repute a handsome and accomplished youth, died in February. c The loss, 5 says Stock, c was thought to have struck too close to his father's heart. 5 It was the first great break in the family circle. The touching letter which follows 84 , addressed probably either to Bishop Benson or Lord Egmont, refers to this sorrow ; — My dear Lord, C ^ March 8 < 1 > 5 I was a man retired from the amusement of politics, visits, and what the world calls pleasure. I had a little friend, educated always under mine own eye, whose painting delighted me, whose music ravished me, and whose lively, gay spirit was a continual feast. It has pleased God to take him hence. God, I say, in mercy hath deprived me of this pretty, gay plaything. His parts and person, his innocence and piety, his particularly uncommon affection for me, had gained too much upon me. Not content to be fond of him, I was vain of him. I had set my heart too much upon him — more perhaps than I ought to have done upon anything in this world. Thus much suffer me, in the overflowing of my soul, to say to your Lordship, who, though distant in place, are much nearer to my heart than any of my neighbours. Adieu, my dear Lord, and believe me, with the utmost esteem and affection, your faithful, humble servant, q CLOYNE The Register of the Cathedral records that c William Berkeley, son of the Lord Bishop of Cloyne, was buried March 3, 1751 8 V It must not be forgotten that in these years it was a chief part of Berkeley 5 s daily happiness to guide the education of his children — three sons and one daughter. The episcopal palace at Cloyne was a scene of rural home education as well as of art ; and in that education he sought to keep his young flock c unspotted from 84 Preserved in the Preface to Monck Berkeley, p. ccccxxxvii, where we are told that ' William Berkeley was as beautiful, as finely made, as his elder brother George ; taller and more slightly built ; a most un- commonly elegant youth — danced, as did his brother, remarkably well.' 85 1 On the day of the funeral,' we learn from the Preface to Monck Berkeley, ' the Bishop's brother [Robert] and attending friends dined with him, and no one would have supposed that he had lost his idol. He used afterwards to say to his son George — I see William incessantly before my eyes.' By the way, we hear nothing of the brothers Rowland and Ralph, of Newmarket, at any of the family gatherings at Cloyne. In the register of baptisms at Cloyne, it is recorded that ' William Maclane, son of John Maclane of Cloyne, was baptised October the 9th, 1748. William Berkeley, and Thomas Standish Street, godfathers. Julia Berkeley, godmother.' 326 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. the world.' He would not c trust them to mercenary hands.' In their childhood he instructed them; and even in his days of sickness and old age, we are told that the education of his boys was his constant anxious care. Of the fruits of this home education little can be said. One, as we have seen, died in early youth. Of another we hear almost nothing. Of the third some account is given in the following chapter. None of them, including the daughter, seem to have brought much strength of constitution into the world; nor was the defect remedied by the frequently administered doses of tar- water. Perhaps in all we detect signs of the enfeebling effects of a too secluded and anxious training. A more sombre tone prevails after this at Cloyne. The letters which follow were written in July, one to Johnson at Stratford, and the second to the Rector of Yale College : — Rev gi Cloyne July 25, 175 1. I would not let Mr. Hall depart without a line from me in acknow- ledgment of your letter which he put into my hands. As for Mr. Hutchinson's writings, I am not acquainted with them. I live in a remote corner, where many modern things escape me. Only this I can say, that I have observed that author to be mentioned as an enthusiast, which gave me no prepossession in his favour 86 . I am glad to find by Mr. Clap's letter, and the specimens of literature inclosed in his packet, that learning continues to make a progress in Yale College ; and hope that virtue and Christian charity may keep pace with it. The letters which you and Mr. Clap say you had written, in answer to my last, never came into my hands. I am glad to hear, by Mr. Hall, of the good health and condition of yourself and family. I pray God to bless you and yours, and prosper your good endeavours. I am, Rev. Sir, your faithful friend and humble servant, G. CLOYNE. 86 John Hutchinson, born in Yorkshire in 1674, author of some curious works in mys- tical theology and philosophy, which at- tracted disciples in last century — among others Bishop Home, Jones of Nayland, and Dr. Hodges, Provost of Oriel. The best known of his books is the Principia of Moses (1724), in which he controverts the Principia of Newton, and tries to find in the Jewish Scriptures the elements of all religion and philosophy. He died in i 737» and his works were afterwards collected. Some passages in Siris remind one of Hutchinson, and it is curious that Berkeley should not have known his writings. viil] Philanthropy and Philosophy at Cloyne. 327 Rev. Sir, Cloyne, July 25,1751. The daily increase of religion and learning in your seminary of Yale College give me very sensible pleasure, and an ample recompense for my poor endeavours to further these good ends. May God's Providence continue to prosper and cherish the rudiments of good education which have hitherto taken root, and thrive so well, under your auspicious care and government. I snatch this opportunity given me by Mr. Hall to acknowledge the receipt of your letter which he put into my hands — together with the learned specimens that accompanied it — and to assure you that I am, very sincerely, Rev. Sir, your faithful well wisher and humble servant, G. CLOYNE. These notes exhaust our store of Berkeley's correspondence with his Transatlantic friends. His friendly intercourse with Yale College was maintained from the time of his stay in Rhode Island to the end of his life — latterly, by occasional letters through Johnson, or to the authorities. The mutual respect, and occa- sional good offices which Berkeley helped to promote among those who had been severed by ecclesiastical differences, were honour- able to all concerned 87 . Many more letters must have been written by him to Johnson and others, and perhaps some of these still exist, though I have not yet been able to discover them. Those of most interest to the philosopher apparently belong to the early period of the correspondence 88 . The following is the latest relic, hitherto published, of a cor- respondence of forty years with Thomas Prior : — Cloyne, 30th 0/ March, 1751. .... They are going to print at Glasgow two editions at once, in quarto and in folio, of Plato's works, in most magnificent types. This work should be encouraged. It would be right to mention it as you have opportunity 89 87 See Clap's History of Yale College ; Hawkins's Original Letters ; Chandler's Life °f Johnson. 88 I have some remains of a correspond- ence between Johnson and Lieut. -Governor Cadwallader Colden (in 1 744 — 46), regard- ing Berkeley's philosophy — especially the De Motu, in which Johnson vindicates the philosophy, against the misunderstanding of his correspondent. Colden afterwards wrote a book on Action in Matter (1752). 89 In 1746, Foulis, the well-known Glas- gow printer, proposed to publish by subscrip- tion an edition of Plato, in ten vols. — a proposal warmly supported by John Wilkes. It was repeated in 1 75 1 — in nine vols, quarto and in folio. See Gent. Mag., Sept. 1 75 1. Principal Blackwell of Aberdeen offered to supply notes. His terms were not accepted, and in the same year he announced an edition of his own. See Gent. Mag. for August, 1 751. None of these proposals were carried out. 328 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. The Berkeley Papers contain the following letter from the Bishop. It is addressed to Prior, is dated some months later than the" preceding scrap, and may have been, the last letter Berkeley wrote to him. Accordingly, it has a certain incidental interest, and it is here printed from the original : — Cloyne, A ugust 6 , 1 7 5 1 . Dear Tom, Brother Will. 90 in a few daies proposes being in Dublin. He brings with him two debentures of mine drawn some time ago, I think in 1749. I must desire you to receive their value at the treasury. He also carries with him a note of mine for fifteen pounds upon Gleadowe, which you will put into his bank to my credit. The enclosed sum of 846 pds. 15 shill. you may leave in Alderman Dawson's bank, as like- wise the value of my two debentures, sending me his note for the whole, and seeing it placed in his books to my credit. My intention was to have purchased ten debentures with this sum, but am at a loss in what banker's hands to leave them Do you know any safe bank that would be at the trouble to keep my debentures and receive their produce, letting the whole lye in their hands till such time as I may hereafter have occasion to draw for it ? Perhaps if you know Mr. Clements of the treasury you may get him to let my de- bentures lye in his bank and give his receipt for them; in which case T would have them all ensured. Alderman Dawson, I doubt, is too wealthy to take such trouble on him. But if nothing of all this can be done, you will be so good as to place them in Gleadow's bank, taking his receipt and directing him to receive the interest. It is the bank I have dealt with above thirty years, and if you think it as secure as another I should not desire to change it. There hath been some talk as if the late change in our cash (being mostly Spanish) might cause a run on some of our banks. If there be any likelyhood of this, you'll be so good as to act accordingly. Instead of the books I returned pray send the book called l'esprit des loix by the Baron Montesquieu. Adieu dear Tom. Y r anec* humble serv*, G. CLOYNE. We have in the course of this year intimation of the declining health of good old Prior, whose name carries us back to Berkeley's schoolboy days on the Nore at Kilkenny, and to whose watch- fulness we owe so much personal knowledge of his illustrious 90 This seems to be his brother, Captain tains the allusion I obtained only when this William Berkeley. The letter which con- sheet was passing through the press. viii.] Philanthropy and Philosophy at Cloyne. 329 correspondent. Faulkner's Dublin Journal of Jan. 19, 1751, inti- mated that c Thomas Prior, who hath been lately indisposed, is perfectly recovered, to the great joy of his friends and the public in general/ But on the 22nd of October, in the same year, the following announcement was made in the same newspaper: — c Yes- terday morning died, after a tedious and severe fit of illness, Thomas Prior, Esq., one of the members of the Dublin Society for the improvement of husbandry, and other useful arts, and secretary thereof.' An e'loge follows upon his piety and patriotism, and encouragement of industry and self-reliance — c always assisting the poor in their sickness, he supplied them with that most excel- lent remedy tar-water, without desiring any satisfaction but their relief/ And so another link connecting Berkeley with this mortal life was broken. After the death of Prior some letters passed between Berkeley and the Rev. Mervyn Archdall, then a young clergyman in the diocese of Cloyne, now known as the author of the Monasticon Hibernicum^ 1 . Between the Archdall family and Prior there was apparently some family connexion. Berkeley's letters are addressed to him at Prior's house, in Bolton-street, Dublin. Here is the first : — Cloyne, November 22, 1751. Reverend Sir, You will see by the inclosed paragraph, from Faulkner's Journal for Saturday, November the 16th, that the late Bishop of Clogher 92 had left gold medals for encouraging the study of Greek in the College. Now I desire you will do me the favour to inquire what the value of those medals was, and in whose custody they were left, and let me know. Certainly if I had been informed of this, I should not have annually, for eighteen years past, have given two gold medals for the same purpose, through the hands of our friend Mr. Prior, who did constantly distribute them, and charge them to my account. I must entreat you to get the dye for those medals, which I left in Mr. Prior's hands, and secure it for me. 91 Mervyn Archdall was descended of Ossory in 1761, where he enjoyed the John Archdall, of Norsom Hall, in Norfolk, friendship of Bishop Pococke. He died in who settled at Castle Archdall, in co. Fer- 1 791. Archdall edited Lodge's Peerage of managh, in the reign of James I. Mervyn Ireland, and left MSS. of antiquarian in- was the son of William Archdall, who died terest. at Dublin in 1751. He was born there in 92 John Stearne, D.D., a munificent bene- 1723, and got the livings of Nathlash and factor of the University of Dublin, who died Kildorrery, in the diocese of Cloyne, in in 1745. 1749. He was removed to the diocese of 330 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. There is also an account between Mr. Prior and me, of which I must desire you to get a copy from the executor, and send it inclosed to myself. I must further trouble you to secure for me two small books which I lent Mr. Prior, and cannot be had. One of them is a French translation of Sin's 93 ; the other was a small tract relative to the same subject, printed in America 94 . There are, I doubt not, many letters and memoirs relating to cures done by tar-water among Mr. Prior's papers, which I hope you will take care shall not be lost. What trouble you are at in these matters will oblige, Reverend Sir, your faithful humble servant, G. CLOYNE. P.S. All here send their compliments. The pictures borrowed from Mr. Prior are this day boxed up, and shall be sent on Monday to Corke, to the Dublin carrier. I add some fragments of other letters to Mr. Archdall. One of the inscriptions to which they refer was for a monument to Prior, which may now be seen in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, with Berkeley's tribute to his friend engraved on it : — Cloyne, Dec. 8, 1751. Rev. Sir, This is to desire you may publish the inscription I sent in Faulkner's paper. But say nothing of the author. I must desire you to cause the letters G. B., being the initial letters of my name, to be engraved on the dye of the gold medal, at the bottom beneath the race-horse ; whereby mine will be distinguished from medals given by others 95 . Cloyne, Dec. 22, 1 751. I thank you for the care you have taken in publishing the inscription so correctly, as likewise for your trouble in getting G. B. engraved on the plane, at the bottom of the medal. When that is done, you may order two medals to be made, and given as usual. I would have only two made by my dye : the multiplying of premiums lessens their value. If my inscription is to take place, let me know before it is engraved ; I may perhaps make some trifling alteration. 1)3 Published at Amsterdam in 1745. '•>* Cf. p. 321. 95 Berkeley at this time gave £100 to Trinity College, Dublin, to be spent on two gold medals, which are still given annually, for proficiency in Greek. On one side of the medal is a figure of Pegasus, with the legend Vos exeviplaria Grceca — his only bequest to the College, but a signi- ficant one. A Berkeley memorial window has lately been placed in the College chapel. viii.] Philanthropy and Philosophy at Cloyne. 331 [Undated, but sent at this time.] For the particulars of your last favour I give you thanks. I send the above bill to clear what you have expended on my account, and also ten guineas beside ; which is my contribution towards the monument which I understand is intended for our deceased friend. Yesterday, though ill of the cholic, yet I could not forbear sketching out the inclosed. I wish it did justice to his character. Such as it is, I submit it to you and your friends. Cloyne, Jan. 7, 1752. I here send you enclosed the inscription, with my last amendments. In the printed copy si quis was one word ; it had better be two, divided, as in this. There are some other small changes which you will observe. The bishop of Meath 96 was for having somewhat in English: accordingly, I subjoin an English addition, to be engraved in a different character, and in continued lines (as it is written) beneath the Latin 97 . The bishop writes that contributions come in slowly, but that near one hundred guineas are got. Now, it should seem that if the first plan, rated as two hundred guineas, was reduced all altered, there might be a plain, neat, monument erected for one hundred guineas, and so (as the proverb directs) the coat be cut according to the cloth. This letter from Bishop Benson 98 exhausts what remains of another long correspondence : — 96 Henry Maulc, D.D., formerly bishop of Cloyne. He died in 1758. ,J7 Berkeley's inscription for the Prior monument, enclosed in the above letter, was as follows : — ' Memoriae sacrum Thom;e Prior, Viri, si quis unquam alius, de patria optime mcriti : Qui, cum prodesse mallet qnam conspici, nec in senatum cooptatus, nec consiliorum aulae partictps, nec ullo publico munere insignitus, rem tamen publicam mirifice auxit et ornavit auspiciis, consiliis, labore indefesso : Vir innocuus, probus, pius, partium stu'liis minime addictus, de re familiari parum solicitus, cum civium commoda unice spectaret : Quicquid vel ad inopiae levamen vel ad vitae elcgantiam facit, quicquid ad desidiam populi vincendam, aut ad bonas artes excitandas pertinet, id omne pro virili excoluit : Societatis Dubliniensis auctor, institutor, curator : Quae fecerit pluribus dicere haud refert : quorsurn narraret marmor ilia quae omnes norunt, ilia quae, civium animis insculpta, nulla dies delebit ? ' This monument was erected to Thomas Prior, Esquire, at the charge of 6everal persons who contributed to honour the memory of that worthy Patriot, to whom his own actions and unwearied endeavours in the service of his country have raised a monument more lasting than marble.' A bust of Prior may be seen also in the Hall of the Royal Dublin Society, in which the features of Berkeley's friend are strongly marked. 98 Berkeley Papers. 33 2 Life and Letters of Berkeley \ [ch. Berry Street, Westminster, Feb. 1 8, 1752. My dear Lord, I am very glad to hear in this that the symptoms you complained of in your former letter are ceased ; but very sorry to find that in another complaint still more sensibly affecting you there is, after so long time, so little change made, and that the wound is still opening and bleeding afresh". Your Lordship inquires in your letter after Lord Pomfret. He is lately gone to the Bath in a very bad state of body. But he has suf- fered much more in his mind from the irregular and undutiful behaviour of his son, now the only son left. He is as happy in his daughters, as he is unhappy in him. He has lately married a fourth to Mr. Penn, the proprietor of Pensylvania, a gentleman of good character as well as great fortune, and a constant Churchman 1 . Your Lordship will reflect how much sadder a cause he has for his than you for your grief. He has lost a son living, you one dead, and one you can reflect upon with great satisfaction as well as concern. He has no view of anything but sorrow ever from his. Your Lordship speaks of the loss of friends. 'Tis what I have been so long experiencing, that I begin to comfort myself that my own age will not allow me to lose many more. The mortality alone which I see upon the Bench on which I am sitting must be very sufficient to put me in mind of my own. In 17 years' time I have but four seniors upon it, and many juniors besides I have lost. Are not things so durable as these well worth the striving for ? One symptom of old age, if I feel not, others I doubt will think very strong upon me, which is to be querulous ; and if not laudator temporis acti, yet a censurer of the present times. Which latter I am sure I have the greatest reason for, and greater still likely every day to have. Your Lordship calls this the freest country in Europe. There is indeed freedom of one kind in it, more it is to be hoped than in any other — a most unbounded licentious- ness of all sorts ; a disregard to all authority, sacred and civil ; a regard to nothing but diversion and vicious pleasures. There is not only no safety of living in this town, but scarcely in the country now : robbery and murther are grown so frequent 2 . Our people are now become, what they never before were, cruel and inhuman. Those accursed spirituous 99 The allusion is to his son William's death, in February of the year before. 1 Another daughter married Lord Car- teret. a A short time before this letter was written, Fielding published an Enquiry into the Cause of the late Increase of Robbers, and contemporary periodicals record ex- ploits of highwaymen near London. viii.] Philanthropy and Philosophy at Cloyne. 333 liquors which, to the shame of our Government, are so easily to be had, and in such quantities drunk, have changed the very nature of our people. And they will, if continued to be drank, destroy the very race of the people themselves. The corruption of manners, profusion of expense, the bad condition in which we and all our affairs are, and the good one into which the French are putting themselves, their navy, their finances, and everything else, are common and constant topics in Parliament and public, as well as in conversation and private. But it is only matter of talk, and nothing is done to prevent the evils which are coming upon us. I have discoursed the Bishop of Bristol 3 about a tutor for your son, and the person your letter mentions is the very person whom he designed to recommend to you. I hope the comfort you will have in him will be a balance for the sorrow you have had for the amiable son you have lost. Mrs. Berkeley has always my sincerest respects ; and with the truest regard I ever am, my dear Lord, Your most faithful servant and affectionate brother, M. GLOCESTER. My Lord Berkeley desired me, when I wrote, to present his compli- ments to you. The last of all Berkeley's letters which remains is the following characteristic effusion to Dean Gervais :— r- Cloyne, April 6, 1752. Your letter by last post was very agreeable : but the trembling hand with which it is written is a drawback from the satisfaction I should other- wise have had in hearing from you. If my advice had been taken, you would have escaped so many miserable months in the gout, and the bad air of Dublin. But advice against inclination is seldom successful. Mine was very sincere, though I must own a little interested : for we often wanted your enlivening company to dissipate the gloom of Cloyne. This I look on as enjoying France at second hand. I wish any thing but the gout could fix you among us. But bustle and intrigue and great affairs have and will, as long as you exist on this globe, fix your attention. For my own part, I submit to years and infirmities. My views in this world 3 John Conybeare, D.D., succeeded Butler as Bishop of Bristol in 1750, and was also Dean of Christ Church, 1732 — 55, when he died. He is known as the author of a Defence of Christianity against Tyndal, which appeared in 1732, and of some sermons. 334 Life mid Letters of Berkeley. [ch. are mean and narrow : it is a thing in which I have small share, and which ought to give me small concern. I abhor business, and especially to have to do with great persons and great affairs, which I leave to such as you who delight in them and are fit for them. The evening of life I choose to pass in a quiet retreat. Ambitious projects, intrigues and quarrels of statesmen, are things I have formerly been amused with ; but they now seem to be a vain, fugitive dream. If you thought as I do, we should have more of your company, and you less of the gout. We have not those transports of you castle-hunters ; but our lives are calm and serene. We do, however, long to see you open your budget of politics by our fireside. My wife and all here salute you, and send you, instead of compliments, their best sincere wishes for your health and safe return. The part you take in my son's recovery 4 is very obliging to us all, and particularly to, &c, G. CLOYNE. Berkeley was now to remove to the academic retreat at Oxford, for which he had long yearned 5 . The home education of his son George had prepared him for the University : this was the desired opportunity. He resolved to send him to Oxford instead of to his own mother university at Dublin. Stock says that he had c a fixed resolution to spend the remainder of his days in Oxford, with a view of indulging the passion for a learned retirement, which had ever strongly possessed his mind, and was one of the motives that led him to form his Bermuda project.' As he wanted, in 1724, to resign his deanery, now, in 1752, he wanted to resign his bishopric, for he objected to non-resident bishops. He first proposed to exchange Cloyne for an Oxford headship or canonry. Failing in this, he wrote to the Secretary of State, and offered absolutely to resign his bishopric. The singular proposal excited the curiosity of George II. When the King discovered by whom it was made, he declared that Berkeley should die a bishop in spite of himself, but that he might live where he pleased. Our glimpses of his last weeks in the c serene corner ' where, for eighteen years, in the bosom of his family, he had indulged in inquisitive philanthropy and meditation, reveal the weakness and suffering of hopeless disease. His son George was 4 His son Henry is probably alluded to 5 Cf. letter to Sir J. James, in 1 741, here, and also in a former letter, in 1745. and to Prior, in 1746. viii.] Philanthropy and Philosophy at Cloyne. 335 matriculated in Christ Church in June 6 . The family delayed a little longer in the old home. We have a few gleanings in the registries and elsewhere 7 . There were transactions in May with the Reverend Marmaduke Philips, about a glebe house, and a fund for the widows of the clergy of the diocese ; afterwards, arrange- ments for leasing from year to year the episcopal demesne, during his absence, at a rent of £200, which was to be annually dis- tributed, until his return, among the poor householders of Cloyne, Youghal, and Aghada ; and on the 4th of August c George, Bishop of Cloyne, commissions Robert Berkeley, Vicar-General, to hold visitations, while the said bishop is in parts beyond the sea.' It was probably a day or two after this 4th of August that Berkeley saw Cloyne for the last time. 6 In the Register of Matriculation at Ox- ford, we find— ' Ter n0 Trinitatus 1 752, Junii 4 to , Georgius Berkeley, 18, Georgii, Lon- dini, ^d. Ch"., Episc. Fil.' The age of the student is indicated by ' 18,' and the birthplace by ' Londini.' 7 It has been said that among his other odd experiments Berkeley -contrived, by a special regimen, to convert a child of ordinary size into a giant ; and Magrath, whose skeleton, seven feet nine inches in height, may be seen in Trinity College, Dublin, is reported to have been the subject of this experiment. (See Notes and Queries, 1862.) The following letter, which I find in the Gentleman 's Magazine for August, 1752, refers to the origin of this absurd story: — 'Cork, July 30, [1752]. There is now in this city a boy, Cornelius Magrath, J 5 years, 1 1 months old, of a gigantic stature, being 7 feet, g-J inches high ; but he is clumsily made, talks boyish and simple ; he came hither from Youghal, where he has been a year going into salt water for rheu- matic pains which almost crippled him, and the physicians now say they were growing pains, as he is surprisingly grown within that time. He was a month at the Bishop of Cloyne's, who took care of him ; his head is as big as a middling shoulder of mutton ; the last of his shoe, which he carries about him, measures 15 inches. He was born in the county of Tipperary, within five miles of the silver mines.' The fact is that Berkeley took this boy, who was early an orphan, under his care, the Magrath family being in his diocese. Ma- grath was afterwards shown as the ' Irish Giant.' He died in 1758. CHAPTER IX. OXFORD. — THE END. — THE FAMILY DISSOLUTION. In August 1752, Berkeley once more set out in quest of what Swift had called c life academico- philosophical.' Twenty-four years before, when Swift had so written, his friend was bound for an ideal university in the Summer Islands, the creation of his own benevolent imagination. Now he was on his way to the actual city of Colleges on the banks of the Isis, with its gathered memories of almost a thousand years, to which sensibilities like his were naturally drawn, and which for some years had been before him in imagination as the ideal home of his old age. He seems to have travelled to Oxford by the route usual in those days — sailing from Cork harbour to Bristol. He was accompanied by his wife, his son George, and Julia his only remaining daughter. George was already matriculated at Christ Church, and Henry, the eldest son, seems to have been left behind in Ireland. I have not found any account of the depar- ture or the voyage. There is a tradition that a number of sorrowing neighbours accompanied the family to the ship, but tradition does not inform, us where the ship was. The waters of the harbour of Cork approach, at Rostellan and Aghada, within two miles of Cloyne. The party, however, probably embarked at Cork, or at Cove, in one of the vessels which traded between those places and Bristol — a voyage then of some two or three days. James Wolfe, who was seven years afterwards the hero of Quebec, seems to have made the same voyage about the IX.] Oxford. 337 same time. He may even have travelled with the Cloyne family from Cork to Bristol 1 . It must have been rather an arduous pilgrimage which the good Bishop now undertook, for the indulgence of his parental tender- ness, and to gratify his longing for the repose and ideal beauty of the great English University. He was so much reduced by suffering that he had to be c carried from his landing on the English shore, in a horse litter, to Oxford 2 / Under the light of a day in early autumn, the party from Cloyne reached the fair vale of the Cherwell and the Isis, and saw the domes and Gothic church towers so associated with what is noblest in English life and history, surrounded by the soft repose of rural English scenery, all presenting to the thoughtful visitor a spectacle unequalled of its kind in the world. At Oxford, accord- ing to tradition, Berkeley lived with his family in a house in Holywell Street, near the gardens of New College, and not far from the cloisters of Magdalen. This can hardly have been his first visit to the place for which he had so characteristic a long- ing. He might have been there a quarter of a century before, in one of those country rambles in England to which he refers in his letters to Prior, when he was preparing for America — or perhaps on some of his still earlier visits to London. One letter in which he names Oxford was written in 1733, when he alludes to the approach of Commemoration, at which the entertainments of 1 In an interesting chapter of Mr. Wright's Life of General Wolfe (1864), there is a minute account of Wolfe's movements in 1752, when he was about twenty-five years of age. In the early summer of that year he was in the Highlands of Scotland, and, in one of his letters from that remote region, he gives his father at Blackheath an account of the mysterious murder of Campbell of Glenure among the Stewarts of Appin in Argyllshire. In July he went over to Dublin to visit his uncle, old Mr. Wolfe, who had long lived there. In another letter to his father, from Dublin, he says that after staying a few days in that city he meant to ' set out for Cork, where I shall embark in one of the Bristol ships ; and if I find myself strong in health and circum- stances, shall continue my journey from Bristol through the West and so home [to Blackheath].' His biographer adds, that • no record is extant of these travels in the south of Ireland, his voyage to Bristol, and his tour in the west of England. We only know that he arrived at Blackheath on the night of Wednesday, September 2 ' — the last day, by the way, of the uncorrected calendar, for the next morning was Sep- tember 14. A fortnight after Berkeley's death, young Wolfe wrote thus to his father from Paris : — ' The good Bishop is at last released from the misery and pain that he has so long laboured under, oppressed by a disease at his time of life incurable. His death is not to be lamented otherwise than as concerns his family. If there's any place for good men hereafter, I believe he is at rest, and entirely free from all complaints.' 2 Stock. The badness of the roads in England is the subject of articles in the Gent. Mag. for 1752 — in particular those from Bath to Oxford, and from Chester to London. VOL. IV. Z 338 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. music were to be c the finest that ever were known.' But it does not appear that he went there then. Some years later the Oxford tendency showed itself distinctly. Nor can he have gone now entirely a stranger to the residents. c He lived there,' says Stock, c highly respected by the members of that great University.' His friend, Dr. Conybeare, the Bishop of Bristol, was Dean of Christ Church, and to him he had en- trusted his son. Markham 3 , afterwards Archbishop of York, is said to have been his son's tutor, and seems to have been in familiar intercourse. George Home, then a Fellow of Magdalen, and afterwards its President, who became the close friend of young George Berkeley, was probably no stranger in the house in Holy- well Street 4 . Seeker, too, had now held the bishopric of Oxford for many years, and in 1750, when Butler was promoted to Dur- ham, the deanery of St. Paul's was added to the preferment of the Bishop of Oxford. About this period of his life, he was accus- tomed to spend his summers in his palace at Cuddesden, and his winters in London 5 . He was probably at Cuddesden when the Cloyne family arrived at Oxford in August. While Berkeley was exchanging Ireland for England, death was removing his old friends. A short time before he left Cioyne, he must have heard of the death of Butler, at Bath, where Benson, at the request of Seeker, affectionately watched the last hours of the great author of the Analogy 6 . Benson himself soon followed. The fatigue and anxiety were too much for his tender spirit. On the 30th of this August he too was taken away. Berkeley could hardly have been settled in his Oxford home when he had to bear this new sorrow. There are no traces of close intimacy between him and Butler : their mind and temperament were in a different mould. Benson, whom he used to call c Titus, the delight of mankind,' had been his friend and correspondent for thirty years. 3 William Markham was Dean of Christ nian principles. He became a Fellow of Church 1767 — 77 ; Bishop of Chester, 1771. Magdalen in 1749. He is popularly known In 1776 he was translated to the arch- as the writer of a devout Commentary on bishopric of York, which he held till his the Psalms. death in 1807. 5 See Porteous's Life of Seeker. 4 Home (afterwards Bishop of Norwich) 6 Butler died June 16, 1752. Tar-water was at this time author of a satirical tract on was one of the remedies tried in his last the Theology and Philosophy of the Somniihn illness, as Benson says, in a letter to Seeker, Scipionis (1751), and soon after of an attack among the Seeker MSS. on the Newtonian philosophy, on Hutchinso- IX.] Oxford. 339 He perhaps saw him for the last time in London, before he went to Cloyne. At any rate Benson was not able to greet him on his return to England. Seeker, in his unpublished diary, records that c Berkeley, the Bishop of Cloyne, came to Oxford this summer [1752], before his friend Benson's death; but I think not before he went through Oxfordshire, so that he did not see him 7 / It is a pity that our picture of Berkeley at Oxford is so dim. The recluse philosopher, with his refined social idealism, nowhere left very distinct local traces, and he was now almost withdrawn from society by disease and suffering. But one is sorry not to live with him for a little in a place like this ; even though Oxford in the middle of the eighteenth century was living on the inherited glories of the past, and the intellectual and religious revolutions, of which it has since been the centre, were then in the distant future. Learning was at its lowest ebb in the schools, and there was hardly any philosophic thought there or in England. The stagnation of that generation was only beginning to be moved by the religious fervour of Wesley, whose sermons in St. Mary's, a few years earlier, denounced with prophetic boldness the frivolous life of the Uni- versity. Among the dons of Oxford in 1752, no name is associated with more than mediocrity. A few years earlier, however, the 7 Seeker MSS. at Lambeth. It will be remembered that Benson was married to Seeker's sister. No life of this much-loved friend of Berkeley has been written. Ac- cording to Porteous, in his Life of Seeker, Benson ' was educated at the Charter-house, and removed from thence to Christ Church in Oxford, where he had several noble pupils, whose friendship and veneration for him continued to the end of his life. His favourite study in early years was the mathematics, in which he was well skilled ; and he had also an excellent taste for painting, architecture, and the other fine arts. He accompanied the late Earl of Pomfret in his travels, and in Italy became acquainted with Mr. Berkeley, as he did at Paris with Mr. Seeker. He was from his youth to his latest age the delight of all who knew him. His manner and behaviour were the result of great natural humanity ; polished by a thorough knowledge of the world, and the most perfect good breeding, mixed with a dignity which, on occasions that called for it, no one more properly supported. It was much against his will that he was appointed Bishop of Gloucester, and from that see he would never remove. He was, however, a vigilant and active prelate. He revived the very useful institution of rural deans — he augmented several livings — he beautified the church, and greatly improved the palace. His piety, though awfully strict, was inexpressibly amiable. It diffused such a sweetness through his temper, and such a be- nevolence over his countenance as none who were acquainted with him can ever forget. Bad nerves, bad health, and naturally bad spirits, were so totally subdued by it, that he not only seemed, but in reality was the happiest of men. He looked upon all that the world calls important, its pleasures, its riches, its various competitions, with a playful and good-humoured kind of contempt ; and could make persons ashamed of their follies, by a raillery that never gave pain to a human being, Of vice he always spoke with severity and detestation, but looked on the vicious with the tenderness of a pitying angel.' George Whitefield was ordained by Benson at Gloucester in 1 739. Z 2 34° Life and Letters of Berkeley, [ch. future author of the Wealth of Nations went to study there. And in the April of this very year, Edward Gibbon entered Magdalen College, to spend fourteen months, — according to his own account, c the most idle and unprofitable of his whole life.' Among the youths who sauntered in its beautiful gardens, during the winter in which Berkeley was in Holywell Street, might have been seen the future historian of the Roman Empire 8 . The following hitherto unpublished letter 9 from Berkeley's friend and episcopal neighbour. Dr. Jemmett Browne, Bishop of Cork and Ross, addressed to c the Lord Bishop of Cloyne at Oxford,' which he must have received soon after his arrival there, helps rather to relieve the faint vision we have of him in his English academic retreat, but we cannot now recover c honest George's' account of the journey from Cloyne: — My good Lord, Had not honest George given me first an account of your voyage, journey, and good health, I might have said I never received a letter which gave me more pleasure than the one you favoured me with ; tho' it was long coming, I suppose owing to the want of 3 or 4 pacquets. I doe most sincerely congratulate you on your having made your voyage and journey so easy 10 , and on the good health you enjoy, and that Mrs. Berkeley, Mrs. Juliana[?], and George are well and all happy together, and where you would be. I never doubted that the change of air, and gentle exercise, and a new scene would be of use to you ; and if you are provided with a convenient habitation I am sure you will meet with everything] at Oxford that may make it agreeable to you; tho' I must allow the loss of such a friend as the Bishop of Gloucester is scarce to be repaired — he is indeed a loss to the Church also. It is, however, I hope for your comfort that the worthy Bp. of Bristoll is so near you ; but I have not the pleasure of being known to him ; I can only judge of him from his writings and character, which raise him high in my esteem, and as a Christian Bishop I rejoiced at his promotion. He has highly honoured me by his favourable mention of me to you, 8 Gibbon's picture of Oxford in 1 752 — 53, in his Memoirs of his Life, is well known ; also Adam Smith's reference to Oxford, as it was in 1740 — 47, in the Wealth of Nations. 9 Berkeley Papers. Cf. note, p. 284, for an account of Bishop Jemmett Browne. 10 It appears, from the register of the weather in that year, that after the middle of August ' it became fair and clear,' and so continued till the 25th. IX.] Oxford. 341 and I should be oblidged to your Ldp. if you would present my best respects to him, and assure him of my regard for him. I alsoe pray you to present my compliments to Dr. Fanshaw 11 , if he is so happy as to be known to you. I have scarce stirred from home but to my Visitation at Ross since I saw you, and am not furnished with any news for you or the Ladies. I suppose it is none y i Lady Dorothy and Count Dubois were marryed lately in Shandon Church on a Sunday, and that they went off directly to the County of Wexford. I shall be ready to set out to confirm in the Diocese of Cloyne, as soon as Dr. Berkeley 12 has fixed the most convenient time and places ; the wheather has been so bad untill now that the roads were very deep, &c. I must again repeat it that I pray you may not spare to employ me in any duty in your Diocese that you may wish to have done, as I should chearfull contribute all in my power to prevent your absence being attended with any inconvenience to you. If you have looked into a late performance of Dr. Hodges, addressed to Dr. Conybeare, or hear a good account of it, I should be glad to know it, and would send for it ; from his treatise on Job I am inclined to think well of any performance of his 13 . I am sorry to be able to inform you that the Bp of C r . pushed to be our Metropolitan 14 , for I fear he would not have attempted it had he not had some powerfull support. My family, thanks to God, are all tolerably well except the chil .... and most sincerely wish you and yours well. I look well and am growing fat, but I sensibly feel that I am growing feeble. Should I ever come to debate about a jaunt to Bath or Spaws— my friends at Oxford would, I believe, determine me for going — for really I long to see you all. I pray you to present my sincere good wishes to Mrs. Berkeley, Miss Berke- ley, and honest George, and be assured, my good Lord, that I am Your Lordship's most affectionate brother and faithful servant, JEMMETT CORKE AND ROSS. Corke, Sept. 28, 1752. I had thought of enclosing this to B. of Bristoll but I cannot get a fk. 31 Then Regius Professor of Divinity, pre- viously of Greek, at Oxford. 12 The rector of Midleton, who was com- missioned to hold visitations during his brother's absence. 13 Walter Hodges, D.D., was Provost of Oriel (1727—51). In 1750 he published Elihu, or an Inquiry into the Book of Job, followed by The Christian Plan exhibited in the interpretation of Elohim, which was pub- lished at Oxford in March 1752, and is the work here referred to. Both books attracted some attention at the time, partly for their Hutchinsonianism. 14 Dr. Whitcombe, Bishop of Down and Connor, was in August 1752 made Arch- bishop of Cashel, in which province were Cork and Cloyne. 342 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. Berkeley was once more to address the world. In October 1 75^5 C A Miscellany containing several Tracts on various Subjects, by the Bishop of Cloyne,' was published simultaneously in London and Dublin. With one exception, the Miscellany was a reprint of works previously published 15 . But the old ardour was not extinguished. It contains also Further Thoughts on Tar Water, written probably during his last months at Cloyne ; and prefixed to the Miscellany is a copy of Latin verses addressed to him by an English prelate on that absorbing enthusiasm of his old age 16 . A third edition of Alclphron, of which I have given a minute account elsewhere 17 , was also published at this time. It is chiefly remarkable for its omission of those sections in the Seventh Dialogue which contains a defence of what has been called his 15 The contents of the Miscellany are as follows : — 1. Further Thoughts on Tar Water. 2. An Essay towards -preventing the Ruin of Great Britain. 3. A Discourse addressed to Magistrates and Men in authority, occasioned by the enormous licence and irreligion of the Times. 4. A Word to the Wise : or, an Exhorta- tion to the Roman Catholic Clergy of Ireland. 5. A Letter to the Roman Catholics of the Diocese of Cloyne. 6. Maxims concerning Patriotism. 7. The Querist: cofitaining Several Que- ries proposed to the consideration of the Public. 8. Verses by the Author on the Prospect of planting Arts and Learning in A merica. 9. A Proposal for the better supplying of Churches in our Foreign Plantations and for Converting the Savage Ame- ricans to Christianity, by a College to be erected in the Summer Islands, otherwise called the Isles of Bermuda. 10. A Sermon preached before the Incorpo- rated Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, at their anniversary meeting in the Parish Church of St. Mary-le-Bow, on Fri- day, February 18, 1 73^. 1 1. De Motu ; sive de Motus Principio et Nalura, et de causa Communicationis Motuum. The Miscellany has for its motto on the title-page — ' Modo me Thebis, modo ponit Athenis.' 16 This is an appreciative Latin ' Ode to the author of Siris, by the R. R. T. L. B. O. N.' [Rt. Rev. the Ld. Bp. of Norwich?— then Dr. Hayter] which also appeared in the Gentleman's Magazine in October 175-2, in English as well as in Latin. Here Berkeley is ranked with Hippocrates and Sydenham, Newton and Boyle, and addressed as one who — • like them displayed The laws which heaven, earth, air, and seas obeyed ; Hast taught what quickening flame, what active soul, Pervading Nati by Seeker's influence, he was presented to the celebrated vicarage of Bray, in Berkshire. The Bishop's widow, of whom one has so many good and pleasant associations with the recluse life in Rhode Island and at Cloyne, lived at Bray with her son for some years before and after his marriage, which took place in March 1761. The eccentric jealousy of the wife at last separated her from her son. She died at Langley in Kent on the 27th of May, 1786, in her eighty- sixth year 36 . The daughter Julia, who lived with her mother, probably survived her, but I have found no record of rjer death. She was not married. The Berkeleys at Bray had four children, two daughters who died in infancy, a son, George Monck, and another son, George Robert, who died in childhood, in 1775 37 . George Monck, the eldest son, born in 1763, was educated at Eton, and afterwards in Scotland, at the university of St. Andrew's, where he entered in 1782. From the Preface to the posthumous quarto volume which contains some of his poetical fragments gleanings have already been offered to the reader. His Literary Relics y as I formerly ex- plained, supply the best edition of his illustrious grandfather's correspondence with Thomas Prior. George Monck Berkeley died in January 1793. Archdeacon Rose, to whom future students of Berkeley .owe so much, has kindly contributed some additional particulars in the following Brief Memoir of George Berkeley, the Bishop's second and last surviving son. c It will be remembered that Bishop Berkeley, not long before his death, went to reside in Oxford. One of the inducements to this change of residence was a desire to superintend the education of 35 Brady's Records, vol. III. p. 119. 37 One of Monck Berkeley's Poems is an 36 See Europ. Mag. vol. IX. p. 470. Some Elegy on the death of this brother (pp. of her letters are among the Berkeley Papers. 165 — 78). IX.] The Family Dissolution. 357 his son George, who was born in London in September 1733, anc ^ was trained by his father at Cloyne till he was ready for the Uni- versity. He was admitted at Christ Church in 1752, where Bishop Conybeare, who was then Dean of Christ Church, conferred a Studentship upon him. The education of his children had been with the Bishop so sacred a duty, that he devoted himself to it with the utmost ardour, and having educated his son until he was of age to enter the University, he was desirous of continuing such superintendence over his studies, as the regulations of the University would permit. It happens that among the Berkeley Papers there is a long letter from the widow of the Bishop to her son, in which she recounts the great pains bestowed by the Bishop on this labour of love during the childhood and early youth of his son. The following passages are quoted from this address : — 1 " I sit down with the greatest pleasure to talk h cceur ouverte with my son upon every subject which shall present itself. The slight reflection you made on your dear father and my dear husband carried me back many years, and in all those years I saw infinite cause of gratitude from you and me to God for all his favors, and for all his crosses, which are disguised favors. How carefully was your infancy protected by your dear Father's skill and Mother's care. You were not for our ease trusted to mercenary hands : in childhood you were instructed by your father — he, though old and sickly, performed the constant, tedious task himself, and would not trust it to another's care. You were his business and his pleasure. Short-sighted people see no danger from common vulgar errors of education. He knew that fundamental errors were never cured, and that the first seasoning of the cask gives the flavor, and therefore he chose rather to prevent than cure. As much as possible he kept you with himself or else alone. He never raised your vanity, or your love for vanity, by prizing or mentioning the vanities of life (unless with the derision they deserve) — which we have all renounced in baptism, before you — such are Titles — Finery — Fashion — Money — Fame. His own temperance in regard to wine was a better lesson to you than forbidding it would have been. He made home pleasant by a variety of employments, conversa- tion, and company ; his instructive conversation was delicate, and when he spoke directly of religion (which was seldom) he did it in so masterly a manner, that it made a deep and lasting impression. You never heard him give his tongue the liberty of speaking evil. Never did he 35& Life and Letters of Berkeley. [en. reveal the fault or secret of a friend. Most people are tempted to detraction by envy, barrenness of conversation, spite and ill will. But as he saw no one his superior, or perhaps his equal, how could he envy any one? Besides, an universal knowledge of men, things, and books, pre- vented the greatest wit of his age from being at a loss for subjects of conversation ; but had he been as dull as he was bright, his conscience and good nature would have kept close the door of his lips, rather than to have opened them to vilify or lessen his brother. He was also pure in heart and speech ; no wit could season any kind of dirt to him, not even Swift's. Now he was not born to all this, no more than others are, but in his own words his industry was greater ; he struck a light at twelve to rise and study and pray, for he was very pious ; and his studies were no barren speculations, for he loved God and man, silenced and confuted Atheists, disguised as mathematicians and fine gentlemen. . . . His scheme for our Colonies and the World in general is not forgot before His eyes for whom it was undertaken. No man of the age was capable of projecting and bringing into execution such a design but himself — that it failed was not his fault. . . . Humility, tenderness, patience, generosity, charity to men's souls and bodies, was the sole end of all his projects, and the business of his life. In particular I never saw so tender and so amiable a father, or so patient and industrious a one ! Why were not you and Willy rotten before you were ripe, like Lord 's sons ? Because you had so wise, so good a father. It is true he took no care to purchase land for you; but where are Lord 's sons now, and what enjoyment have they of their great estates? . , . Exactness and care (in which consists economy) was the treasury upon which he drew for charity, generosity, munificence ; and exactness and care, regularity and order, prevented his ever having the temptation to be covetous, and surely it should be guarded against with strict care since ■ covetousness is idolatry.' Most people think with the wise, but act with the vulgar. Your father slighted the Que dira-i-on? &c.,&c." c Such was the education which George Berkeley received at Cloyne — and if this be a faithful picture of his father's care of his childhood and youth, we cannot wonder that when he was launched into the greater world of Oxford, that tender father was anxious to watch over his son during his University career. c After Mr. Berkeley had taken his degree of Master of Arts on the 26th of January, 1759, ne was presented to the Vicarage of East Garston, which is in the gift of the Society — and soon IX.] The Family Dissolution. 359 afterwards to the Vicarage of Bray. Mr. Berkeley, as a young man, formed an attachment to Miss Talbot, afterwards so well- known as the authoress of the admirable reflections on the Seven Days of the Week, often published by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. Although this attachment appears to have been reciprocal, some obstacles intervening, the engagement, if there was any positive engagement, was given up by mutual consent. Mr. Berkeley afterwards, in the year 1761, married Miss Eliza Frinsham 38 , daughter of the Rev. Henry Frinsham, Rector of White- Waltham, in Berkshire. From the period of this marriage, it ought to be mentioned that Miss Talbot never ceased to show the utmost kindness and friendship to Mrs. George Berkeley, who speaks of her as the kindest of all her friends 39 . Miss Frinsham appears to have been possessed of great personal charms and considerable abilities, but she was evidently very excitable. Eventually her eccentricity exceeded all bounds, and her writings exhibit traces of partial derangement. This cir- cumstance contributed very much to cloud the happiness of her home. A large mass of letters relate to the unhappy differences which arose from this cause; but as it can be of no possible interest to the world at large, this notice of the matter will suffice. It seems needful thus slightly to mention it, because it will serve to explain the strange statements which we occa- sionally meet with in her publications. She published in 1799 a volume of posthumous sermons, preached by her husband, with a most extraordinary preface ; and also, two years earlier, some poems of her son, to which she prefixed a Preface of nearly 700 quarto pages ! No one who reads it can doubt the partial de- rangement of mind of the writer 40 . 38 This lady was descended from Francis Cherry, Esq., of Shottesbrooke, in Kent. In ] 729 his daughter sent a picture of him, and a valuable collection of MSS to the Univer- sity of Oxford, which benefactions are ac- knowledged in a letter from Sam. Parker on behalf of the Vice-Chancellor, now in the Berkeley Collection, as well as the Vice- Chancellor's letter. 3 '-* Miss Catherine Talbot was the grand- daughter of Dr. Talbot, Bishop of Durham, who died in 1730. Seeker had been his chaplain, and was much indebted to the Talbot family for his preferment. He re- quited their kindness by adopting the widow and daughter of the Bishop's son, as mem- bers of his own family. They lived with him to the time of his death. Mrs. G. Berkeley, in the Preface to her son's Poems, speaks of her ' angelic friend,' Miss Catherine Talbot. Miss Talbot died in 1770. There is a charming letter from Miss Talbot to a new-born child, a daughter of Mr. John Talbot (son of Lord-Chancellor Talbot), in the Selections from the Gentleman's Maga- zine, vol. III. p. 25. 40 This volume is very rare. It is, as far as I can ascertain, not to be found either in 360 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. c It is well known that Miss Talbot and her mother were inmates of Lambeth Palace, during the Primacy of Archbishop Seeker, who was much attached to Bishop Berkeley, and remained always a very kind friend to his son, who held successively several benefices, besides a Prebendal Stall in Canterbury. He was Vicar of Bray, which he exchanged for Cookham, and Rector of St. Clement Danes, East Acton in Middlesex, and of Ticehurst in Sussex. He was also Chancellor of Brecknock, but in the later years of his life he appears to have been very far from rich. In February 1768, he took the degree of LL.D. c Dr. Berkeley was evidently much beloved by a large circle of friends, many of whom were persons of considerable distinction. Dr. Home, the President of Magdalen, and Dean of Canterbury, who in 1790 became Bishop of Norwich, was through life one of his most attached friends, as the numerous letters from that truly Christian Prelate, found among the Berkeley Papers, abun- dantly testify. Dr. Samuel Johnson in America, Dr. Glasse, Dr. Whi taker, Bishop Gleig, and others also among his friends, were well known as men of high attainments. Dr. Berkeley having passed some time at St. Andrew's and elsewhere in Scotland, took a deep interest in the Scottish Episcopal Church, and was in some degree instrumental in obtaining the removal of the restric- tions under which it laboured at that time. He had a long correspondence with Bishop Gleig on the subject, a large portion of which is still in the Berkeley Collection. Bishop Home also was much interested in the movement for the removal of the cruel restrictions, which were continued so long after the ne- cessity for them, if it ever existed, had altogether ceased. It appears also that it was very much through the influence of Dr. Berkeley that the Scottish Bishops were induced to conse- crate Dr. Seabury. The importance of that event to the Churches of England and America it would be difficult adequately to ex- press. Dr. Berkeley was evidently a man of considerable powers of mind, and of so amiable a disposition that he appears to have been universally popular. 'There is little to narrate connected with his life. The Memoir of his son, George Monck Berkeley, by the mother the Bodleian or the Cambridge University belonging to the Chapter Library at Can- Library. I am indebted to the kindness of terbury. Canon Robertson for the use of a copy, IX.] The Family Dissolution. 36 of the young man, 'contains many anecdotes about the father, showing his excellent qualities and his religious character. But there is little to record. Had he become illustrious by his published works, like Bishop Berkeley, the smallest fragment of his writings would have been worth publishing, because it would serve to illustrate the habits of thought which contributed to that eminence. But' his letters, though invested with a certain value from their liveliness and their good sense, do not contain sufficient matter of public interest to justify their publication. There are, however, some letters from Bishop Home addressed to him which deserve to be rescued from oblivion. It may be mentioned that a sermon by Dr. Berkeley, preached on Jan. 30, 1785, on The danger of Violent Innovations in the State, how specious soever the pretence, exemplified from the reigns of the two first Stuarts, went through six editions. The intimacy of Dr. Ber- keley with the Archbishop of Canterbury, and with the ladies who resided with his Grace at Lambeth, enabled him to put forward the claims of some deserving clergymen for preferment. Among these was the celebrated William Jones, of Nayland, who obtained Pluckley through his interest. A letter to Dr. Berkeley from Dr. Jemmett Brown, Bishop of Cork and Ross, in March 1768, begins pleasantly enough — "Dear Doctor, I wish, sincerely, I could substitute Lord for your new title," &c. c Dr. George Berkeley died on the 6th of January, 1795, two years after his son Monck, leaving his widow apparently in straitened circumstances.' This son, George, was the last of that branch of the Berkeley family in which the philanthropist and the philosophical world are most interested, and which we have now followed from its beginnings on the bank of the Nore till it disappears from this c shadowy scene.' The philosophy of Berkeley survives the family dissolution, as its permanent heritage to the world. To that philosophy I must now ask the reader to return, in order to contemplate as a whole, and in some lights in which it has not, I think, been sufficiently considered, what in the foregoing chap- ters has appeared only at intervals and in fragments. CHAPTER X. THE PHILOSOPHY OF BERKELEY. A. Berkeley's Neiv Question ^ and the Essence of his Answer to it. There is a discernible unity in the life of Berkeley. It may be traced in the chapters of his personal history, in his hitherto un- published thoughts, and in the three volumes which contain those of his purely philosophical, mixed, and miscellaneous writings which appeared when he was alive. The function of the material world in the universe of existence — the true meaning of unper- ceiving substance, identity, space, and force or power — employed his intellect and imagination from the beginning to the end. In- genious occupation with this problem is what gives character and strength to that beautiful and singular life. The immediate re- sult was, his own steadily sustained conception of what the reality of sensible things means; and his persistent, but strictly conse- quent, endeavour to confine the material world to the subordinate function in relation to Spirit or Mind which is implied in that conception. The remoter result has been that he inaugurated a new and second era in the intellectual revolution which Des Cartes set agoing. This Second Period in Modern Philosophy has been marked by the sceptical phenomenalism of Hume (now represented by Positivism) ; the Scotch psychology of Common Sense ; and the German critical and dialectical philosophy of Reason. Berkeley's belief about the sensible world was not a mere in- tellectual whim: we see this when we follow the story of his life. It was the issue of deep human interest and sympathy. Men had Philosophy of Berkeley. 363 suffered, and were suffering, he believed, from wrong ways of conceiving the manner in which the material world exists, and the powers which may reasonably be attributed by physical science to sensible things. He suspected that their manner of thinking about Matter was making them sceptical about everything; or, at any rate, that it was leaving them satisfied with the supposed powers of the world of sense, as a sufficient explanation of them- selves and of all that is. Materialists were making unperceived Matter supreme ; yet philosophers found it difficult to deduce its existence from what alone they allowed us to be able to perceive. Now, by substituting in people's thoughts — in room of an inde- finitely powerful Matter — the subordinate kind of material world, which he found given in sense and sanctioned by reason, the difficulty of proving its real existence would, he thought, be at once removed: spiritual life, above all, would have room to grow in, when Matter ceased to be regarded as the deepest thing in existence : and the physical sciences, too, might have freedom to enlarge themselves, without hindrance by restored faith, when it was demonstrated that no possible progress in the interpretation of sensible signs, could interfere with religion, whose roots are in the heart and conscience of man. Matter was apt to make philosophers sceptical about reality of every sort, because they had assumed it to be something the existence of which it was impossible to prove, and the nature of which it was impossible even to conceive. Yet without the acknowledged existence of a sensible world nothing external to the individual mind could be assured. Berkeley, accordingly, found Des Cartes, Malebranche, Locke, and other philosophers of the century in which he was born, trying, but with indifferent success, to verify the existence of Matter. And then he found even Locke suggesting that this same unperceived Matter may be the cause of consciousness. Hobbes, indeed, dogmatically asserted more than this, assuming, in his explanation of intelligent man, that the body accounted for the mind, and that Matter was the deepest thing in the universe. Spinoza too unfolded the divine system according to a geometrical, which seemed to be a materialistic, imagination of it ; and although the hypothesis which resolves the material world into unextended monads might place Leibnitz in a different category, it was an assumption almost as open to objection as that 364 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [gh. of the materialists, that a plurality of inconceivable forces is the constitutive essence of extended things. Again, a mathematical or spacial conception of what is real— in a word, atomism — was involving men, in that age of Newtonian discoveries, in the per- plexities of infinitesimals and the infinite, which all result from the supposition of an absolute quantity that is infinitely divisible. Metaphysicians were, by this means, able to raise a dust, and then complain that they could not see. And the unreflecting multitude were then as always apt to look for, and be satisfied with, ex- planations of things — including animal and even conscious life — that made Matter their sufficient cause. The material world was in short, in many ways, disturbing the balance or equilibrium of true belief, in the beginning of the eighteenth century; and it had always been doing so, more or less. A powerful hand was required to put it back into its proper place, and to confine it to its assigned function. This, his appro- priated office, was employment enough for Berkeley's hand, which was subtle — whatever may be said about its strength. Berkeley may be pictured as one trying in vain all his life to get a hearing for a New Question about space and the material world. His philosophical contemporaries, and their predecessors, had been busy offering evidence that unperceivable Matter really exists — in answer to supposed demands for such evidence; or in referring to this Universal Substance for the explanation of the perplexing phenomena of conscious life. He entreated them to address themselves to another task altogether; and also to sus- pend the assumption that the unperceiving world could explain everything, till they had made sure that it could really explain anything. Instead of offering doubtful evidence of the former, and also dogmatically taking the dynamical efficiency of Matter for granted, let us first ask, Berkeley in effect says, what the words existence^ reality^ externality^ and cause mean, when they are affirmed of sensible objects 1 . Perhaps we shall then find that 1 Cf. Principles of Human Knowledge, sect. 89 ; also passages in the Commonplace Book. This is metaphysics, or the specu- lation of Being. Berkeley's Principles is his juvenile metaphysics — in the form of a specu- lation as to what the concrete world, revealed in the phenomena presented to the senses, necessarily is. It is an attempt to translate the abstract Being of the old ontologists into concrete fact, and then to describe the fact. X.] PJiilosophy of Berkeley. 3 6 5 the only reality these can have is a reality that does not need proof; and that their only possible externality is not an incon- ceivable—even contradictory — externality, but one easy to be conceived and believed in. Instead of trying to show that Matter is the cause of this or of that, he invites us to inquire what physical causality means, and in what respect, or to what extent, anything unconscious and involuntary can be the cause of any- thing at all. Perhaps if we do so we shall find that the actual material world cannot contain any power or causality; that the so-called relations of causation, discovered in physical science to belong to sensible things, are examples of another sort of relation altogether, and not of efficient or proper causation. Berkeley's life-long labour as a philosopher was, in short, an endeavour to get the previous question put in place of the pre- valent question, and the prevalent assumption about Matter. He wanted to induce men to settle what the substantial existence of the sensible world could in reason amount to — not to prove its substantiality, which (in a conventional meaning of c substance') no sane person could doubt. He wanted to settle the meaning of physical power — not to prove the causality of visible and tangible things, which too (in a conventional meaning of c cause ') could as little be doubted. His historical position in philosophy is, I think, not intelligible to those who overlook the fact that his speculative life (whether he was fully aware of this himself or not) was an endeavour thus to change the question about the unconscious world with which modern philosophy had busied itself. The result of the change would be, to make metaphysics not the demonstrator of the existence of the real things of sense — which do not need to be demonstrated ; nor the expositor of their so-called effects — which the physical sciences undertake to interpret ; but to make it the analyst of the meaning of reality, and the meaning of causality, when reality is affirmed of sensible things by everybody, and causality especially by men of science. Find what physical causality and physical substantiality can reasonably mean ; answer first this new question : — this is his constant prayer. His promise is that, when we shall have done this, we shall find that there is no need to press the old demand for evidence of the existence of such a substance as physical sub- stance can be proved to be ; and that there is no room for the old 366 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. assumptions about the powers of bodies when physical science is confined by iron reasoning to the merely physical sort of causality. Such existence, reality, substantiality, and causality as the actual world of the senses can be shown to be capable of having, that^ he assumes, beyond all possibility of scepticism, the unperceiving world has : but that, no doubt, turns out to be a modest, restricted, dependent, sort of reality; and as for the causality, it turns out to be, not efficient, but a divinely effected constancy of sensible order, or a divinely effected growth of vital organism. Berkeley, in short, moved modern thought by changing its question, and manner of thinking, about Matter — by withdrawing philosophy from the attempt to show that Matter exists, although it is unperceived by us in the senses, and from the dogmatic as- sumption that Matter operates, to a metaphysical analysis of what unperceiving or unconscious reality and causality can amount to or involve -. The new question and method of thought of Berkeley was pushed further in the new direction by Hume, who sought, as it were, to paralyse and humiliate the entire Divine Universe {to ttclv), on principles partly similar to those applied by Berkeley to paralyse and humiliate the solid and extended universe. Hume, as it happened, was moved to speculate by Berkeley, traces of whom appear all through his metaphysical writings. But in Berkeley's method Hume read scepticism: he says that most of Berkeley's writings c form the best lessons of scepticism which are to be found either among the ancient or modern philosophers, Bayle not excepted,' because c they admit of no answer and pro- duce no conviction V 2 Berkeley's philosophy, in its most com- prehensive aspect — increasingly in its later developments in Alciphron and Siris — is a philosophy of the causation that is in the universe, rather than a philosophy of the mere material world. It is the reasoned ex- pression of an assumed intuition of the effi- ciency of Mind — of which the very essence is conscious acting — as the only real cause of what appears in dead and living Nature. It must be remembered the word ' cause ' is ambiguous. Aristotle's four causes agree in being four sorts of conditions of change, viz. a previously unformed Matter ; a Form or Law according to which it evolves ; the efficient Act itself ; and the End contemplated in the act. The three last are involved in Berkeley's causation proper. His ' cause ' unites the three last, and dispenses with the first, resolving it into sensible pheno- mena. As to the first — Matter, or Material Cause — cf. Siris, sect. 311 — 18, with my notes, and the references to Aristotle's v\r), and Plato's to direipov, and to erepov, in which Berkeley's doctrine about Matter is compared with these dark negations. 3 Hume's Essays, vol. II. Note N. Hume's reversal of Berkeley's intended function is X.] Philosophy of Berkeley. 367 The antithesis of Hume and Berkeley is the turning-point of modern thought. They are at opposite poles regarding the curious. The Scotch psychologists of last century who followed him — admirable in so many other respects, never got fairly in sight of Berkeley's New Question. Ac- cordingly, they can hardly be said to accept or to reject his answer. Their op- position is based on an ignora'.io elenchi. Take the following unintentional caricature of Berkeley's results by Beattie, one of the most eminent of them : — ' A great philo- sopher has actually demonstrated, we are told — that Matter does not exist. Truly this is a piece of strange information. At this rate any falsehood may be proved to be true, and any truth to be false. For it is impossible that any truth should be more evident to me than this — that Matter does exist. . . . Till the frame of my nature be unhinged, and a new set of faculties given to me, I cannot believe this strange doctrine, because it is perfectly incredible. But if I were permitted to propose one clownish question, I would fain ask — Where is the harm of my continuing in my old opinion, and believing, with the rest of the world, that I am not the only created being in the universe, but that there are many others, whose existence is as independent on me as mine is on them ? Where is the harm of my believing that if I were to fall down yonder precipice and break my neck, I should be no more a man of this world ? My neck, sir, may be an idea to you, but to me it is a reality, and an important one too. Where is the harm of my believing that if, in this severe weather, I were to neglect to throw (what you call) the idea of a coat over the ideas of my shoulders, the idea of cold would produce the idea of such pain and disorder as might possibly terminate in real death ? What great offence shall I commit against God or man, church or state, philosophy or common sense, if I con- tinue to believe that material food will nourish me, though the idea of it will not; that the real sun will warm and enlighten me, though the liveliest idea of him will do neither ; and that if I would obtain true peace of mind and self-approbation, I must form not only ideas of compassion, justice, and generosity, but also really exert these virtues in external performance? What harm is there ; n all this ? . . . I never heard of any doctrine more scandalously absurd than this of the non-existence of Matter. There is not a fiction in the Persian Tales that I would not as easily believe ; the silliest conceit of the most contemptible superstition that ever disgraced human nature is not more shocking to common sense. . . . If a man professing this doctrine act like other men in the common affairs of life, I will not believe his profession to be sincere. * But if a man be convinced that Matter has no existence, and believe this strange tenet as steadily as I believe the contrary, he will have, I am afraid, but little reason to applaud himself in this new acquisition in science. If he fall down a precipice, or be trampled under foot by horses, it will avail him little that he once had the honour to be a disciple of Berkeley, and to believe that those dangerous objects are nothing but ideas in his mind . . . What if all men were in one instant deprived of their understanding by Almighty Power, and made to believe that Matter has no existence but as an idea in the mind ? Doubtless this catastrophe would, according to our metaphysicians, throw a wonderful light on all the parts of know- ledge. But of this I am certain, that in less than a month after there could not, without another miracle, be one human creature alive on the face of the earth. . . . This candle it seems hath not one of those qualities it appears to have : it is not white, nor luminous, nor round, nor divisible, nor extended ; for to an idea of the mind not one of these qualities can possibly belong. How then shall I know what it really is ? From what it seems to be, I can conclude nothing ; no more than a blind man, by handling a bit of black wax, can judge of the colour of snow, or the visible appearance of the starry heavens. The candle may be an Egyptian pyramid, or the king of Prussia, a mad dog, or nothing at all, for anything I know, or can ever know to the contrary — except you allow me to judge of its nature from its appearance ; which, however, I cannot reasonably do, if its appearance and nature are in every respect so different and unlike as not to have one single quality in common. I must therefore believe it to be, what it appears to be, a real, corporeal, external object — and so reject Berkeley's system. . . . This system leads to Atheism and universal scepticism Suppose it universally and seriously adopted ; suppose all men divested of all belief and conse- quently of all principle: would not the disso- lution of society, and the destruction of mankind, ensue? It is a doctrine according to which a man could not act nor 368 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. efficient causality in the universe, which to both is the central thought — with Berkeley the Great Concrete Reality, with Hume the greatest human illusion. Now, is Berkeley's principle for the paralysis of the sensible world applicable also to all existence ? Hume raises this question. Hume and Positivism dissubstantiate spirits, and deny free activity to mind, as well as to solid and extended things, and so paralyse the higher life altogether — as far as it depends upon philosophy. Is there a rational obstacle to this result } and if so, -what is it ? That is the one question for the mo- dern spiritual thinker to answer. Berkeley hardly looks at his own problem in this extensive light. Hume's universal paralysis afterwards induced a reconsideration and critical analysis of reality and causality — universally or abso- lutely, not merely, as with Berkeley, in their sensible or physical relations. It is exactly this reconsideration and analysis which is due to Kant and his successors in Germany. Kant indeed disowns Berkeley as a subjective Idealist, who reduced space and the contents of space to the workings of imagination 4 . But it must not be forgotten that it was Berkeley who virtually made modern philosophy critically analytic of the necessities and uni- versal of Being, rather than alternately sceptical or dogmatic, as it had been, about the reality and causality of unperceivable Matter. For, the Germans, roused by the greater thoroughness and comprehensiveness of the question which Hume entertained — partly at the suggestion of Berkeley; and also by Hume's own reason in the common affairs of life without incurring the charge of insanity and folly, and involving himself in distress and per- dition. . . . From beginning to end it is all a mystery of falsehood, arising from the use of ambiguous words, and from the gratuitous admission of principles which could never have been admitted, if they had been thoroughly understood.' (Essay on Truth, vol. I. pp. 242 — 260.) This is of a piece with other professed representations and re- futations of the new conception of what sensible reality is, metaphysically considered, which were in vogue in last century. When the English Samuel Johnson wanted to refute Berkeley, his refutation consisted in striking his foot with characteristic force against a stone. With the witty Voltaire ten thou- sand cannon balls, and ten thousand dead men, were ten thousand ideas, according to Berkeley. There is as much subtlety of thought, and more humour, in the Irish story of Berkeley's visit to Swift on a rainy day, when, by the Dean's orders, he was left to stand before the unopened door, because, if his philosophy was true, he could as easily enter with the door shut as open. * Kritik d.r. Vernunft — 1 Widerlegnng des Idealismus' — Berkeley refers to the presumed constant activity of the supreme efficient Cause or Mind for the explanation of the permanence of sensible things, and of their validity for all sentient intelligence. He does not require for this a presupposi- tion of space. With Kant, and perhaps Hegel, space is an absolute intuition, and experience necessarily presupposes its real existence, in three dimensions, as the con- dition of externality — or other-than-self. X.] Philosophy of Berkeley. 3^9 disintegration of all absolute and universal knowledge into habits blindly induced in subjective association — by the unintelligible customs of the universe, have sought, in fresh analysis, to find Intelligibility instead of blind Custom at the bottom of things. Now Berkeley's change of front was the beginning of all this. It put him logically, as he almost is chronologically, in the centre of modern speculation. This change of front cannot be too much pondered. There is evidence that he himself was not wholly un- conscious of it, and of its great significance. Berkeley's philosophy, I repeat, was for him, and indeed is for science still, no mere speculative crotchet. There is an earnest human interest that animates his constant struggle to analyse Per- manence, Power, and Extension in the unperceiving world. He does not want to show that Matter is unsubstantial, and that it cannot be the cause of anything — far from this. No sane person can doubt its reality, or its being in some sense a cause. To discuss that would be to discuss a frivolous question. But if people ask — In what meaning of the word existence the sensible world may be said to exist; and in what meaning of the word cause it may be said to be a cause ? that question — in his view above all other questions — deserves serious discussion: the true answer to it makes Scepticism and Materialism appear in a new light. For, the Berkeleian philosophy is, in its conception if not in its execution, a reasoned exposition of the dependent and rela- tive character of the reality and causality of the material world. An outline of Berkeley's process for thus keeping the material world in its reasonable place, in the thoughts and beliefs of men, may be sufficiently condensed to be taken in almost by a single intellectual grasp. To be practically understood, however, it must be applied habitually, but one may unfold it, and also some of what it involves, in some such way as this: — Take experience as it is given to us in our senses. It is com- posed of sensations^ ideas^ or phenomena^ as Berkeley indifferently calls them — c facts of which there is a perception or consciousness,' in the language of our own time 5 . We may even, with Berkeley, call these sense-given phenomena 'sensations.' 6 The little word idea (and it may be sation and phenomenon — for Berkeley may added the so far synonymous terms, sen- be called a Sensationalist, or a Phenomena- VOL. IV. B b 370 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. Now reflect upon the so-called sensations. They are very various : they are of different colours, shapes, and sizes : they are hard or soft : their varieties of taste, smell, and sound are indefi- nitely numerous. But nothing sensible that is out of sensation can be perceived or imagined. An abstract sensation — that is, an abstract phenomenon, or (in Berkeley's language) an abstract idea — is a contradiction in terms. Withdraw all that is concrete, and you have — not a physical reality, but — Nothing ; not the thought of Nothing even, which is something, but the absolute paralysis of all thought. And all experience of sensible things is a constant illustration of the essentially sensation material of which they are made up. Reason and experience alike forbid us to go deeper than large or small, hard or soft, green or red, or otherwise coloured and extended, sensations, in our experimental search into what physical reality means — when we affirm it of the material world. Abstract, unperceivable Matter is a mere hypothesis, and an un- thinkable hypothesis too. The inconceivable supposition of a sensible thing existing out of sensation, or in unperceived abstrac- tion, would be a petitio pr'mcipii 6 if it were conceivable. This is list, as well as an Idealist) has been a for- midable obstruction to the intelligibility of this philosopher. With him it means both percept and image — not pure notion of the understanding. And it is with ideas as actual sensation-perceptions that we have to do exclusively, when we are told by him that the sensible world is composed of ideas. Simply to recollect what he means by idea is almost to realize his concep- tion of the universe. When ordinary people are told that idea is the stuff or matter of which, according to Berkeley, the real things of the sensible world are composed, they are apt to take this for an assertion that what we call seeing and touching is only fancying ; and that what is seen and touched is to be regarded as a mere sub- jective or private dream of the person's own mind who has the ideas — that it can have no extension or solidity or permanence. Now, Berkeley's ideas include hard and ex- tended facts, and are not mere fancies of which we are conscious. He calls them ideas because he sees it to be self-evident that facts cannot exist positively without a mind to be percipient of them. Nor are we, on the other hand, to think of Berkeley's ideas, or phenomena perceived in sense, as independent entities which circulate among finite spirits : their actual or intelligible existence consists in being the matter of the experience of a conscious mind — a sui generis sort of dependent existence. But no doubt his language is vacillating. 6 The petitio principii is put the other way by the learned Ueberweg, in his notes (e. g. 8, io, 28, and 90) to his excellent German translation of Berkeley's Principles, where he complains that Berkeley has as- sumed what he was bound to prove, when he assumes that a thing is only an aggregate of sensations ; and where he also complains that Berkeley reverses the common-sense meaning of words, which, literally taken, imply that he is a Subjective Idealist, or rather an Egoist. But if sense-symbolism, truly understood, affords the only basis of objectivity which is consistent with the es- sential transitoriness of the sensible world, is not the affirmation of an abstract unity rather than its negation what requires proof? Berkeley professes to keep to ex- perience, and to analyse what is involved in that. Again, as the common-sense mean- ings of ordinary words are not the result of critical reflection, must not their meaning inevitably be modified when the reflective philosopher breathes fresh life into them ? X.] Philosophy of Berkeley. 37 1 Berkeley's argument in his early works, but it does not reappear in Siris — which is remarkable. The stuff or material of which sensible things are composed is thus — sensation or sense-given phenomenon. Now, what does this Berkeleian sensation involve ? Berkeley is hardly articulate enough here, and the reader is apt to suppose that he intends to say that externality means only sensation, when his reason- ing abolishes, as it does, the dangerous distinction between the sensible existence of the material world, and its abstract existence. A mere sensation, I think he would grant, is, for several reasons, as impossible as abstract Matter. Sensations, in the first place, imply a percipient, distinguishable from the sensations. There must be a percipient, for there is no evidence that an unperceived sensation or sense-phenomenon ex- ists ; and besides its existence is unintelligible. But, I who per- ceive am not my own sensations. I am conscious that I am a permanent, active being, different from, and independent of, the changing tastes, smells, colours, sounds, and coloured or resistant extents, which form my transitory sense-given phenomena. The unique term f I ' is as defensible and significant as any of the words that express sensations. This consciousness of my own permanence, amid the changes in my senses, is the only archetype, in my experience, of proper substance or permanence ; and, apart from this experience, permanence or substance is an unintelligible word. Now, there is no conscious or other evidence of any cor- responding permanence among sensations. Their so-called sub- stance must therefore mean what is essentially different from this proper substance. The cause of one's sensations, in the second place, must be a personal efficiency that is different from the personal efficiency of which one is conscious when he does anything for which he is convinced that he is responsible. All that is within the range of my responsible activity is mine. Sensations, or sense- given phenomena, as given, are not within that range. Therefore, for this reason too, they are not attributable to the percipient, but distinguishable from the percipient, and the percipient from them. On the one hand, they are not caused by the percipient : on the b b 2 372 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. other hand, they have no proper efficiency in themselves. We do not and cannot conceive a sensation to be responsible for any of its own changes, or for any of the changes in other sensations with which it is invariably connected. Their relation as separate sensations to changes among themselves must be of a different sort from the causality which, because it intelligently creates or originates its own effects, involves responsibility, or a causal reference to self. Both these conditions of the existence of sensations Berkeley enforces as, to all intents, what we now call necessary truths — held by him, however, more as concrete facts than as abstract principles But is this all? Shall I say that the material world means only a chaos of passive, but actual, sensations, perceived at once to be mine — because they need me to be sentient of them — and yet not mine — because not caused by my will or proper personality? Shall I say that material substances and causes resolve into this, and can mean no more than this? Only confusion of thought could reconcile this inadequate con- ception of the sensible world with common sense and experience, or indeed with the necessities of thought. A tree, or a river, or a planet, means more than one actually perceived sensation, and more even than a casual collection of actually perceived sensations. The familiar phenomena of seemingly unperceived and insentient growth or change in the sensible world, in historic or prehistoric ages, contradict the supposition of this planet, for instance, or anything it contains, being dependent on the accidents of finite percipiency. Berkeley was not blind to this, though I am not sure that he dis- cerned all that it implies. Let us consider what we mean when we say that a sensible thing involves more than the actual exist- ence of what Berkeley calls sensations. A mere sensation or phenomenon is an absurdity, and cannot 7 For the former, see the Principles pas- sim, regarding the correlativity of sensations, or sense-given phenomena, and percipient mind ; also the third of the Dialogues (ed. 1734), where he maintains that 1 1 know or am conscious of my own being, and that I am not my ideas, but somewhat else.' For the latter, see the many passages in which sen- sation is contrasted with volition. Existence in a dependent relation to the intelligence of a personal consciousness, seems quite consis- tent with the voluntary or proper personality of that conscious person — a personality which objectifies what is known to be ex- ternal to its own proper or voluntary action. X.] Philosophy of Berkeley. 373 explain anything. For, sensations imply perception, or a know- ledge of them as at once mine and not mine : they are dependent on me, for they cannot exist, as I now have them, without me to be sentient of them ; they are independent of me, for I am per- manent while they are transitory, and their changes are inde- pendent of my will. The intuitive apprehension of all this is immediate and original perception — in which we have the germ or embryo of what is meant by sensible things being real. In this perception, the permanent c I ' is in antithesis with the transient sensations • and the free responsible l P is in antithesis with the external cause that is responsible for them. All this, however, does not exhaust the meaning of reality and causality, when these predicates are applied to sensible things. The material world is not a merely irregular coexistence or succes- sion of perceived sensations. Actual sensations, with their involved perceptions, are intermittent. They are not nearly coextensive with what is meant by a c sensible thing.' The tree that is seen at a distance exists in the actual sense-perceptions of the person who is looking at it only in a very small degree; for it is then un- touched, and the other phenomena or qualities which constitute our notion of it are not then consciously experienced in actual sensation. Even when it is touched, it is only touched in part. Now, its unperceived qualities are not non-existent, when there is no actual sense-perception of them. If they are, the greater part of what I mean by the tree must be not real, even at the moment when I am looking at the tree. All visible things must, on this absurd supposition, go out of existence when they are left in the dark; and all tangible ones when no percipient being is in actual contact with them 8 . The material world could not have existed millions of ages before men and other sentient beings, if this is all that its existence can mean. When we say that the material world is real, we conceivably may, and certainly do, mean much more than that it is a chaos of actually perceived sensations, which are at once dependent on, and independent of, the mind that is percipient of them. This introduces us to a modification of the new conception of 8 Esse being percipi, even with Berkeley, includes more than this ' absurd supposition.' 374 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. sensible things, that one only partly recognises in Berkeley's own thought. Yet it is of the last importance. I shall try to explain it, and glance at what seems his defect, at his own point of view. Actual sensations may conceivably be, and are, signs of sensa- tions that are past, and thus not now actual; and also signs of future sensations that are expected, but not yet actual. Further, there is nothing inconceivable, because nothing of what Berkeley calls c abstract,' in the supposition of present concrete sensations being signs of other conscious and active minds, as well as of past or future sensations of one's own, similar to those one is actually having and has had. My own consciousness of my per- manence and of my free activity enables me to conceive another and similar permanence and agency that is not my own : my past sensations enable me to imagine similar sensations experienced in the past or the future — by myself or others. These ingredients — unlike the unintelligible negation of unperceivable Matter — may legitimately be introduced into the positive conception of real external existence. And they go to reconcile the intermittence of actual sensations with the presumed permanence of the things of sense. The actual sensations in which the material world is given are inevitably believed to be significant of co-existences and suc- cessions that are not at the time given in the actual sense- consciousness of the believer. Relations which are believed to be invariable or universal are thus assumed to pervade the world of actual sense 9 . One actual sensation, or group of sensations is the universal mark of other sensations or groups of sensation that are not at the time actual. This relation of sensible sign and its cor- relative, Berkeley would say, is the only imaginable meaning of substantiality or causality, when they are attributed to essentially dependent and passive phenomena like those of sense. Further still, these practically all important relations of co-exist- ence and succession among perceived sensations are, a priori, at this point of view, arbitrary. That is to say, there is no uncreated or Divine necessity for their being what we find them to be. Any sensation, or group of sensations, may be the constant or universal sign of any other. A priori, anything might be the physical co- 9 This belief in the orderliness, law, mon sense of the philosopher. Inductive or thought expressed in Nature is in- methods are attempts to harmonize our volved in the common sense of all, and is human thoughts with those objective reflectively recognised in the reasoned com- thoughts. x.] Philosophy of Berkeley. 375 constituent, and physical cause of anything; for physical substance and causality are only the arbitrarily constituted signification of actual sensations. Thus, the only conceivable and practical, and for us the only possible, substantiality in the material world is — permanence of co-existence or aggregation among sensations ; and the only con- ceivable and practical, and for us the only possible, causality among phenomena is— permanence or invariableness among their successions. These two are almost (but not quite) one. The actual or conscious co-existence of all the sensations which constitute a particular tree, or a particular mountain, cannot be simultaneously realized. A few co-existing visible signs, for instance, lead us to expect that the many other sensations of which the tree is the virtual co-constituent would gradually be perceived by us, if the conditions for our having actual sensations of all the other qua- lities were fulfilled. The substantiality and causality of matter thus resolve into a Universal Sense-symbolism, the interpretation of which is the office of physical science. The material world is a system of interpretable signs, dependent for its actual existence in sense upon the sentient mind of the interpreter: but significant of guaranteed pains and pleasures, and the guaranteed means of avoiding and attaining pains and pleasures : significant too of other minds, and their thoughts, feelings, and volitions ; and significant above all of Supreme Mind, through whose Activity the signs are sustained, and whose Archetypal Ideas are the source of those universal or invariable relations of theirs which make them both practically and scientifically significant or objective. The per- manence and efficiency attributed to Matter is in God — in the constitutive Universals of Supreme Mind: sensations or sense- given phenomena themselves, and sensible things, so far as they consist of sensations, can be neither permanent nor efficient : they are in constant flux. This indeed is from the beginning the tone of Berkeley himself — much deepened in Szris 10 . 10 See the antithesis of Sense and Reason ancients, and some of the most enlightened in Siris, Sect. 303 — 310. This recalls the among the moderns, as well as the Hindoo idealism of the ancient Hindoos, of which philosophers, to believe that the whole Sir W. Jones has said that the difficulties creation was rather an energy than a work, attending the vulgar notion of material sub- which the Infinite Mind, who is present at stances induced many of the wisest among the all times and in all places, exhibits to his 376 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. Thus sensible things are in perpetual flux or succession 11 ; yet it is a flux or succession so ordered that our transitory, immediately perceived, sensations signify steady relations among sensations, which are apprehensible by the understanding in physical reason- ing. The material world — its .substance or permanence, its powers, and its space — resolve themselves into a flux of beautifully signi- ficant sensations, sense-ideas, or sense-phenomena, which are perpetually sustained in existence by a Divine Reason and Will. It is so that the Berkeleian Conception reconciles Plato with Protagoras. Do critics object to this sublime thought of what the material world means — that it may be, and indeed has been, superseded by the march of modern physical discovery ? If they do, they show their own ignorance of the essence of the answer to the New Question, or else of what physical research aims at. Physical science professes only to add to our knowledge of what sensible phenomena are the signs of what other sensible pheno- mena. It can never convert the symbolism which forms its own exclusive province into efficient causality. The progress of phy- sical science is progress in the interpretation of sense-given signs. It can have no tendency — however far it may be carried — towards anything different in kind from this. The implied principle of Berkeley — that there can be nothing below real and significant sensations, except conscious mind; and that this must be per- petually below them, as the condition of their existence, and of their significance or objectivity — leaves indefinite room for all possible discovery of scientific fact and law. Faith and science, under this conception, cannot come into collision : each works in a different region. Human and other animal life, for instance, may even be developed from inorganic conditions, consistently with Intel- ligence being the deepest thing in existence — if physical evidence can be found to prove this law of development. The proof can only show that such is the Archetypal Idea of the beginning of creatures as a set of perceptions, like a wonderful picture, or a piece of music, always varied, yet always uniform. But this ' sublime idealism ' omits elements which are at least latent in Berkeley, and exaggerates others which are not latent. Jl Havra ptl, as the old philosophers said — a formula variously interpreted, but which aptly expresses the experienced intermit- tence of the actual phenomena given in the senses, in contrast with the steady objectivity of their relations, under the formal and effi- cient agency of Supreme Intelligence that is recognised in Platonism. X.] Philosophy of Berkeley. 377 human conscious life, in its relation to the sensible system. Mr. Darwin and Mr. Huxley, and the German physiologists have room to move in, sufficient for reaching all that physical science can accomplish. May not this arbitrary sense symbolism even have been without a beginning — interpretable, and more or less interpreted by finite minds — but with co-eternal Intelligence for its correlative and constant motive force ? Again. Is there anything in the necessary dependence of per- ceived sensations upon sentient mind which unfits them for being signs to the individual percipient of the existence of other perci- pient spirits, as well as of other perceived sensations ? Rather, does not this very dependence make them more fit than a supposed abstract or independent Matter could do to discharge the repre- sentative or symbolical function ? It is assumed then that sense-given phenomena — the sensations or real ideas of Berkeley — are capable of representing other (sen- tient or non-sentient) spirits, and their conscious acts and sensa- tions; as well as of representing other (past or future) sensations of our own. One's present visual experience, for instance, may represent, by its arbitrary symbolism, one's own, or some other person's, tactual sensations. This is an intelligible sort of externality. And indeed can any other sort of externality be conceived than either- — externality to our own present sense ex- perience, in our now unactual past or future sense experience; or, externality to our own personal experience altogether, in the contemporaneous, as well as in the past or future, sense experi- ence of other minds? One or other of these two kinds of ex- ternality is what we every day have to do with in fact. Actual sensations are every moment signifying to us other sensations that are not actual, but that, under certain conditions, would become actual. Actual sensations are not themselves equivalent to actual sensible things. They are only the representative signs of actual sensible things ; or (to put it otherwise) they are the signs of the relations which constitute actual things. The things would become perceived sensation, if all that the actual sensations really sig- nify could be simultaneously converted into this, in any conscious experience. Sensible things then — trees, houses, mountains, our own bodies, and those of other people ; in a word, the c whole choir of heaven 378 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. and furniture of earth' — relatively to the individual percipient — consist at once of actually presented and of merely represented sensations — the second element involving arbitrary or contingent relations, and, thus far, universality or objectivity. Yet this seems to give only a contingent and terminable universality or reality to the Supreme Intelligence in the uni- verse. For, according to Berkeley, the passive nature of sen- sation implies — if our common-sense trust in the permanence of sensible things may be yielded to — the constant activity of Supreme Intending Mind, presenting the actual sensations; and capable of making actual, where the established conditions are realized, the merely represented sensations. This Divine Power must be constant, and (though Berkeley is here doubtful in mean- ing) must constantly work according to the Archetypal Ideas of formal causation, if the order which constitutes sensible things is permanent. The existence of this Power is, accordingly, only as certain as the permanence of the sensible world is certain. This was Berkeley's way of showing that God exists — of demonstrating the necessity or universality of Mind — at least it was his way in the early part of his life. But the revelation of the existence of Supreme Mind or Power, which is given in the intermittent existence of sensible things in sentient creatures, seems, at best, evidence of the existence of Deity only so long as this universe of actual and guaranteed sensation lasts. It does not show the inherent absoluteness, universality, and necessity of Mind. The Supreme Mind only covers the gaps in the continuity of an intermittent, and on the whole finite, sensible Cosmos. It has in this respect the same defect that the common evidence for Deity in the natural universe has. It is co-existensive only with the permanence of the present sensible system. This still leaves room for Hume's conception of the universe (both the perceived and the perceiving) being, as a whole, only a unique or c singular effect' — which may excite the sense of mystery, but which can never be resolved in human intelligence. Berkeley, at least in his early philosophy, shows, I think, an inadequate apprehension of the difference between the ignorant imaginings of men and their guaranteed imaginings. He confuses the account of sensible things, into which I have thus far tried to X.] Philosophy of Berkeley. 379 develope his philosophy, by seeming to put the mere fancies of human imagination on a par with the Archetypal Ideas of Supreme Mind, as a support for sensible things in our absence, i. e. when they are unactual sensations. Take, for instance, the following passage, in the Common-place Book:— ' You ask me whether the books are in the study now, when no one is there to see them ? I answer, Yes. You ask me are we not in the wrong in imagining things to exist when they are not actually perceived in the senses? I answer, No. The existence of our ideas consists in being perceived, imagined, thought on. Whenever they are imagined, or thought on, they do exist. Whenever they are mentioned or discoursed of, they are imagined or thought on. Therefore, you can at no time ask me, whether they exist or no, but, by reason of that very question, they must necessarily exist. But, say you, then a chimera does exist. I answer, it doth in one sense, i. e. it is imagined. But it must be well noted that existence is vulgarly restrained to actual perception, and that I use the word perception in a larger sense than ordinary/ Now it is true that whatever we are conscious of (even in an arbitrary imagination) exists, but it has not necessarily a guaranteed sensible or external existence. Now, it is the mean- ing of this existence that we want to analyse. Or take the following from the Principles of Human Knowledge: — ' But, say you, surely there is nothing easier than to imagine trees, for instance, in a park, or books existing in a closet, and nobody by to perceive them. I answer, You may so ; there is no difficulty in it : but what is all this, I beseech you, more than framing in your mind certain ideas which you call books and trees, and at the same time omitting to frame the idea of any one that may perceive them ? But do not you your- self perceive or think of them all the while. This therefore is nothing to the purpose : it only shows you have the power of imagining, or forming ideas, in your mind; but it doth not show that you can conceive it possible the objects of your thought may exist without the mind : to make out this, it is necessary that you conceive them existing uncon- ceived or unthought of, which is a manifest repugnancy.' All this confuses our notion of the difference between existence in guaranteed, and existence in unguaranteed image or represen- tation. One does not prolong the real or sense-given existence 380 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. of books in a closet, or of the furniture in a room, by arbitrarily imagining these things to exist when one is away. My fancy that they exist gives them merely a fanciful existence, unless there is a guarantee, independently of my private fancy, that they would re-appear as sense phenomena when I shall have fulfilled the necessary conditions, e. g. by walking into the room and seeing them. I cannot, merely by an act of my finite imagination, flash back into real, that is to say, sensibly perceived, existence what has been withdrawn from my senses. I can give it only an unreal or imaginary existence. The Supreme Thoughts and Ends in the universe alone give it reality, and enable now perceived sensations to stand guarantee for the past or future actual existence of imagined sensations. Berkeley himself, no doubt, lays great stress on some of the differences between our experience of the real ideas (i.e. sensa- tions) of perception proper, and the unreal ideas of the mere human imagination — which last, he says, c are more properly termed ideas or images 12 .' If the significant phenomena of which sensible things are com- posed are thus perceived-sensation, or sense-idea, it becomes important to ponder on many sides the consistency with this of the continued existence of sensible things — during the innumer- able intervals when they are, in whole or in part, non-existent in actual sensation. I am tempted to introduce the following illustrative passages in the writings of two philosophers, one Berkeley's immediate predecessor, the other one of his contempo- raries — a German and an American. Take the following hints in Leibnitz's curious tract De Modo Distinguendi Phenomena Realia ab Imaginariis, where he describes marks peculiar to the well- ordered c dream' of real life, as distinguishable in kind from dreams commonly so called : — 1 Potissimum realitatis phsenomenorum indicium quod vel solum sufficit, est successus praedicendi phenomena futura ex prseteritis et presentibus . . . imo etsi tota haec vita non nisi somnium, et mundus adspectabilis non nisi phantasma esse diceretur, hoc, sive somnium sive 12 See, for instance, Principles of Human Knowledge, sect. 29 — 33. Hut even when he does this, he distinguishes • real things ' from * chimeras' chiefly in degree — ' in being more clear and vivid,' as Hume does after- wards; and by their independence of our volition — although the current of our ima- gination, in dreams, for instance, seems in- dependent of the will. A defect in his account of space appears here. x.] Philosophy of Berkeley. 381 phantasma, ego satis reale dicerem, si ratione bene utentes numquam ab eo deciperemur . . . Itaque nullo argumento absolute demonstrari potest, dari corpora, nec quicquam prohibet somnia quaedam bene ordi- nata menti nostras objecta esse, quae a nobis vera judicentur, et ob con- sensum inter se, quoad usum veris equivalent . . . Quid vero si tota haec brevis vita non nisi longum quoddam somnium esset nosque moriendo evigileremus ? quale quid Platonici concipere videntur.' The following is still more acutely to the point, and is all the more to be referred to, because it proceeds from one whom we have already unexpectedly found connected with Berkeley 13 : — ' Since all material existence is only idea, this question may be asked — In what sense may those things be said to exist, which are supposed, and yet are in no actual idea of any created minds ? I answer, they existed only in Uncreated Idea. But how do they exist otherwise than they did from all eternity ; for they always were in Uncreated Idea and Divine appointment ? I answer, They did exist from all eternity in Uncreated Idea, as did everything else, and as they do at present, but not in created idea. But it may be asked, How do those things exist, which have an actual existence, but of which no created mind is con- scious? — For instance, the furniture of this room, when we are absent, and the room is shut up, and no created mind perceives it ; how do these things exist ? I answer, there has been in times past such a course and succession of existences, that these things must be supposed, to make the series complete, according to Divine appointment, of the order of things. And there will be innumerable things consequential, which will be out of joint, out of their constituted series, without the supposition of these. For, upon the supposition of these things, are infinite numbers of things otherwise than they would be, if these were not by God thus sup- posed. Yea, the whole Universe would be otherwise ; such an influence have these things, by their attraction and otherwise. Yea, there must be a universal attraction, in the whole system of things, from the beginning of the world to the end— and, to speak more strictly and metaphysically, we must say, in the whole system and series of ideas in all created minds ; — so that these things must necessarily be put in, to make complete the system of the ideal world. That is, they must be supposed, if the train of ideas be in the order and course settled by the Supreme Mind. So that we may answer in short, that the existence of these things is in God's supposing of them, in order to the rendering complete the series of things (to speak more strictly, the series of ideas) according to his own J3 Remarks on Mind, by Jonathan Edwards, in the Appendix to his Life. 3^2 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. settled order, and that harmony of things, which he has appointed. — The supposition of God, which we speak of, is nothing else but God's acting, in the course and series of his exciting ideas, as if they (the things supposed) were in actual idea.' There is an oversight of the full force of the objection, and also of the answer to it, in the illustration in this last passage — an over- sight of which Berkeley himself, and all others, so far as I am aware, who have referred to this curious question, are guilty — although what is overlooked is implied in the very Principle of Berkeley himself. When it is asked how the furniture of a room continues to exist in the absence of a percipient, it seems to be forgotten that the same question might be put regarding its continued existence when he is present. When I see an orange on a table, without touch- ing it, or applying any of my senses except seeing to it, most of the sense phenomena of which it consists are not actual, as far as my sense-consciousness of them is concerned. There is as great (or as little) difficulty in reconciling this conception of the meaning of sensible things with our experience of a sen- sible thing when it is said to be actually presented to us, as there is in reconciling it with the continued existence of the furniture of a room when no one is in the room, or with the continued existence of the solar system before men or other sentient beings existed (as modern geology reveals it), or after all of them may have been withdrawn from it 14 . Thus, a c sensible thing ' means to us a group of conceivable sensa- tions, universally or objectively guaranteed by the perceived sensa- tions with which they are associated. The existence of a sensible thing, accordingly, implies all that can be found by critical analysis to be implied in the existence of an actual sensation, and also in the existence of this guarantee. If the reader has tested by reflection what I have thus far written, he may perhaps be willing to accompany me in pondering some hitherto unremarked phases of the Berkeleian conception, and some of its less remarked relations to antecedent and later philosophical thought, 14 The Archetypal Conceptions of Deity are not prominent in Berkeley, though they are involved in his sensible world, inas- much as his philosophy really puts them at last in place of the unconceived or incon- ceivable Matter he argues against. And then the question rises, Are they more intel- ligible than the abstract Matter for which they are substituted ? Of this elsewhere. X.] Philosophy of Berkeley. 383 (B-) The Berkeleian Immediate Perception of Extended Sensible Reality. It has been overlooked by historians of philosophy that the Berkeleian account of what is meant by sensible reality might be made eclectically to combine truth that is divided between two opposite accounts of sense-perception, which in last century and in the present have played a considerable part in the history of at least British philosophy. I refer to the controversy as to whether our perception of the real things of the sensible world is immediate, and so of the nature of a being conscious of them j or whether, on the contrary, it is throughout mediate and representative. Reid, the Scotch philosopher, takes credit to himself for having exploded the favourite hypothesis, that in the senses we are percipient only of ideas or representations of real things. c I think there is hardly anything that can be called mine in the philosophy of mind,' he says, c which does not follow with ease from the detection of this prejudice.' Hamilton has worked out immediate perception to profound issues uncontem- plated by Reid. And Dean Mansel has still more clearly enforced the non-representative character of the phenomena presented in sense, and the consequent impossibility of error in direct sense- perception. Now, the immediate perception of Berkeley is, in spirit and intention, an anticipation of Reid, Hamilton, and Dean Mansel y while the sense symbolism of Berkeley preserves what is good in the spirit of the counter supposition of representative activity being involved in what seems on the surface to be a direct knowledge of sensible things. This subject is worth looking into for a little. Berkeley saw not less acutely than Reid did, that the favourite assumption of a double object in sense-perception mistook the very meaning of sensible reality and externality. He acknow- ledged only a single object, and that the very sense-given pheno- menon itself — in short, the very sensation (as he often called it) of which one is conscious, — no abstract sensation, mark, of which there can be no knowledge at all. And sensations, he said, imply a percipient j they are also both substantially and causally different from the Ego $ or rather C I' am both substantially and causally 384 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. different from them : I exclude or expel them from myself — in the antithesis of sensibility and will. Des Cartes, Malebranche, Locke, and contemporary philosophers, on the other hand, took for granted that what we perceive in the senses is not the very reality itself. They supposed that in sense we could be conscious only of a representation (idea as some of them called it) of the real thing — the reality itself existing beyond sight and sense, behind the subjective representations. Gf the very reality it seemed to them that we could not be directly percipient at all. A world of representations — from which perhaps we may infer a. real existence behind — was all that we could perceive. By reasoning, they tried to defend the reasonableness of our belief in the unperceived reality ; but all the reasoning they offered seemed not enough for the purpose. So faith in other minds and in God was ready to dissolve in mere sensationalism ; or in a subjective idealism, on the extreme homo mensura principle. All this, Berkeley thought, was the very root of Scepticism ; — c for so long as men be- lieve that real things subsist without the mind, and that their knowledge is only so far forth real as it is conformable to real things, they cannot be certain that they have any knowledge at all.' c How,' he asks, c can it be known that the things which are perceived (i. e. only the representative ideas) are conformable to those things that are not perceived, or that exist without the mind 15 ?' We can test the representations of our imagination by the presentations of sense. But, if what is given in sense too is essentially representative, how can we verify its representations ? To lay a foundation for real knowledge, we must have a direct perception of the sort of stuff sensible things are made up of to begin with. Now, entia non sunt multiplicanda prater necessitatem. There is no need, he began to see, for the supposition of an unperceived, in- conceivable substance and cause as this external reality. On the favourite philosophical assumption of a double object in all sense*, perception — a representative idea, and an unperceivable reality which the idea stands for — we cannot, under any conditions, be face to face with a single specimen of sensible existence. '• r ' ' Without the mind,' i.e., in the case of ing real truth, viz. that our ideas can only be sentient beings, irrelatively to sensations. compared with one another, never with the All this is intended to meet the old sceptical very reality itself, argument against the possibility of our reach- X.] Philosophy of Berkeley. 385 But let something sensibly real — something from which physical science may start on its course of interpreting natural signs — be only given, and then, by interpretation (nature interpret at 10)^ we can work our way, in physical discoveries, to a reasonable belief in the existence — past, present, and future — of many other sensible phenomena and things, which never actually come within our individual experience in the senses. But how can physical science extend, or even commence, its victories, if it must begin by taking for granted that no specimen of the sensibly real can ever be present to consciousness? The spirit of this ques- tion is involved in the thought alike of the Irish and of the Scotch philosophers. Why not boldly deny then, once for all, that there is a double object in our original experience as percipient beings ? Why not try whether life on this planet may not become more simple and intelligible, and our belief in surrounding moral agents, and in Supreme Mind, more deep and enlightened, on the common-sense supposition of a single object only, and that the real object — on a return, in short, to concrete facts, from verbal reasonings and abstract suppositions ? This was in spirit the question entertained in common by two eighteenth-century philosophers usually placed in antagonism — Berkeley, who regarded himself as the common-sense metaphy- sician of Ireland; and Reid and his successors, who proclaimed themselves the common-sense metaphysicians of Scotland. I am not sure that expressions in Berkeley did not actually suggest the thought to Reid 16 . Berkeley and the Scotch psycholo- gists are at any rate, without concert, agreed in insisting on the abolition of the representative or hypothetical Realism which insists that the real, sensible thing must necessarily be wholly out of sight and sense, hid behind the ideal or repre- senting object that is assumed to be all that is given to us as its substitute. They both say in effect — c Why not let go one of these two counterpart worlds, and recognise as real the world which remains, and which is directly given to us?' Both seek by this means to restore a languishing philosophical faith in what u Reid says that in one part of his life ideas, so firmly as to embrace the whole of he believed the doctrine of perception of Berkeley's system in consequence of it.' — things through the medium of representative Intellectual Powers, Essay II. ch. io. VOL. IV, C C 386 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. is beyond sense. And Berkeley has in consequence helped to inau- gurate a new conception of the nature of the sense-given medium of intercourse, through which the conscious persons who are im- mersed in this phenomenal world of c sensations' converse with one another and with God. But, while Berkeley and the Scotch psychologists are agreed in discarding the dogma that the real material world is hid behind the representative world of which only (it had been assumed) we can be conscious in the senses, they differ (or seem to differ) as to which of the two is to be discarded 17 . Look first at the Immediate Sense-Realism of Berkeley. He dis- cards — as an unintelligible abstraction — the supposed unperceiving and unperceived archetypal material world behind, and recognises in our very sensations or sense-given phenomena themselves the only real sensible things. By interpreting sense-given phenomena, whose order and significance enable us to infer past, and to foresee future phenomena; or, like the handwriting on the wall, reveal the present existence and activity of other conscious minds like our own — we form our notions of sensible things, and become en rapport with other persons. We are able, as it were, to look into what might have been our own past sense-experience, and reasonably to expect what our own future sense-experience is to become ; and we are also able to look into other conscious expe- rience than our own — like our own, yet not ours. But we cannot look at, we cannot imagine, sense phenomena, and sensible things, continuing to exist out of all relation to any conscious mind. Our ' sensations' (as Berkeley chooses to call them), of which we cannot be conscious without perceiving them to be at once ours and not ours — at once in subjective and in objective relations, are 17 We may rudely symbolize the contrast of preservative and representative Percep- tion ; also that between Berkeley's presenta- tionism, and that of Reid and Hamilton, by help of the circumferences of two concentric circles — a greater and a smaller — the con- scious mind being supposed in the centre. Perception through representative ideas may be figured by the two circles — the inner standing for the ideas we are conscious of, and the outer by the reality in space which they stand for. Berkeley abolished the outer circle, and tried to show that the inner retains a'l that can belong to presen- tations or phenomena given in the senses ; which, as presentative, are the human pro- totype of all that is imaginable regarding the things of sense. Reid abolished the inner circle, or professed to do so, and to bring the outer circle within our immediate knowledge. Qu. In what do the two circles differ, when the outer is recognised in its true relation to our sensation and to uni- versal intelligence ? x.] Philosophy of Berkeley. 387 the kind of matter or stuff of which sensible things are composed, and out of which they are perpetually kept in being by the construc- tive activity of Divine, and the receptivity and activity of human mind. The universal relations, or rules, according to which sen- sations are excited in the system of sentient beings, are, under this conception, what we commonly call the Laws of Nature. The existence of this material world, Berkeley proclaims 18 _, can- not be denied. It does not need to be proved. Its very esse is percipi, which is the same as to say that its essence consists in its being composed of sensation ; — sensation that is at once dependent on the sentient, and, in its cause and other relations, independent of the sentient — at once subjective and objective — as every sense- given phenomenon must be. This, he would further say, is the only material world which a reflective common sense requires. The supplementary Matter, behind these percepts of sense, is a baseless hypothesis — a crotchet of the professional manufacturers of abstractions, which unsophisticated human beings would laugh at, if they could only be got to understand its meaning, or rather its absolute want of all possible intelligibility. Such is the Im- mediate Sense-Realism of Berkeley. Turn now from Berkeley to those Scotch psychologists who have been placed, by themselves and others, at the opposite intel- lectual pole. Berkeley and Hamilton, for instance, are at one in acknowledging that the sensible reality consists of — that which we perceive or are conscious of in the senses. They seem to differ in their accounts of what that is of which we are thus conscious. Berkeley would arrest metaphysical scepticism by surrendering — as absolute Negation — the supposed unperceiving and unperceived existence (behind what we perceive), to which exclusively reality had been attributed; and by energetically vindicating the applica- bility of the terms 'real,' 'objective,' 'external,' 'thing,' 'matter,' &cc.j to our extended sensations themselves, in their various signi- ficant, and therefore (at least contingently) universal, or objective relations. The Scotch psychologists, with a similar motive, take the other alternative. Instead of surrendering the unperceiving and unperceived world, supposed by some philosophers to exist See many passages in the Commonplace Book, and in the Principles and Dialogues. 388 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. behind what we perceive, and to be the material noumenon or thing-tn-ttself^ they surrender the supposed representative ideas, and seem sturdily to assert that in sense-perception we are face to face with a world that exists independently of all sensation and of all intelligence — an extended world that in its essence might survive the absolute extinction of all the conscious life in the universe. Both root the faith which we have in the real exist- ence of other minds, in the assumption of common reason — that in the senses we are conscious of being in direct intercourse with the very reality of external things. If external things are per- ceived immediately, we have, according to Reid, the same reason to believe in their existence that philosophers have to believe in their supposed representative ideas — we are conscious of them, in short. But the supposed representative ideas themselves, Berkeley virtually says, are not representative at all ; they are neither more nor less than this — our really experienced sensations, with what- ever is metaphysically involved in sensation. These, with their significant, because invariable, relations, are a sufficient medium for revealing to the individual percipient the universe of sensible things, and the contemporaneous existence of other spirits: no other sort of external reality than this, he would say, is required, or can even be conceived possible 1 9 . Thus, in the eighteenth century, the state of this ancient philo- sophical controversy was changed. Instead of an offer of evidence for the transcendent reality of a material world, we are first asked by Berkeley to consider what we ought to mean by its reality ; and then we are asked by Reid to assume the reality, but without any deeper inquiry about the meaning of what we thus assume. Berkeley and (so far) the Scotch psychologists are agreed in abandoning mere conjectures and abstractions, and in entreating people to read the facts of sense -experience with a fresh eye. We do not need, they say, to hunt up evidence that a real world 19 In an essay in the North British the relations between Hamilton's conception Review (No. 85) on Mr. Mill's speculation and Berkeley's. The remarks were the oc- about the nature of Matter and Mind, in his casion of an interesting essay in the Fort- Examination of Sir W. Hamilton's Phi- nightly Review (Sept. 1866), on the question, losophy, I ventured some remarks on Hamil- 'Was Sir W. Hamilton a Berkleian?' by ton's Unconditioned, on the import of this Dr. J. Hutchison Stirling, to whose fervid negative conception, in its relation to Ber- genius English readers are so much indebted keley's negation of Abstract Matter, and on for exercise of thought abovtt Hegel. X.] Philosophy of Berkeley. 389 of Matter exists, behind phantasms of which alone we were presupposed to be directly conscious. On the contrary, they ask us, on the faith of experience, to accept as the sensible reality those of the (supposed) phantasms which make their appearance in the senses. The phenomena thus offered to us — call them c ideas,' or ' sensations, 5 or c phenomena,' or c percepts,' or c external things,' as we please — are, Berkeley proclaims, real enough for all practical purposes j because they are real enough to connect us, through their relations (which physical science tolerably interprets), with the Cosmos, with the other spirits involved in it, and with Supreme Mind. If this is so, the office of human understanding, when it is applied to the world of the senses, is to interpret the meaning of the phenomena offered in sense — not to defend the existence of sensible things, which do not need defence. A comparison of these two modes of thought regarding the sensible universe suggests a question which underlies both, but of which neither Berkeley nor the Scotch psychologists were fully in sight, though it rises in some of the aphorisms of Siris, Existence (sensible or any other) cannot, in its nature, Berkeley, I suppose, means to say, survive the extinction of all intelligent activity in the universe; and the actual phenomena presented in sense cannot survive the extinction of sense-intelligence. Try to conceive the extinction : we cannot. It is blank negation, with- out even the thought of its being negation. This is proof, by mental experiment, we may suppose him to say, of the absolute impossibility of an existence that is unperceiving and unperceived — that is not perceiving or conscious, as a concrete mind always is 20 y nor perceived, as every concrete sensation must be. Now, is conscious life necessarily the deepest thing in exist- ence ? May there not be uncreated conditions of conscious expe- rience which are deeper still, inasmuch as by them all conscious 20 The unbroken continuity of conscious existence in finite minds is a difficulty with Berkeley, as well as what is meant by the unity which constitutes a finite person. He tries to meet the former by arguing from the essentially relative nature of Time. By being conscious I mean, knowing pheno- mena, whether extended or unextended, which are immediately and actually present to the conscious mind— -with all the condi- tions or relations implied in this. Imme- diate perception of sense-given phenomena — in which, by the way, the concrete or secondary are necessarily blended with the abstract or primary qualities — is an obtru- sive example of what is meant by being conscious. So too one's apprehension of a feeling while one is feeling it. 390 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. life that ever makes its appearance must a priori be regulated? May not the distinction between Matter and Form, for instance, be one of these conditions? Berkeley himself seems to imply that a formal, efficient, and final Cause is an uncreated con- dition of those perceiving and perceived beings, in the midst of which we find ourselves, and which alone we can positively imagine. May there not be other a priori conditions of existence, besides these, all forming as it were the uncreated essence of Deity, and manifested now, more or less fully, in our sensible world? It seems as if Berkeley were coming in sight of this question in Siris, and that in some passages we have a recognition of its relevancy and propriety. It was perhaps suggested to him by his more comprehensive study, in later life, of Ancient Philosophy. The conception of uncreated necessities, at once of thought and of existence, dimly unfolds itself in his account of the Platonic and the Aristotelian notion of Matter ; and also in the speculation about Personality, as distinguishable from Reason and Life in Deity, in the Philosophical Trinity with which Siris concludes 21 . With Berkeley, then, as professedly with Reid and Hamilton, the actual extended phenomena which compose sensible things are presented in perception — that is to say, we are conscious of them. So far, he is what Hamilton calls a natural realist — a believer in presentative, as contrasted with a representative perception. But, at another point of view, is he not also (unconsciously to himself, I might say) a representationist, or a believer in a mediate perception of sensible things ? Berkeley surely goes too far in the passages in which he speaks of all doubt regarding the existence of sensible things (things I say, not mere unaggregated phenomena 22 ) being impossible on his phi- losophy — as impossible, I suppose, as it is to doubt the existence of a feeling of pain or of pleasure when one is actually conscious of either. Berkeley here assumes too much for his natural realism. He is virtually a representationist as well as a presentationist. 21 See Siris, sect. 3 1 1 — 318,351 — 362. different sorts, aggregated in accordance 22 Sensible things, it is to be re- with the universal which are their formal membered, are sense-given phenomena, of cause. X.] Philosophy of Berkeley. 391 It is certainly impossible to doubt the existence of a sensation, while we are sentient of it, or of a group of sensations, while we are sentient of them. So far as sensations involve immediate perceptions, it may be said that their existence cannot conceivably be doubted. But external things — trees, houses, mountains, the starry heavens — are, as I have reiterated, more than actually per- ceived sensations. These are chiefly not actual sensations at all ; they are rather that which the sensations signify. When I see a tree, the greater number by far of its so-called qualities do not exist as actual sensations of mine. My sensations signify the future existence of those so-called qualities, as actual sensations of mine, on certain conditions being fulfilled which are intelligible to the understanding. The sensations which I have are signifi- cant of other sensations which 1 have not, although the represen- tative conceptions of those other sensations are included in what I reasonably believe about the partially presented c tree.' And if we apply, as common language almost obliges us to do, the term c perception 5 to our discernment of the individual tree as a whole, as well as to the present sensational experience of the small portion of it contained in our visual consciousness at the time, we may then say that perception is representative or mediate, as well as presentative or immediate. There is thus room (in imagination at least) for doubt about the existence of sensible things ; — that is to say, doubt is not for- bidden, in the same way as doubt about the existence of those of their sensational constituents of which we are actually having sensations is forbidden, at the time when we are having the sen- sations. We can suppose our actual sensations to be false signs of other sensations (not at the moment actually experienced), and also false signs of the existence of other persons like ourselves. The supposition of their falsity as signs would be simply a doubt about the rational presumption, that natural order is constant or uniform — that we are living in a steadily sustained Cosmos 23 . According to this conception, thus further carried out, there is an element of truth in the assumption of a presentative perception ; but there is also an element of truth in the assumption of a repre- sentative perception. We have interrupted perceptions : there is an uninterrupted sense significance. Respect for any hypothesis^ 23 Cf. Siris, sect. 252. 39 2 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. like that of representative perception, which has permanently governed well-exercised minds favours this sort of eclecticism. Scintillations of truth may be found in all long-standing opinions. We may, accordingly, examine the representative, or mediate perception, which, as well as the intuitive or presentative sort, is thus latent in the New Conception of Berkeley. C. Berkeleian Mediate Perception^ or Presumptive Inference of the existence of Sensible Things and their Relations — illustrated in the Theory of Vision, Many plausible reasons have induced philosophers to assume that all perception of the extended world must be in its very nature representative. The principal one has been the difficulty of reconciling the intermittent character of sense phenomena with the supposed permanence or continued identity of sensible things — the flux of sense-given phenomena, contrasted with the supposed influxable nature of external things. The presumed ontological antithesis between what is conscious and what is space-occupying was another : but this was more an artificial difficulty of abstract metaphysics. The conclusive objection to a perception that is throughout only representative is, that this is either a wanton reduplication of what might be given in simplicity, if the representative medium is an image of what it represents; or that, on the other hand, it in- volves scepticism, if the real world has no analogy at all to the current and (so-called) representing medium. Human imagina- tion cannot represent what has never been presented to it — what it has never been conscious of. For instance, a man born blind cannot imagine scarlet, or any other colour. Till we have had some direct or conscious experience of the sort of phenomena of which the sensible world consists, we cannot begin to represent material things to ourselves, either in the senses or in imagination. After we have had this direct experience, representation or imagi- nation is easy — and language or symbolical representation too ; for the represented is then similar in kind to what has been already presented — and the two, moreover, may be brought together by X.] Philosophy of Berkeley. 393 means of non-resembling signs. Till we have had sensible expe- rience of sights, and been also conscious of locomotive exertion and the feelings of contact, coloured extension, and resistance, we cannot make of the former signs, on which to rest an expectation of future instances of the latter. After we have had sensible experience of both, we can, and do, employ the one as means of practical information about the other. Now, this sort of repre- sentative and acquired perception is no mere hypothesis. This brings us to Berkeley's Theory of Vision, or Visual Lan- guage, in which what may be called representative, or at least substitutive and symbolical, perception is latent. The theory supplies by far the most curious and elaborate example of that sort of perception, and of the universal relations which are worked into external things. Accordingly, it is deeply worthy of critical examination, and in some detail. There is at once an antithesis and a synthesis involved in all sensible things. The purport of the new account of Vision is to shed light upon both, where both are most apt to be hid — in the antithesis and synthesis of visual and tactual sensations or qualities. c How comes it to pass, 5 Berkeley asks, c that we apprehend by the ideas of sight certain other ideas, which neither resemble them, nor cause them, nor are caused by them, nor have any necessary connection with them? . . . The solution of this problem, in its full extent, doth comprehend the whole theory of vision. This stating of the matter placeth it on a new foot, and in a different light from all preceding theories 24 .' His solution explains the fact of the connection of what is im- mediately seen with its real but unseen meaning. The expla- nation reposes (and this has been often overlooked) upon the moral presumption of a divinely established association between visible phenomena and tangible phenomena — a rationally maintained harmony between the visual and the tactual phenomena in nature. The proposition that much which is commonly called percep- tion, but which is properly induction, is founded on this objective or universal sort of association requires reflective analysis. Till we 24 Theory of Vision Vindicated and Explained, sect. 42. 394 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. have reflected deeply, we are apt to take for granted (for obvious reasons) that we can see and touch the same immediate object of sense. There is an orange on the table before us. We sponta- neously say that we at once see it and touch it. But this c it * conceals what might carry us to the heart of things — seeming to imply that when we see the orange, and touch the orange, we can see what we are touching, and touch what we are seeing. Now, the visibly extended sensations which we perceive when we are seeing an orange have really nothing in common with the hard, resisting sensations which we perceive when we are touching an orange. We cannot possibly identify the perception of expanded colour^ which is all that originally constitutes seeing, with the perception of felt resistance^ which is all that originally constitutes touching. Coloured extension is antithetical to felt extension. In fact, we do not see, we never saw, and we never can see the orange of mere touch; we do not touch, we never touched, and we never can touch the orange of mere sight. We connect them under the same name indeed. But is not this after we have had experience of each, and also after an unvarying ex- perience has informed us that they were companions ? After we have had this experience, as soon as we see the visible orange within our reach, we confidently predict that, on certain organic conditions being fulfilled, we shall have experience of a tangible orange. The simultaneous modifications of coloured expanse which form our visual consciousness are accepted as reliable signs which foretell the successive modifications of tactual and locomotive sensa- tion which will ensue if we take the orange into our hands and play with it. We may say, if we choose, that we both see and touch the extension of that or any other sensible thing; but in saying this we are playing with words. When we test our words by our ex- perience, we find that the sensibly extended world of which we are conscious in pure seeing has nothing but the name in common with the sensibly extended world of which we are conscious in pure tactual, muscular, and locomotive sense. They are no more to be identified (and called by the same name) than the nine letters which compose the word c extension ' are to be identi- fied, either with the colours contemporaneously present in vision, or with the (partly continuous and partly broken) sensations of resistance of which we are conscious when our bodies or any of X.] Philosophy of Berkeley. 395 their organs are in motion. In vision, c extension 5 consists of a greater or less number of minima visibi/ia j in touch, it consists of a greater or less number of minima tangibilia — the magnitude of the sensible thing, in each case, being proportioned to the number of its respective units ; — and the term c extension 5 being exclusively applicable to either, according as we prefer the greater practical importance of the tangible signification, on the one hand, or the greater clearness and distinctness in imagination of its visible sign, on the other. Thus, in this curious life of ours in the sensible world, tangible things are signified by visual sensations ; and it may be added that visible things are signified, though less distinctly, by tactual and locomotive sensations. Faith in an established or external associ- ation between these two kinds of sense-phenomena is the basis of the constructive activity of intellect in all inductive interpreta- tion of sensible things. All our sense-phenomena, as well as the visual and tactual ones, are indeed cosmically associated. But the associations between smells and tastes, for instance, or between tastes and sounds, are far less elaborate, and far less fitted to give a distinct, and easily imaginable objectivity to the realities of which the sense-phenomena we are actually conscious of are the signs, than associations between what is seen and what is felt. Even isolated sensations are, as I have tried to show, necessarily significant of more than themselves; for they cannot but signify a sentient being, and an efficient cause external to that sentient being: every sensation thus necessarily involves more than sensa- tion. It is a very obscure notion of externality, however, that could be involved in isolated sensations — a series of sensations of physical pleasure and physical pain, for instance. It is only when we are concerned with the relations between what is seen and what is felt that the objective element, latent in all intelligent or con- scious sensation, becomes distinct, in that elaborate standing order of nature of which these two sorts of sensation are emphati- cally the signs, and in being so are the signs of the Rational Con- ceptions of which that order is the expression. Isolated sensations, accordingly, are not to be confounded with the permanent realities which are perceived [percept a — taken hold of, through their means). Perception attains to a higher development in the correlative ex- perience of the seen and the felt than it does in any other sort 396 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. of sense-experience. It is here obtrusively concerned with the thought, meaning, or universality that is in nature, for it is con- cerned with distinctly ascertainable natural law. Moreover, the sensational signs themselves are often blended with their mean- ing, in the same way as spoken or written words are, when used, as they are habitually, without a distinct consciousness, at the moment we are using them, of what they signify 25. Berkeley has been credited with the discovery of the in- visibility of Distance. The proposition, c distance is invisible, 5 has been supposed by many to exhaust his peculiar Theory of Vision. This involves a confusion of thought as to what his discovery really is, and a misconception of his chief purpose. As I have shown elsewhere, the fact is that he takes the invis- ibility of distance in the line of sight for granted, as a common scientific truth of his time. He takes for granted that in seeing we can have no original or presentative perception of this kind of distance; and that we must learn to see it representatively through a medium — which, of course, is not seeing it at all. The question that he really investigates is, the question of the medium — what it is. Is it mathematical relations, involved in what is seen, which yield a knowledge of distance as a necessary inference ? or is discernment of distance simply an interpretation of physical meaning — a discovery of arbitrarily established, not of absolutely necessitated, relations of sensations among them- selves? His main aim is, to prove that the relations which contribute to form distance, and trinal extension, are entirely arbitrary — founded on Divine Will and Plan, — not necessary re- lations, derived from uncreated conditions of Being. c Seeing distance,' in short, is, with him, — interpreting the arbitrary tactual meaning of sensations given in sight, — not evolving mathematically necessary relations. This visual interpretation is the most striking and beautiful of all examples of the genuine kind of representative — or, as we should perhaps call it, substitu- tive, or interpretative — Perception. In it is wrapped up the 25 The Hamiltonian teaching about the elements in perception — and even the Aris- inverse ratio of sensation and perception, totelian Common Sensibles, are curiously and older teaching about the distinction approached in this paragraph, by a new between primary and secondary qualities of route — distinctions which mere Materialism, Matter,— i.e. the necessary and the empirical and Subjective Idealism alike annihilate. x.] Philosophy of Berkeley. 397 whole problem of cause and effect among sensible events, regarded per se — physical causation, in short. Now, is physical causation a purely arbitrary relation of sign and signification, or does it imply an uncreated necessity in things? This is one question discussed by implication in the theory of vision, directed as its analysis is to those relations of co-existence and succession among the phenomena of the sensible world, which, a fortiori^ are necessary, if any are. The question at the root of the Berkeleian account of vision might be expressed thus : — Is the sensible world kept together and sustained by a Mathematical and Materialistic Necessity, or by a Free and Rational Will 26 ? If even the very connection between the visible and tangible qua- lities of things is not due to an uncreated necessity, but to the voluntary, providential activity of God, we may conclude that the essential texture or construction of the sensible world throughout is thus voluntary and arbitrary. When we look at Berkeley's speculation about vision as a whole, in its earlier and in its later form, we find that it tends to not less than this. It is a stroke directed against Materialistic Necessity and Blind Fatalism in the universe, by the abolition of all (previously supposed) necessary connection among the sense-given phenomena which go to constitute, and which suggest to us, sensible things : it enforces the essential arbitrariness of all such connection. That even c vision of distance' is interpretation and not demonstration is as it were a crucial instance. The theory of vision, then, is a reasoned defence of the proposition — that what is called c seeing ' the externality, dis- tance, figure, and size of a real thing is truly interpreting the visual signs with which real externality, distance, figure, and size are arbitrarily but universally associated in the perpetual provi- dence of a Supreme Mind. It is based upon those universals that are arbitrary, not on uncreated necessities of knowing and being. It is a question, and to some extent one of detail, whether Berkeley, in this part of his system, has drawn the line with accuracy between the sensible signs — which are visual, and the intelligible significations— which are (not tangible but) invisible. 2fi Mathematical necessity itself is, with existence of concrete physical cases corres- Berkeley, founded on the assumption of the ponding to the relations. 39 8 Life and Letter's of Berkeley. [ch. He may be right, for instance, in treating the relation as in its nature one of physical and arbitrary connection, and yet wrong in part or all of his account of what the actual language is; in the same manner as one might argue, in a general way, the arbitrariness of the relations between the names in any lan- guage (Greek or German, for instance) and their meanings, while he is unacquainted with the languages themselves. He may also be right in conceiving the relation to be analogous to what we find in artificial language, and yet wrong in supposing that man requires to learn the language by experience and association of ideas : its meaning might be given to us instinctively, as it were. It may be worth while, then, to look at some of the objections which have been made to Berkeley's account of what the visual signs are ; what is given in them ; and how they come to signify for us what he says they signify. After that, the implied account of what physical causation is, and the nature of inductive inquiry, might be considered ; also the dogmatic assumption of the c arbitrariness ' of Supreme Rational Will. As objections to Berkeley's account of the manner in which we discover trinal extension, it has been argued : — that he has given no proof that distance is, absolutely and in all its degrees, in- visible ; that he has given no proof that distance is in any of its degrees perceived in touch ; that he has not proved the supposed association between the visible and the tangible on which the theory reposes y and that the signs of distance are not merely arbi- trary, for that the perspective lines, for instance, which he allows are signs of distance, could not be other than they are, and imply a sense of necessity — so that persons born blind can anticipate the visible constructions of geometry, in a way which seems to show that visible and tangible extension are no more heterogeneous than visible and tangible number 27 . In the first place, then, according to Berkeley, distance cannot be seen. It is said that he has not proved the paradox. Let us 27 Some of these objections may be found in the work of the latest, and one of the ablest, adverse critics of the Theory of Vision — the present eminent Professor of Moral Philo- sophy, in Berkeley's own College. See Mr. Abbott's Sight and Touch : an attempt to disprove the received (or Berkleian) Theory of Vision, (1864). On this work I made some hastily written observations, a few weeks after its appearance, in an article in the North British Review, No. 81. x.] Philosophy of Berkeley. 399 distinctly understand what is* intended, when it is asserted that distance cannot be seen, and what the reasons for the assertion are. In the wide meaning of the word 'seeing,' it is allowed by all who know what they are speaking about, that distance can be seen. We can certainly see signs of distances ; for example, degrees of confusion in what we see — when the real thing whose distance we are said 'to see is near at hand; aerial and linear perspective, combined with a previous knowledge of the intermediate things in the visible panorama, — when the sensible reality is more remote. The vague expression c seeing things around us to be at different distances,' accordingly, means (original or acquired) power to interpret perspective. What Berkeley denied was, that the visible panorama could, before trial, inform us what our tactual and locomotive sensations would be, if we were to try to have the sensible experience which we call moving our body or any of its members. He, further, denied that we could have this knowledge without some experience of the established con- nection between the visual sensations and the tactual or loco- motive ones; — and one may add, even with that, unless we also recognise and trust in those inwrought Archetypal Conceptions to which nature conforms, and which thus constitute the Cosmos. If we choose, with this important explanation of our meaning, to call the habit of interpreting visual signs of distance, c seeing distances,' psychology does not forbid, and conventional language rather invites us. What, then, is the sort of distance which cannot be seen, the invisibility of which was proclaimed by the received science of Berkeley's own time ? I do not believe that he meant to say that distance was in all respects invisible, and that unextended colour could alone be seen. The sensations which we perceive in seeing involve more than colour. They may involve intervals between coloured points. Now, visible distance is necessarily an interval between two visible points. Wherever distance is seen, two points (with a greater or less interval between them) must be seen. A single point does not, and cannot, give any distance at all. The conclusion, then, which Berkeley set out by accepting from science was, that distance, or an interval between two points, cannot be seen, in those cases in which the object seen is strictly 4-00 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. in the line of vision, and not extended laterally before the eye. In other words, he assumed that outness from the eye — externality, in this secondary meaning of c externality' — the thickness of space, in short, cannot be seen: it is not given in any of the purely visual phenomena of which we are percipient. Distance becomes visible only when it becomes angular, that is to say, extended either right and left, or vertically. Here are his own words 28 : — ■ It is, I think, agreed by all, that distance [i. e. distance in a direct line outwards], of itself and immediately, cannot be seen. For distance being a line directed endwise to the eye, it projects only one point in the fund of the eye ; which point remains invariably the same, whether the distance be longer or shorter.' In fact, what we see is, and must be, a single, unvarying point, as far as our consciousness of it goes, unless it is extended by being brought out of the line of sight, and placed more or less laterally. But when it is thus presented, it is no longer distance outwards, but coloured expanse, the visibility of which was not disputed. If only one end can be seen of a line extended straight out from the organ of vision, it follows that distance in that line is invisible ; because distance requires two points, and in the supposed case only one point is seen. The invisibility of that sort of distance can thus be proved even to the Idomenian; and the physiological phenomena of the retina so far correspond with this evidence of consciousness — for, it appears on examination that only one unvarying point is projected there. In the second place, can distance, that is outness or externality, be touched? Berkeley's answer to this question is more ambiguous. Here and there he speaks of distance as if it consisted in what is tactually perceived, or rather in that experience of locomotive exertion which contributes to the less exact meaning of the term c touch.' He also attributes reality exclusively to tactual length, breadth, and thickness- refusing (for reasons given) to recognise as real the visible signs of tactual length, breadth, and thickness. Tangibility or solidity is with him, as with so many, the phenomenal essence of matter. 28 New Theory of Vision, sect. 2. x.] Philosophy of Berkeley. 401 A prcsentative perception of trinal extension in pure tactual sensation, or in the phenomenon of resistance to locomotive effort, is, however,, contrary to the analogy of his philosophy. Accord- ing to that analogy, a phenomenon or immediate perception, whether of sight or of touch, can give no more than the knowledge that it is itself at once mine and not mine. It gives the vague knowledge of a voluntary activity external to my own; not the knowledge of a permanent, external, sensible thing, projected out from our bodies in space. This last is reached not in mere seeing, nor in mere touching either, but after habitual comparison of what is seen with what is touched; and a recognition of the former as being, in the (divinely) established system, invariably related to, which is the same as to say significant of, the latter. When Berkeley's language on this subject is liberally inter- preted, in analogy with his philosophy as a whole, it appears to affirm that actual outness is neither an object of sight, nor an object of touch. It is known through a notion and belief, that is formed by a comparison of certain sensations in visual experience with certain sensations and exertions in tactual ex- perience, and a recognition of the former as (according to the Universal Plan) the invariable sign of the latter. The notion of distance outwards, invisible and intangible, is, accordingly, not an impression in sense at all, but a result of Presumptive or Induc- tive Intelligence. When we seem to imagine trinal space, we no doubt imagine what is visible, and not what is tangible; but we imagine the vision in some of its invariable relations to some- thing else. We imagine it as the type or sign in nature of tactual and locomotive sensation and exertion. This does not derive space from mere sensuous impressions, but from sensuous impres- sions universalized, and therefore significant, by the Will and in the Thought of God, their efficient, formal, and final cause. Thus the vision in sense of the c choir of heaven and firmament of earth' suggests an image of the indefinite room there is in nature for tactual, locomotive, and other sense experience. Direct perception, whether in sight or in touch, does not yield this really sublime conception. It is only perception in alliance with the interpretative reason that does so. Distance outwards is not an actual sense phenomenon, but the natural and invisible meaning of visually given phenomena. It is a prevision of what, vol. iv. d d 402 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. on the conditions being fulfilled, sense experience is certain to become. It can be perceived only indirectly, representatively, and under an implied notion or universal. It supposes a succession of acts and sensations, and cannot be found in any single sensation or direct perception. When I seem to see a real thing — a tree or a mountain — out in space, I really foresee a longer or shorter series of sensations and exertions. Distance or outness itself cannot exist, either in actual seeing or actual feeling. It exists, and can exist, only in the same way as furniture exists in a room, when no finite mind is conscious or percipient of it. A coloured expanse is seen. A hard object is touched. A distance outward is neither seen nor touched : it is foreseen. The distance from this to the sun is not seen : it is not seeable in its very nature : visual phenomena, which signify a really sublime series of tactual perceptions and exertions, are in that case seen. The notion of vast outness is that of signified (but not actual) succession, not of simultaneous sensible existence. Distance outwards, when I seem to see it, has, relatively to me, the same sort of existence that the tangible qualities of a thing have, relatively to me, when I am only looking at the thing and not touching it; or as this planet had in the geological period which preceded all conscious existence on the earth The function of association in the discovery of distance de- serves particular consideration, as it carries us into the deepest part of the Berkeleian and of all philosophy. At this I venture next to look. D. Berkeleian Intellectual Knowledge of Providential or Divine Reality and of ultimate Universal Conceptions. How, according to Berkeley, do we discover the external sig- nification of what we see ? Why do we trust in, and how, in the last analysis, do we ascertain, the Permanence which gives ay A yard measure- (simultaneously seen) is a statical sign of distance ; but it is only after trial that one finds this out. Kant's preperception of space differs from Berkeley's, in recognising it as necessary a priori to all sense experience as such. The universality and objectivity involved in Berkeley's extension or space is an arbi- trary or created universality and objec- tivity. x.] Philosophy of Berkeley. 403 meaning to Visual Language ? The answer brings us very near the highest link in his own Philosophical Chain. Some critics have, I think, misconceived him here. They have made him say that we owe our knowledge of the language of vision to unintelligible Custom and mere subjective association. They have made the outgoing of Berkeley's philosophy of sensible things the same as the outgoing of Hume's philosophy as a whole. They have confounded the subjective association of ideas— in the popular meaning of idea — in the individual, with the objective or universalised association of the phenomena which Berkeley calls sensations or ideas. An c association of ideas' is indeed at the root of this account of seeing the distant or outward ; but when this is said we must recollect what is meant by the c ideas ' that are said to be asso- ciated, and also to what our trust in the regularity of the association is attributed. The ideas which are said to be asso- ciated are the visibly extended and other phenomena of sense, which, causally, are not ours, being regulated by another cause than our will. Their c associations ' are attributed, not to the accidents of custom in our own previous experience, but to the custom of the Divine activity, if one may say so; and therefore to a custom which is Reason itself. The c association of ideas,' when c idea ' means this, presupposes the conception of the universe being a rational system; it also presupposes faith in the present and constant rationality which as it were pervades things. This presupposition is the life and soul of what seems to me to be the philosophy of sensible things and of Space. The pre- supposition of this rationality is logically anterior to our treating sensations or ideas of sight, in the natural system, as invariable signs of sense phenomena given in touch and muscular exertion. This presupposition is in fact our constructive principle for the sensible universe; not any blindly reached consequences among subjective associations derived from an accidental and unintel- ligible custom. By Berkeley, however, it must be added, the presupposition is held more as a religious instinct, and dogmati- cally, than as a critically reached necessary truth. Berkeley's c association of ideas' is his religious faith in the constancy of the Divine constitution of the Cosmos. 404 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. But the laws of the subjective association of representative ideas, which are not sensations, and habit (the blindly generated result of this association), have also an important place in the theory of visual language. These do not originate the notion of sensations as significant, nor our belief in that in variableness of relation which forms their significance. Yet they help us to recollect the meaning of each particular sensation, and connect the signs with their significations in our imagination. An ob- jective — that is, a universal and invariable — relation of sen- sations is the basis and the one cohesive principle of the theory : subjective association among the exuviae of past sensations, in the individual imagination, is also an important part of the structure. This last works according to the analogy of association in artifi- cial language. The divinely established associations, in sensation, between what we see and what we touch, practically suggest the tactual meaning when one observes the mere visual sign ; in the same manner as in artificial language, we dispense with the meaning, and substitute the sign, imagining only the sign, while hardly conscious of the meaning signified 30 . The analogy of artificial language further illustrates the cause of this tendency to think of distances, and in general of ambient space and its contents, by means of their visible signs alone. Like many meanings which are ratified and expressed by words, distances cannot be imagined except in their visible signs. In the same way as one cannot carry on trains of reasoning without the help of words, it is hardly possible to conceive distances, except in and through their language. Those born blind are thus very inadequately able to conceive space, or trinal extension. They hardly rise above a dark notion of another cause — another efficient mind. They have no natural language to symbolise externality 31 . 30 In what has been called symbolical, in contrast with intuitive, knowledge. 31 So Platner's observations on the born blind, quoted by Hamilton. The atten- tive observation of a person born blind convinced Platner that a man destitute of sight \ has absolutely no perception of an outer world, beyond the mere existence of something effective, different from his own feeling of passivity. In fact, to those born blind, time serves instead of space.' I add the following by a subtle thinker already more than once referred to : — 1 The idea we have of space, and what we call by that name, is only coloured space, and is entirely taken out of the mind, if colour be taken away. And so all that we call extension, motion, and figure is gone, if colour is gone. As to any idea of space, extension, distance, or motion, that a man x.] Philosophy of Berkeley. 405 Objections to the theory of vision have been directed against this particular part of it. It is said that the laws of mental asso- ciations are not fit to form the habit, or to teach us the language formed by the invariable relations between the visible and the tangible. Berkeley says that we learn this language — which he re- ligiously presumes to be latent in the sensation world — by custom and association, which generate habit; in the same way that we learn the meanings signified by the words of a new artificial lan- guage. Some of his critics seem to argue that the language cannot be learnt by custom and gradual experience at all, but that we must have a sort of instinctive or inspired knowledge of the invariable relations between those sights which are significant of outness, and the outness which they signify. They thus take away what, if a real, is a curious and beautiful illustration of the in- fluence of custom, and of the laws of mental association ; and they do so on the ground, one supposes, that association can be proved to be not sufficient to account for the result. For, the question is, Do we have enough of association between visible percepts and their tactual meaning, to explain the tendency of the former to suggest the latter, or to stand as substitutes for the latter — on the ordinary principles of mental association which are illustrated in learning and using an artificial language ? I see no sufficient reason for answering this question in the negative 32 . The chief difficulty in the way of accounting, by custom and association, for our seemingly instinctive power of interpreting the particular signs of distances, is the wonderful speed and born blind might form, it would be nothing like what we call by those names. All that he could have would be only certain sensa- tions or feelings, that in themselves would be no more like what we intend by space, motion, &c, than the pain we have by the scratch of a pin, or than the ideas of taste and smell. And as to the idea of motion that such a one could have, it would be only a diversification of those successions in a certain way, by succession as to time .... And, as it is very plain colour is only in the mind, and nothing like it can be out of all mind, hence it is manifest there can be nothing like those things we call by the name of bodies out of the mind, unless it be in some other mind or minds. And, indeed, the secret lies here : — That which truly is the substance of all bodies is the infinitely exact and precise, and perfectly stable Idea in God's mind, together with his stable Will, that the same shall gradually be com- municated to us, and to other minds, accord- ing to fixed and exact established methods and laws.' — Remarks in Mental Philosophy, by Jonathan Edwards. 32 Berkeley, by the way, even in his ear- liest philosophical work, recognises necessity in the relations of perspective. When he is proving that we do not, by the laws in .optics, or by mathematical reasoning, dis- cover outness, he grants that, when expe- rience has given us the knowledge of dis- tances, we can resolve the perspective lines mathematically, and with a notion of their necessity. Cf. Essay towards a New Theory of Vision, sect. 6. 406 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. perfection with which the lesson is learnt. All men learn to interpret the language of vision so early and so well, that it seems necessary to refer the lesson to an original instinct, which, in the case of this natural language, so connects the signs with their meanings, that the born blind, when first made to see, can, it is presumed, at once render back the sights into their own previous tactual and locomotive sensations 33 . In short, it is plausibly argued, and from Berkeley's own point of view, that God not only uses the visual language, but, by the inspiration of an instinct, teaches each man spontaneously to understand it — thus enabling him at once, without any inductive comparison, or even repeated association, of the two correlatives, to read tactual or locomotive meaning in the visual symbol. After all, however, the grander conception in the New Theory is, that sensations are a language ; not that we discover their meaning, or externalize certain of them, in a particular manner — by custom and mental association, for instance, rather than by an original instinct. The associative, as distinguished from the instinctive, manner of beginning to understand the language of the phenomena of sense is no doubt maintained by Berkeley. But his here implied (deeper) doctrine is — that no experience or association could teach us the language without the presupposition on our part, that the sensible world is interpretable, is the expres- sion of Divine meanings externalized in its laws 34 . On what this presupposition, which infuses meaning or univer- sality into what we see, originally rests, is a profound inquiry, which carries the inquirer into the heart of the theory of the inductive interpretation of nature. Is all inference about facts originally due to custom and subjective association ; or, on the contrary, do we originally so participate in the archetypal Reason as to be led to connect in invariable relations phenomena that are unlike — tactual and visual ones, for instance — and is it thus that we are enabled to form real (not merely verbal) propositions about them? Do we gradually learn nature's language, through blind processes of internal association; or, are the initial steps 33 Contrary to Molyneux's solution of his own problem. See Locke, Essay, Bk. II. ch. 9. 34 The case of the lower animals is said to contradict this. But, on the nature of 4 instinct,' cf. a pregnant passage in Siris, sect. 257. x.] Philosophy of Berkeley. 407 the result, not of merely associative laws, but of a sort of inborn instinct, through which we in a sort share in the Divine Reason ? Perhaps the most important subject in all philosophical inquiry is the real action of the human mind in induction 35 , and the reason of the certainty we attach to the process of discovering truth. Now, it is c in the writings of Berkeley, 5 as Archer Butler remarks, c that we are to look for the first exposition of those acute and important reasonings which may be said in these latter days to have reduced the broad practical monitions of Lord Bacon to their metaphysical principles. * * The clue which must be followed, if we will penetrate the mazes of hidden truth, is interwoven in the very texture of his philosophy ; on every other system we may go astray in our pursuit of natural knowledge — it is almost im- possible to go astray on his. Without affirming anything with regard to the absolute truth of his ultimate deductions, we do maintain that this relative merit — and what merit is more ad- mirable ? — must at least be conceded to the philosophy of Berkeley. The true logic of Physics is the first conclusion from his system 36 .' The invariahleness of the successions and co-existences of sensations is what, according to Berkeley, developes space, and makes sensations a language; and an arbitrarily established in- variableness is, he means to say, the only sort of causal relation that can exist among the phenomena in sense. Causality in the material world is, accordingly, neither more nor lest than re- gularity of succession. There is no efficiency within the vast organization of sensible things. One sort of sensible pheno- menon is, as an established fact, the constant companion of another sort of sensible phenomenon ; and this is only other- wise expressed when it is said that the one is the sign of the other. Thus, all the so-called causality of the material world resolves into an established significance of physical facts. This 35 All metaphysical philosophy even may rise so high as this. It is a struggle to iden- be regarded as of the nature of induction, tify our generalized and tentative concep- when induction is comprehensively con- tions with the constitutive thoughts of God ceived. What are the successive philoso- that are involved in physical law. Inductive phical systems but attempts to find what logic consists of methods for harmonising that ultimate Conception is which admits of human thoughts with the thoughts that are verification by the facts of experience, and expressed in nature — commonly called laws which renders these facts ultimately or of nature. metaphysically intelligible and reasoned ? 36 Dublin University Magazine, vol. VII. Ordinary experimental induction does not pp. 538, 539. 408 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. Berkeley refuses to regard as proper causality. The philosophical craving for a cause is a necessary principle which, he would say, carries us beyond sensations altogether, for the explanation of that sense symbolism in which materialists suppose they have the only true causality or power. An inert, unintelligent cause is for him no cause, but a contradiction in terms. Mind is the only possible power, and the established coherences of sensible pheno- mena, as well as each separate sensation, are all manifestations and effects of Supreme Universalizing Mind. This resolution of physical causality into bare invariableness of co-existence and succession is now a familiar analysis, in the modern account of the objects and limits of all purely physical in- quiry. It is in the centre of the physical philosophy of Hume, and has flowed from thence into the Baconian stream, purifying the waters. c If, 5 says Hume, c we reason a priori^ anything may appear able to produce anything. The falling of a pebble may, for aught we know, extinguish the sun; or the wish of a man control the planets in their orbits^/ This is Berkeley's meaning, in other language — so far as sensations and natural causes are concerned ; for these are merely passive, and are connected with their so-called effects without any intention or effort of their own ; and without any uncreated necessity in the nature of things, since their rela- tions with one another may be imagined by us to be quite different from what they actually are. Hume and Berkeley are at one in regard to the connexions among physical things, and also among the phenomena of which they are composed, being unnecessitated, and discoverable only by observation and experiment. But they differ in this: — The established relations of the unnecessitated universe of sen- sations, or physical phenomena, are, Hume would say, the one and only causality that exists : it is absurd to inquire ivhy these in- variable relations are thus invariable : we must take them as an absolutely unintelligible Custom has given them ; and we must, above all, include what we call ourselves and our own volitions, 37 Essays, vol. II. p. 166, 'On the Aca- demical and Sceptical Philosophy.' Hume, by the way, often approaches Kant in what he says about relations of ideas, as distin- guished from matters of fact; and in his recognition of abstract and necessary rea- soning concerning quantity and number. See sects. 4 and 1 2 of his Inquiry, and the Trea- tise of Human Nature. This is well put in Stirling's Secret of Hegel, vol. II. p. 15. x.] Philosophy of Berkeley. 409 as a portion of that physical system which is co-extensive with and constitutes all that exists. The established relations of the unnecessitated universe of phy- sical phenomena, Berkeley would say, on the contrary, are not causal relations at all : there is no causality within this sense symbolism, taken per se* Yet there not only is, but there must be, he would add, something more than this, to account for even this : the established coherence of the universe, as well as the units coherently connected, are necessarily 38 dependent upon acting and intending Intelligence. Causality, he implies, is a necessary relation : it is exemplified, however, not in the blind customary interrelations of sensible phenomena, but in the dependence of the phenomena, and their relations or customs too, upon Mind, by whose design and constant acting they are all maintained 39 . The causal judgment is, with Berkeley, a necessary judgment ; but it does not mean (as with Kant, for instance) necessary succession among phenomena. It means the necessary dependence of the constant customs of succession and co-existence among pheno- mena upon Supreme Rational Will. The necessity for a cause is, in other words, the necessity for Deity — for the Divine Reason in which human reason participates, and in which philosophical curiosity is satisfied. Their respective notions of causality might be made the testing point in a critical comparison of the three great philosophies and philosophical thinkers of the eighteenth century — Berkeley, Hume, and Kant. Hume, as we know, first awoke Kant out of his c dog- matic slumber,' and was the indirect occasion of that analysis of the constitutive notions of the understanding, and regulative ideas of reason, and of that announcement of the moral presumption in favour of human freedom, human immortality, and the ex- istence of God, which flow from the speculative and practical criticism of Kant. 38 I say 'necessarily,' for Berkeley, though only (which we have no right to do) he always looks at power in the concrete an event caused by the immediate orderly facts, virtually treats his causal assumption activity of God. The ' nec Deus intersit' as a necessary principle of intelligence. In is pressed as an objection to the Ber- fact Causality is the category (so to speak) keleian sense symbolism by Hamilton, in a by means of which he explains externality, letter to Mr. Collyns Simon, the eminent and the permanence or reality of the rela- author of Universal Itntnaterialistn. See tions which constitute sensible things. the correspondence in Professor Veitch's ex- 39 The sensible universe is, with Berkeley, cellent Memoir of Sir W. Hamilton, pp. a constant miracle, if we mean by a miracle 344—49. 4 J o Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. Attention to the respective positions of the three, in the con- catenation of modern thought, makes Berkeley's function more distinct. The Universe (to nav\ and not merely the sense-given part of it, according to Hume, is entirely composed of phenomena, or what he calls c impressions,' — conscious human beings in- cluded. The experience of all men has given these phenomena in hitherto invariable relations, which can be analysed into those of co-existence and succession. This fact has blindly produced an expectation that they will continue to succeed one another in a similar invariable order. Their customs of succession and co-existence have produced a habit of expectation — a sort of spurious necessity, which makes us look for some preceding phenomenon as the virtually necessary condition of each new phenomenon 40 . Custom thus forms in us the craving for some phenomenon preceding, on occasion of any new event hap- pening. Custom hinders us from being satisfied with the bare fact of — something happening. And, in so hindering us, it serves, according to Humism and Positivism, a useful prac- tical purpose. We seem to be part of a universe of phenomena which are, at least in the meantime, if not absolutely or uni- versally, connected in orderly relations to one another; present happiness is, accordingly, dependent on knowing what these or- derly relations have been. It seems well for our happiness, that the past custom of the universe has tended to form this habit of expectation — this spurious necessity for expecting what we call c effects,' and for assuming what we call c causes.' It is impos- sible, on this philosophy of ultimately unintelligible pan-phenome- nalism, to find any explanation of why we find ourselves units in a universe of this sort ; nor indeed have we any right to apply our custom-generated craving for causes so far as this. The human nature of Hume is too slight and shallow for this deep inquiry. The fact that the phenomenal universe has been coherent is a 'singular' sort of effect, if it is to be called an effect at all, this 10 Of course, under Hume's philosophy there can be no absolute necessity for or against anything — for or against the con- tinuance or an interruption of the laws of nature, or the existence of Supreme Mind — at the most there is only the blindly gene- rated, spurious necessity of unintelligible custom. x.] Philosophy of Berkeley. 411 philosophy says : it transcends those customary connexions in the past which have produced our habit of putting scientific questions : this apparent custom of orderly and invariable connectedness practically justifies our present reliance on it — for all secular affairs, and in physical science. But we must not try to become metaphysical, by asking why the relations of phenomena have been what they have been, and what in consequence we expect them still to be. We must take them as they have been, and yield to the habit which this past has formed. A priori^ no one phenomenon is more rationally related to another than any third one might be. Anything appears able to produce anything. And to ask why Nature possesses the coherence and consistency which we act upon is an absurd question — especially for one of the phenomena themselves to put. Let us, for practical purposes, make the supposition which the habit due to a mysterious Custom has induced. Let us exhaust, if we can, the resources for happi- ness which seem to open to us when we proceed to deal with things upon this ultimately unintelligible assumption. To do this is the sum of human duty. Supernatural questions about the origin, ultimate meaning, and eternal issues of this present Phenomenal Custom, lead, as far as philosophy is concerned, only to sophistry and illusion. Such is the issue of the Humist and Positivist analysis of Existence — not merely of sensible existence, to which Berkeley confined himself. This is Scepticism taking revenge upon the Berkeleian paralysis of Materialism and Fatalism. Being or Existence is professedly emptied, under it, of all proper sub- stance and power. The negative philosophical conception which constitutes the Humist and Positivist conception of the universe is said to satisfy some. Probably Berkeley's simple, ardent, and believing spirit had not enough of the (valuable) preparatory mental discipline of Scepticism to enable him to enter into it. He lived before Hume. Otherwise his philosophical life and its results might have run deeper, and his philosophy might not so readily have seemed (as it has to some of his critics) to resolve itself into this: — that the entire Universe consists of me and my internal sensations. His philosophy might then have contained a more thorough and distinct unfolding of the principles of rationality which connect the Infinite Whole of concrete existence with c me' 4 12 Life and Letters of Berkeley, [ch. and c my' sensations, principles in which originate the permanence or objectivity of which sensations in themselves are destitute. Kant tried to go deeper than Hume, in order to restore know- ledge and belief on the basis, not of transient feeling, but of thought and necessary universality. Sensations and their cus- toms — productive of a useful human habit of expectation — the expectation, in the circumstances, as reasonable as man is fit for — this, I think, is, on the whole, Hume's account of our knowledge and of existence. But this does not correspond, in Kant's insight, to the very experience which it pretends to give the last account of. There is an element of genuine ne- cessity and universality wrapped up within experience, which Humism makes away with. In this omitted element Kant finds the explanation of externality and science. Without this omitted universality and necessity he can see no objectivity to be possible : science dissolves into isolated sensations : it becomes shifting feeling. Objectivity requires an intellectual or necessary element, even in our very sense experience ; and this Hume had overlooked. Accordingly, the chief work of Kant's life was to explain the coherency of the sensible universe — and man's moral freedom from nature — by this neglected element. A scholasti- cally elaborated substitution of intellectual instead of customary coherence in experience is Kant's contribution in the reactionary succession to Hume. Kant's experience, like Hume's and Ber- keley's, takes phenomena or sensations for its matter ; yet its form or coherence is derived not from mere Custom — which is another name for the darkness of ignorance — but from universal notions of Understanding. Experience is thus professedly analysed into meaning^ instead of being thrown back upon the unintelligible. It is intellectually impossible, according to this critical philosophy, for any experience at all to exist in which there are no universal- izing principles of connexion. We find proof that this is so when we make the trial. We find, for instance, that changing sensations cannot conceivably become the experience we are conscious of, unless they are referred to a principle of permanence called Sub- stance i and we also find that changes of any sort cannot, in like manner, become part of our experience, except as they are conceived to be dependent on preceding conditions, discoverable by subse- X.] Philosophy of Berkeley. 4i3 quent experience, which conditions we call their Cause. This sort of substantiality and causality, which is too abstract for Berkeley, is thus held to be necessary to the possibility of any mental experience, and not to be blindly formed by the customs of each man's particular experience in an inexplicable mortal life. Later German philosophy goes on to show why these (and other) intellectual conditions must be involved in all possible experience, forming the Divine, Absolute, Uncreated Essence of the universe in which, as intellectual beings, we participate. With Plato too, in a long past age, the Universal was the only reality, and the particular phenomenon was real only by participation in the Uni- versal — by its relation to Intelligence. Berkeley came very much to this in the end, in Shis y but in his early philosophy his war against abstract ideas (i. e. abstract physical phenomena) — in which sometimes his words seem almost to make the phenomenon the only reality, and not merely the only physical reality — and his ten- dency to test everything by sensations or matters of fact, keeps in the background those Universals, or Notions of the Mind, that — • immutably survive, For our support, the measures and the forms Which an abstract intelligence supplies; Whose kingdom is, where time and space are not.' It was the dependence of external existence upon Sensation, rather than the dependence of all particular existence upon the Uni- versalising Intelligence, that he at first chiefly insisted on. It is more difficult, indeed almost impossible, to compare the concrete spiritual philosophy of Berkeley with the very different point of view which later German philosophy occupies. His Theological or Universalised Sensationalism is even opposite to the Subjective Idealism of Fichte. German speculation, in Kant and in Hegel, in reasoning out what Berkeley left vague, has forsaken his concrete and practical idealism. Grant that it has discovered an intellectually coherent experience, instead of Hume's habit of expectation blindly generated by custom. In doing so, it has given the Uncreated Conditions to which all actual or con- scious experience (if there happens to be any) must conform, and under which it must all be intelligibly concatenated. But why does the concrete phenomenal world, which is connected or made coherent by these pervading relations, start into phenomenal 414 Life and Letters of Berkeley. [ch. existence at all; and why do we begin to exist as persons who are percipient of it ? What set the movement a-going, which is constituted by these uncreated necessary relations ; and what now keeps it going ? The Hegelian might perhaps answer, This is asking what set God a-going, and what keeps Him in active thought. The intel- lectual necessities of Being constitute His essence, and that of Nature and of the Spirits which participate in Being. But it may still be asked, What of the contingencies in existence ? Why are sensible things composed of five kinds of sensation rather than of five hundred j and why am I myself^ and not some other person, or absorbed in the Supreme Unity ? The philosophy which critically unfolds the web of necessary thought — the complexus of Reason — even if it successfully unravels that web, and enables us to see the universe necessarily coherent in its coherency, still leaves unsettled the most interesting questions which the universe presses upon us, when the universe is looked at from the human and practical (which was Berkeley's) point of view — the moral existence of God, combined with the immortality of men. What more does it determine about the answers to the last than Ber- keley's reductio ad absurdum of Abstract Matter does, or even than Hume's mysterious Custom ? Kant's criticism of pure under- standing thrown in among the c impressions' of Hume, merely gives them intellectual coherence. Berkeley's philosophy is more immediately human than this, if far less intellectually thorough. It combines throughout what Kant severed from the beginning. The moral presumption of our individual free and proper agency is obscurely involved in Berkeley's philosophy of Sense from the first : without it his whole philosophy would dissolve in subjective sensationalism. In the dualism to which he leads, we are aware even in sensation that sensation is not subject to us, and that we are not subject to it. The sensations or phenomena which we perceive are discerned to be ours, because they need our sense- percipiency ; and not ours, for we are not their cause, nor responsible for their existence, as we are for our own actions, which we create. Sensations are outside the circle of our personal responsibility. The antithesis of sensibility and moral agency, which we find in Kant at last, runs, in an indistinct and fluctuating way, through Berkeley from X.] Philosophy of Berkeley. 415 the beginning. He in his own way combines the sensibility and the free-will of Kant — the c matter ' given to his specula- tive reason, and the moral presumption of his practical reason. Perception in Berkeley thus uncritically envelopes the two ex- treme parts of Kantianism — the Sensibility, and the Practical Reason. Kant's intermediate theory of constitutive notions of the understanding, and regulative ideas of reason is also roughly represented 41 in Berkeley's early theological sensationalism, and still more in his contrast, in Siris, between mere Sense and Reason. The Kantian, or later German, theory of place being a perception, necessarily implied in, and explanatory of, the externality of sensible things is, however, foreign to Berkeley, with whom c ambient space ' is as much created and dependent, and involved in the flux of sensations, as the sensible world itself • — for which world, indeed, space is merely a general expression. The reader may work out the comparison in detail — recollecting that Berkeley's philosophy is not c critical ' in its execution, or in its original conception. But it will yet clear itself from misconceptions, and its author will take his place as the most subtle thinker of the eighteenth century. Shis was the philosophical production of Berkeley's old age. But he was really all his life constructing a philosophical chain which connects the phenomena of which we are conscious with the Reality of Supreme Mind. In his argumentative youth, as well as in his contemplative old age, he was showing how the familiar perceptions of our daily life in the five senses are found by reflection to involve the deepest human problems — awakening the dormant intuition, that we are living, and moving, and having our being in Mind. With all this, it may be allowed that, though he unfolds his thought, and defends it against ob- jections, with singular acuteness and ingenuity,, the philosophy wants in his hands the sublimity and strength which we have in the productions of Plato, and in some moderns. To the Teutonic intellect, his life-long exposition of his thought probably 41 In concrete fashion — for in Berkeley, formal attempt either, by means of abstract I repeat, there is no critically ascertained notions, to make the living concrete ex- abstract necessity for causal connectedness, perience we have more certain than it is. or substantial permanence, for instance — no 416 Life and Letters of Berkeley. seems wanting in penetration and thoroughness. He answers, with much adroitness, indeed, the common objections to his own account of what the material world and its causation mean; but it may be granted that one occasionally feels in inter- course with him a want of the intellectual momentum needed for carrying a great philosophical conception into the heart of the world's thinking. We are sometimes apt to be more amused by the dextrous defence, than to have our convictions profoundly influenced. But we must not forget the modesty of his intention. c I had no inclination,' he says in one of his letters to Johnson, c to trouble the world with large volumes. What I have done was rather with the view of giving hints to thinking men, who have leisure and curiosity to go to the bottom of things, and pursue them in their own minds/ Perhaps what some may feel to be least satisfying in Berkeley's Theism is, its too exclusive reference to our sense experience, instead of to our moral experience — an inclination to gratify the vulgar demand for a visible God, with the background of mystery withdrawn, instead of the moral reserve of the Deus absconditus of Pascal, or the awful categorical imperative of Kant. An in- tellectual solution of the whole problem of Existence has hitherto, I suppose, evaded the intelligence of the race of man. We still need to be told that we ought to live the absolutely good, even although we may not reach the perfect philosophical conception of the Universe, and of our own destiny in it. But of the various imperfect thoughts about our mysterious life, that of Berkeley — wrapped up in his conception of the material world — seems to me, when truly understood, to be among the simplest and most beautiful in the history of philosophy. WRITINGS OF BISHOP BERKELEY HITHERTO UNPUBLISHED: METAPHYSICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE, WITH SERMONS, SKELETONS OF SERMONS, AND AN EPISCOPAL CHARGE. VOL. IV. [COMMONPLACE BOOK OF OCCASIONAL METAPHYSICAL THOUGHTS 1 .] I. = Introduction. M. = Matter. P. = Primary and Secondary qualities. E. = Existence. T. = Time. S. = Soul — Spirit. G. = God. Mo.= Moral Philosophy. N. = Natural Philosophy. Qu. if there be not two kinds of visible extension — one per- ceiv'd by a confus'd view, the other by a distinct successive direction of the optique axis to each point ? 1 This Metaphysical Commonplace Book, as I have called it, is a small quarto volume, in Berkeley's handwriting, in which he seems to have set down, often as if for further private consideration, stray thoughts which occurred to him in the course of his mathe- matical and metaphysical studies at Trinity College, Dublin. These common-places seem to have been formed gradually, apparently in 1705 and some following years. On the first page is written ' G. B. Coll. Trin. Dub. alum.' There is little method in the ar- rangement, though a progress in something like chronological order may, perhaps, be traced in some parts. Considerable por- tions imply that he was at the time maturing his thoughts with a view to the publi- cation of the Essay on Vision, and the Principles of Human Knowledge ; but the form which the projected work (or works) was to take does not appear to have been finally settled in his mind. Several passages refer to the Introduction to the Principles. The Commonplace Book contains many references to Locke's Essay, as well as to the metaphysical and other works of Des Cartes, the first Book of the Recherche of Malebranche, and various parts of the writ- ings of Hobbes ; also Newton and contem- porary authorities in mathematics and natural philosophy. The original manuscript is followed throughout, except the omission of some of the repetitions of identical thought in the same, or almost the same, words. Here and there the writing is nearly obliterated, appa- rently by the action of water. The letters I, M, P, &c. prefixed to some of the queries and other thoughts, are ex- plained above. I have added a few annotations as they hap- pened to occur. These might have been multi- plied indefinitely, had space allowed. — A.C.F. e e 2 420 Commonplace Book. I. No general ideas — the contrary a cause of mistake or confusion in mathematiques, Sec. This to be intimated in y e Introduc- tion 2 . The Principle may be apply'd to the difficulties of conservation, co-operation, &c. N. Trifling for the philosophers to enquire the cause of magnetical attractions, &c. They onely search after co-existing ideas. M. Qusecunque in Scriptura militant adversus Copernicum, militant pro me. M. All things in the Scripture w ch side with the vulgar against ^* the learned, side with me also. I side in all things with the mob. 1 know there is a mighty sect of men will oppose me, but yet I may expect to be supported by those whose minds are not so far overgrown w th madness. These are far the greatest part of mankind — especially Moralists, Divines, Politicians; in a word, all but Mathematicians and Natural Philosophers (I mean only the hypothetical gentlemen). Experimental philosophers 3 have nothing whereat to be offended in me. Newton begs his principles; I demonstrate mine. M. I must be very particular in explaining w* is meant by things existing — in houses, chambers, fields, caves, &c. — w n not per- ceiv'd as well as w n perceived, and shew how the vulgar notion agrees with mine, when we narrowly inspect into the meaning and definition of the word Existence, w h is no simple idea dis- tinct from perceiving and being perceived 4 . The Schoolmen have noble subjects, but handle them ill. The mathematicians have trifling subjects, but reason admirably about them. Certainly their method and arguing are excellent. God knows how far our knowledge of intellectual beings may be enlarg'd from the Principles. M. The reverse of the Principle I take to have been the chief source of all that scepticism and folly, all those contradictions and in- extricable puzzling absurdities, that have in all ages been a reproach to human reason, as well as of that idolatry, whether of images or 2 Cf. Introduction to the Principles of explained. See also Siris, sect. 231 — 264. Human Knowledge, sect. 6 — 17; also vol. I. 4 He attempts this in many parts of the of the Works, — Appendix A. Principles and the Dialogues. The difficulty 3 Cf. Principles, sect. 60 — 66, 101 — 117, of reconciling the Berkeleian Principle with where the important office of experimental the assumed substance or permanence of research, under the Berkeleian conception of sensible things is one of the chief difficulties the material world, and physical causation, is for those beginning to realise it. Commonplace Book. 421 of gold, &c, that blinds the greatest part of the world, as well as that shamefull immorality that turns us into beasts. £. mn Vmt & ftiit. ovaia, the name for substance used by Aristotle, the Fathers, &c. If at the same time we shall make the mathematiques much more easie and much more accurate, w fc can be objected to us 5 ? We need not force our imagination to conceive such very small lines for infinitesimals. They may every whit as well be imagined big as little, since that the integer must be infinite. Evident that wch has an infinite number of parts must be infinite. We cannot imagine a line or space infinitely great — therefore absurd to talk or make propositions about it. We cannot imagine a line, space, &c, quovis lato majus. Since y' what we imagine must be datum aliquod, a thing can't be greater than itself. If you call infinite that w ch is greater than any assignable by another, then I say, in that sense there may be an infinite square, sphere, or any other figure, wc h is absurd. Qu. if extension be resoluble into points it does not con- sist of? No reasoning about things whereof we have no ideas 6 , therefore no reasoning about infinitesimals. No word to be used without an idea 7 . S. If uneasiness be necessary to set the Will at work, Qu. how shall we will in heaven ? Bayle's, Malbrancir's, &c. arguments do not seem to prove against Space, but onely against Bodies. M. I agree in nothing wth the Cartesians as to y e existence of P. Bodies & Qualities. Aristotle as good a man as Euclid, but he was allowed to have been mistaken. Lines not proper for demonstration. 5 He naturally contemplated thus early the 6 Idea, with Berkeley, means what we are application of his New Principle to Mathe- conscious of, either in sense-perception or in matics — concerned as they are with Quantity, imagination. Space, Number, &c; but he seems to overlook 7 But cf. Alciphron, Dial. VII. 8 — 17; some of the conditions of its applicability. also Introduction to Principles. 422 Commonplace Book. M. We see the house itself, the church itself ; it being an idea, and nothing more. The house itself, the church itself, is an idea, i. e. object, immediate object, of thought 8 . Instead of injuring, our doctrine much benefits geometry. E. Existence is percipi, or percipere, [or velle, i.e. agere 9 ]. The horse is in the stable, the books are in the study as before. N. In physiques I have a vast view of things soluble hereby, but have not leisure. N. Hyps and such like unaccountable things confirm my doctrine. Angle not well defined. See Pardies' Geometry, by Harris, 6cc. This one ground of trifling. One idea not the cause of another — one power not the cause of another. The cause of all natural things is onely God. Hence trifling to enquire after second causes 10 . This doctrine gives a most suitable idea of the Divinity. N. Absurd to study astronomy and other the like doctrines as speculative sciences. N. The absurd account of memory by the brain, &c. makes for me. How was light created before man ? Even so were Bodies created before man 11 . E» Impossible anything besides that w ch thinks and is thought on should exist 12 . That w ch is visible cannot be made up of invisible things. M. S. is that wherein there are not contain'd distinguishable sensible parts. Now how can that w ch hath not sensible parts be divided into sensible parts ? If you say it may be divided into insensible parts, I say these are nothings. Extension abstract from sensible qualities is no sensation, I grant; but then there is no such idea, as any one may try 13 . There 8 But a 'house' or a 'church' includes while I am looking at it. more than visible ideas, so that we cannot 12 Separate inexistence in perception is be said to see it. Cf Life and Letters, ch. X. one phase of the Dualism of Berkeley : the 9 This is added in the margin — an im- other and deeper form of it emerges from portant addition, which at last resolves the our personal or voluntary acting, in anti- philosophy of Berkeley into a philosophy of thesis to what is external to its sphere. Cf. Causation. Collier's doctrine of inexistence, given in 10 With Berkeley are no phenomenal Berkeley's Works, vol. I. — Appendix B. ' second causes' — only natural signs, which 13 Berkeley hardly distinguishes the dis- physical science interprets. cernment of uncreated mathematical forms 11 This refers to a vulgar objection to or relations (to which the sensible ideas or Berkeley, now supposed to be reinforced by phenomena in which the relations are con- recent discoveries in geology. If these con- cretely manifested must conform) from the tradict it, so does the existence of a table sensations, ideas, or phenomena themselves. Commonplace Book. 423 is onely a considering the number of points without the sort of them, & this makes more for me, since it must be in a con- sidering thing. Mem. Before I have shewn the distinction between visible & tangible extension, I must not mention them as distinct. I must not mention M. T. & M. V., but in general M. S., &c. 14 Qu. whether a M. V. be of any colour ? a M. T. of any tangible quality ? If visible extension be the object of geometry, 'tis that which is surveyed by the optique axis. I may say the pain is in my finger, Sec, according to my doctrine 15 . Mem. Nicely to discuss w* is meant when we say a line con- sists of a certain number of inches or points, 6cc. — a circle of a certain number of square inches, points, Sec. Certainly we may think of a circle, or have its idea in our mind, without thinking of points or square inches, &c, whereas it should seem the idea of a circle is not made up of the ideas of points, square inches, &c. Qu. Is any more than this meant by the foregoing expressions, viz. that squares or points may be perceived in or made out of a circle, &c, or that squares, points, Sec. are actually in it, i. e. are perceivable in it ? A line in abstract, or distance, is the number of points between two points. There is also distance between a slave & an emperor, between a peasant & philosopher, between a drachm & a pound, a farthing & a crown, &c. ; in all which distance signifies the number of intermediate ideas. Halley's doctrine about the proportion between infinitely great quantities vanishes. When men speak of infinite quantities, either they mean finite quantities, or else talk of [that whereof they have 16 ] no idea; both which are absurd. If the disputations of the Schoolmen are blam'd for intricacy, triflingness, Sc confusion, yet it must be acknowledged that in the main they treated of great Se important subjects. If we 14 M. T. = matter tangible; M. V. = 16 [That need not have been blotted out- matter visible; M.S. = matter sensible. 'tis good sens'e if we do but determine w fc 15 Which the common doctrine of Primary we mean by thing and idea.] — Author. Qualities, as usually explained, hardly allows. 424 Commonplace Book. admire the method & acuteness of the math [ematicians] — the length, the subtilty, the exactness of their demonstrations — we must nevertheless be forced to grant that they are for the most part about trifling subjects, and perhaps nothing at all. Motion on 2d thoughts seems to be a simple idea. P. Motion distinct from y e thing moved is not conceivable. N. Mem. To take notice of Newton for defining it [motion] ; also of Locke's wisdom in leaving it undefined 17 . Ut ordo partium temporis est immutabilis, sin etiam ordo par- tium spatii. Moveantur hse de locis suis, et movebuntur (ut ita dicam) de seipsis. Truly number is immensurable — that we will allow with Newton. P- Ask a Cartesian whether he is wont to imagine his globules without colour. Pellucidness is a colour. The colour of ordinary light of the sun is white. Newton in the right in assigning colours to the rays of light. A man born blind would not imagine space as we do. We give it always some dilute, or duskish, or dark colour — in short, we imagine it as visible or intromitted by the eye, w cb he would not do. N. Proinde vim inferunt sacris Uteris qui voces hasce (v. tempus, spatium, motus) de quantitatibus mensuratis ibi interpretantur. Newton, p. 10. N. I differ from Newton, in that I think the recession ab axe motus is not the effect, or index, or measure of motion, but of the vis impressa. It sheweth not w* is truly moved, but w* has the force impressed on it, or rather that w ch hath an impressed force. D and P are not proportional in all circles. d d is to \ dp as d to -: but d and - are not in the same proportion in all circles. 4 4 Hence 'tis nonsense to seek the terms of one general proportion whereby to rectify all peripheries, or of another whereby to square all circles. N.B. If the circle be squar'd arithmetically, 'tis squar'd geo- metrically, arithmetic or numbers being nothing but lines & pro- portions of lines when apply'd to geometry. 17 See Locke's Essay, Bk. III. ch. 4, § 8, pies of attempts to define motion — involving where he offers ancient and modern exam- petilio frincipii. Commonplace Book. 425 Mem. To remark Cheyne 18 & his doctrine of infinites. Extension, motion, time, do each of them include the idea of succession, & so far forth they seem to be of mathematical con- sideration. Number consisting in succession & distinct percep- tion, w ch also consists in succession • for things at once perceiv'd are jumbled and mixt together in the mind. Time and motion can- not be conceiv'd without succession, & extension, qua mathemat., cannot be conceiv'd but as consisting of parts w ch may be dis- tinctly & successively perceiv'd. Extension perceived at once & in confuso does not belong to math. The simple idea call'd Power seems obscure, or rather none at all, but onely the relation 'twixt Cause and Effect. When I ask whether A can move B, if A be an intelligent thing, I mean no more than whether the volition of A that B move be attended with the motion of B? If A be senseless, whether the impulse of A against B be followed by y e motion of B 19 ? Barrow's arguing against indivisibles, lect. i. p. 16, is a petitio principii, for the Demonstration of Archimedes supposeth the circumference to consist of more than 24 points. Moreover it may perhaps be necessary to suppose the divisibility ad infinitum^ in order to demonstrate that the radius is equal to the side of the hexagon. Shew me an argument against indivisibles that does not go on some false supposition. A great number of insensibles — or thus, two invisibles, say, you put together become visible, therefore that M. V. contains or is made up of invisibles. I answer, the M.V. does not comprise, is not composed of invisibles. All the matter amounts to this, viz. whereas I had no idea awhile agoe, I have an idea now. It remains for you to prove that I came by the present idea because there were two invisibles added together. I say the invisibles are nothings, cannot exist, include a contradiction 20 . 1H George Cheyne, the physician (known afterwards as author of the English Malady), published in 1705 a work on Fluxions, which procured him admission to the Royal Society. He was born in 1 6 70. 19 This anticipates Hume. 20 This is Berkeley's reasoning against abstract or insensible quantities, and infi- nitesimals — important in the sequel. 426 Commonplace Book. I am young, I am an upstart, I am a pretender, I am vain. Very well. I shall endeavour patiently to bear up under the most lessening, vilifying appellations the pride & rage of man can devise. But one thing I know I am not guilty of. I do not pin my faith on the sleeve of any great man. I act not out of pre- judice or prepossession. I do not adhere to any opinion because it is an old one, a revived one, a fashionable one, or one that I have spent much time in the study and cultivation of. Sense rather than reason or demonstration ought to be em- ployed about lines and figures, these being things sensible ; for as for those you call insensible, we have proved them to be nonsense, nothing. I. If in some things I differ from a philosopher I profess to admire, 'tis for that very thing on account whereof I admire him, namely, the love of truth. This dec. L Whenever my reader finds me talk very positively, I desire he'd not take it ill. I see no reason why certainty should be confined to the mathematicians. I say there are no incommensurables, no surds. I say the side of any square may be assigned in numbers. Say you assign unto me the side of the square 10. I ask w* 10 — 10 feet, inches, &c, or 10 points ? If the later, I deny there is any such square, 'tis impossible 10 points should compose a square. If the former, resolve y r 10 square inches, feet, &c. into points, & the number of points must necessarily be a square number whose side is easily assignable. A mean proportional cannot be found betwixt any two given lines. It can onely be found betwixt those the numbers of whose points multiply'd together produce a square number. Thus betwixt a line of 2 inches & a line of 5 inches a mean geometrical cannot be found, except the number of points contained in 2 inches multiply'd by y e number of points contained in 5 inches make a square number 21 . If the wit and industry of the Nihilarians were employ'd about the usefull & practical mathematiques, what advantage had it brought to mankind ! M. You ask me whether the books are in the study now, when no E. 31 To statements here and elsewhere mathematicians might not unreasonably take ex- ception. Commonplace Book. 427 one is there to see them ? I answer, Yes. You ask me, Are we not in the wrong for imagining things to exist when they are not actually perceiv'd by the senses ? I answer, No. The exist- ence of our ideas consists in being perceiv'd, imagin'd, thought on. Whenever they are imagin'd or thought on they do exist. Whenever they are mentioned or discours'd of they are imagin'd & thought on. Therefore you can at no time ask me whether they exist or no, but by reason of y t very question they must necessarily exist. But, say you, then a chimaera does exist ? I answer, it doth in E« one sense, i.e. it is imagin'd. But it must be well noted that exist- ence is vulgarly restrain'd to actuall perception, and that I use the word existence in a larger sense than ordinary 22 . N.B. — According to my doctrine all things are entia rationis^ i. e. Solum habent esse in intellectum. [ 23 According to my doctrine all are not entta rationis. The E. distinction between ens rationis and ens reale is kept up by it as well as any other doctrine.] You ask me whether there can be an infinite idea ? I answer, in one sense there may. Thus the visual sphere, tho' ever so small, is infinite, i. e. has no end. But if by infinite you mean an extension consisting of innumerable points, then I ask y r pardon. Points, tho' never so many, may be numbered. The multitude of points, or feet, inches, 6tc, hinders not their numbrableness (i. e. hinders not their being numerable) in the least. Many or most are numerable, as well as few or least. Also, if by infinite idea you mean an idea too great to be comprehended or perceiv'd all at once, you must excuse me. I think such an infinite is no less than a contradiction. The sillyness of the current doctrine makes much for me. They M. commonly suppose a material world — figures, motions, bulks of various sizes, &c. — according to their own confession to no purpose. All our sensations may be, and sometimes actually are, without them - y nor can men so much as conceive it possible they should concur in any wise to the production of them. Ask a man, I mean a philosopher, why he supposes this vast M. structure, this compages of bodies ? he shall be at a stand • he'll not have one word to say. W«h sufficiently shews the folly of the hypothesis. ' a All this must be balanced by other state- 23 Added on blank page of the MS. ments. Cf. Life and Letters,, ch. X. 428 Commonplace Book. M. Or rather why he supposes all y s Matter ? for bodies and their qualities I do allow to exist independently of our mind 24 . S. Qu. How is the soul distinguish'd from its ideas ? Certainly if there were no sensible ideas there could be no soul, no perception, remembrance, love, fear, dec. ; no faculty could be exerted 25 . S. The soul is the Will, properly speaking, and as it is distinct from ideas 26 . S. The grand puzzling question, whether I sleep or wake? easily solv'd. Qu. Whether minima or meer minima may not be compar'd by their sooner, or later evanescence, as well as by more or less points, so that one sensible may be greater than another, though it exceeds it not by one point ? Circles on several radius's are not similar figures, they having neither all nor any an infinite number of sides. Hence in vain to enquire after 2 terms of one and y e same proportion that should constantly express the reason of the d to the p in all circles. Mem. To remark Wallis's harangue, that the aforesaid pro- portion can neither be expressed by rational numbers nor surds. We can no more have an idea of length without breadth or visibility, than of a general figure. One idea may be like another idea, tho' they contain no com- mon simple idea 27 . Thus the simple idea red is in some sense like the simple idea blue • 'tis liker it than sweet or shrill. But then those ideas w c]l are so said to be alike, agree both in their connexion with another simple idea, viz. extension, & in their being received by one & the same sense. But, after all, nothing can be like an idea but an idea. No sharing betwixt God & nature or second causes in my doctrine. M. Materialists must allow the earth to be actually mov'd by the attractive power of every stone that falls from the air, with many other the like absurditys. 24 i. e. of my individual mind. For Berke- ley's analysis of the externality of sensible things, see Life and Letters, ch. X. 25 This implies that the human soul de- pends on sensible ideas as well as they on it. But mind may be percipient of other objects than sensations, or sense-given phenomena, while they cannot be conceived to be indepen- dent of it. This he allows elsewhere, I think. 26 i.e. from phenomena. 27 [This I do not altogether approve of.] — Author. Commonplace Book. 429 Enquire concerning the pendulum clock, &c. ; whether those inventions of Huygens, &c. be attained to by my doctrine. The "" & '"" & /,//,/ &c. of time are to be cast away and neglected, as so many noughts or nothings. Mem. To make experiments concerning minimums and their colours, whether they have any or no, & whether they can be of that green w ch seems to be compounded of yellow and blue. Qu. whether it were not better not to call the operations of the mind ideas 28 — confining this term to things sensible ? Mem. Diligently to set forth how that many of the ancient philosophers run into so great absurditys as even to deny the existence of motion and those other things they perceiv'd actually by their senses. This sprung from their not knowing w 1 Exist- ence was, and wherein it consisted. This the source of all their folly. 'Tis on the discovering of the nature and meaning and import of Existence that I chiefly insist. This puts a wide difference betwixt the sceptics &c. & me. This I think wholly new. I am sure this new to me. We have learn'd from Mr. Locke that there may be, and that there are, several glib, coherent, methodical discourses, which nevertheless amount to just nothing. This by him intended with relation to the Scholemen. We may apply it to the mathematicians. Qu. How can all words be said to stand for ideas 29 ? The word blue stands for a colour without any extension or abstract from extension. But we have not an idea of colour without extension. We cannot imagine colour without extension. Locke seems wrongly to assign a double use of words, one for communicating & the other for recording our thoughts. 'Tis absurd to use words for recording our thoughts to ourselves, or in our private meditations 30 . No one abstract simple idea like another. Two simple ideas may be connected with one & the same 3 d simple idea,. or be in- tromitted by one &c the same sense. But consider'd in themselves they can have nothing common, and consequently no likeness. Qu. How can there be any abstract ideas of colours ? It seems 28 He usually calls them notions — in con- 29 See a preceding note, trast to the sensuous ideas of perception and 30 Is discursive thought, then, independent imagination. of language ? 430 Commonplace Book. not so easily as of tastes or sounds. But then all abstract ideas whatsoever are particular. I can by no means conceive a general idea. 'Tis one thing to abstract one idea from another of a different kind, & another thing to abstract an idea from all particulars of the same kind 31 . Mem. Much to recommend and approve of experimental philosophy. What means Cause as distinguished from Occasion ? Nothing but a being w (n wills, w n the effect follows the volition. Those things that happen from without we are not the cause of. There- fore there is some other cause of them, i. e. there is a being that wills these perceptions in us 32 . 33 It should be said, nothing but a Will — a being which wills being unintelligible.] One square cannot be double of another. Hence the Pythagoric theorem is false. Some writers of catoptrics absurd enough to place the apparent place of the object in the Barrovian case behind the eye. Blew and yellow chequers still diminishing terminate in green. This may help to prove the composition of green. There is in green i foundations of 2 relations of likeness to blew &c yellow. Therefore green is compounded. A mixt cause will produce a mixt effect. Therefore colours are all compounded that we see. Mem. To consider Newton's two sorts of green. N. B. My abstract &c general doctrines ought not to be con- demn'd by the Royall Society. 'Tis w* their meeting did ulti- mately intend. V. Sprat's History S. R. 34 Mem. To premise a definition of idea 35 . The i great principles of morality — the being of a God & the freedom of man. Those to be handled in the beginning of the Second Book 36 . 31 Every general notion is actually con- ceivable only in one or other of its possible applications. A triangle must be either equi- lateral, or rectangular, &c. 32 This is the germ of Berkeley's notion of externality, or duality in existence, which is formed on the consciousness of our individual or finite personality. 33 Added on blank page of the MS. 34 Cf. p. 420, note 2. Bishop Sprat's His- tory of the Royal Society appeared in 1667. 88 Much need, but it has not been ade- quately done. 36 What ' Second Book' is this ? He speaks of a ' First ' and a ' Third Book,' &c. in the sequel. Commonplace Book. 43i Subvertitur geometria ut non practica sed speculativa. Archimedes's proposition about squaring the circle has nothing to do with circumferences containing less than 96 points; & if the circumference contain 96 points it may be apply'd, but nothing will follow against indivisibles. V. Barrow. Those curve lines that you can rectify geometrically. Com- pare them with their equal right lines & by a microscope you shall discover an inequality. Hence my squaring of the circle as good and exact as the best. M. Qu. whether the substance of body or anything else be any more than the collection of ideas included in that thing? Thus the substance of any particular body is extension, solidity, figure 37 . Of general body no idea. I. Mem. Most carefully to inculcate and set forth that the en- deavouring to express abstract philosophic thoughts by words unavoidably runs a man into difficulties. This to be done in the Introduction 38 . Mem. To endeavour most accurately to understand what is meant by this axiom : Quae sibi mutuo congruunt sequalia sunt. Qu. what the geometers mean by equality of lines, & whether, according to their definition of equality, a curve line can possibly be equal to a right line ? If wth me you call those lines equal w ch contain an equal number of points, then there will be no difficulty. That curve is equal to a right line w ch contains the same points as the right one doth. M. I take not away substances. I ought not to be accused of dis- carding substance out of the reasonable world 39 . I onely reject the philosophic sense (w ch in effect is no sense) of the word substance. Ask a man not tainted with their jargon wt he means by cor- poreal substance, or the substance of body. He shall answer, bulk, solidity, and such like sensible qualitys. These I retain. The philosophic nec quid, nec quantum, nec quale, whereof I have 37 This is Berkeley's notion of physical being essential and not accidental to them, substance — an aggregate of sense-given phe- 38 Cf. Introduction to the Prificiples, sect, nomena, having the formal, efficient, and 1 8 — 25. final cause of their aggregation in Supreme 39 He refers here to Bishop Stillingfleet's Intelligence, but which are more or less fully charge against Locke — of ' discarding sub- experienced by and intelligible to human stance out of the reasonable part of the minds — mind, both human and Supreme, world.' 432 Commo7iplace Book. no idea, I discard, if a man may be said to discard that which never had any being, was never so much as imagin'd or conceiv'd. M. In short, be not angry. You lose nothing, whether real or chimerical. W'ever you can in any wise conceive or imagine, be it never so wild, so extravagant, 6c absurd, much good may it do you. You may enjoy it for me. I'll never deprive you of it. N.B. I am more for reality than any other philosophers. They make a thousand doubts, 6c know not certainly but we may be deceiv'd. I assert the direct contrary. A line in the sense of mathematicians is not meer distance. This evident in that there are curve lines. Curves perfectly incomprehensible, inexplicable, absurd, except we allow points. I. If men look for a thing where it's not to be found, be they never so sagacious, it is lost labour. If a simple clumsy man knows where the game lies, he though a fool shall catch it sooner than the most fleet 6c dexterous that seek it elsewhere. Men choose to hunt for truth and knowledge anywhere rather than in their own understanding, where 'tis to be found. M. All knowledge onely about ideas. Locke, B. 4. c. 1. S. It seems improper, 6c liable to difficulties, to make the word person stand for an idea, or to make ourselves ideas, or thinking things ideas. I . General ideas cause of much trifling and mistake. Mathematicians seem not to speak clearly and coherently of equality. They nowhere define w* they mean by that word when apply'd to lines. Locke says the modes of simple ideas, besides extension and number, are counted by degrees. I deny there are any modes or degrees of simple ideas. What he terms such are complex ideas, as I have proved in green. W* do the mathematicians mean by considering curves as polygons? Either they are polygons or they are not. If they are, why do they give them the name of curves ? Why do not they constantly call them polygons, 6c treat them as such ? If they are not polygons, I think it absurd to use polygons in their stead. Commonplace Book. 433 W* is this but to pervert language ? to adapt an idea to a name that belongs not to it but to a different idea ? The mathematicians should look to their axiom, Quse con- gruunt sunt aequalia. I know not what they mean by bidding me put one triangle on another. The under triangle is no triangle — nothing at all, it not being perceiv'd. I ask, must sight be judge of this congruentia or not ? If it must, then all lines seen under the same angle are equal, w ch they will not acknowledge. Must the touch be judge ? But we cannot touch or feel lines and sur- faces, such as triangles, &c, according to the mathematicians themselves. Much less can we touch a line or triangle that's covered by another line or triangle. Do you mean by saying one triangle is equall to another, that they both take up equal spaces ? But then the question recurs, what mean you by equal spaces ? If you mean spatta congruentia^ answer the above difficulty truly. I can mean (for my part) nothing else by equal triangles than triangles containing equal numbers of points. I can mean nothing by equal lines but lines w ch 'tis indifferent whether of them I take, lines in w ch I observe by my senses no difference, & w ch therefore have the same name. Must the imagination be judge in the aforementioned cases ? but then imagination cannot go beyond the touch and sight. Say you, Pure intellect must be judge. I reply that lines and triangles are not operations of the mind 40 . If I speak positively and with the air of a mathematician in things of which 1 am certain, 'tis to avoid disputes, to make men careful to think before they answer, to discuss my arguments before they go to refute them. I would by no means injure truth and certainty by an affected modesty &c submission to better judgments. Wt I lay before you are undoubted theorems, not plausible conjectures of my own, nor learned opinions of other men. 1 pretend not to prove them by figures, analogy, or authority. Let them stand or fall by their own evidence. When you speak of the corpuscularian essences of bodys, to reflect on sect. n. & 12. b. 4. c. 3. Locke. Motion supposes not 40 But may their mathematical relations them, and which they must conform to in not be uncreated or necessary intelligible all cases of their actual existence ? conditions of sensible things — realizable in VOL. IV. F f 434 Commonplace Book, solidity. A meer colour'd extension may give us the idea of motion. P. Any subject can have of each sort of primary qualities but one particular at once. Lib. 4. c. 3. s. 15. Locke. M. Well, say you, according to this new doctrine, all is but meer idea — there is nothing w ch is not an ens rationis. I answer, things are as real, and exist in rerum natura, as much as ever. The differ- ence between entia realia & entia rationis may be made as properly now as ever. Do but think before you speak. Endeavour rightly to comprehend my meaning, and you'll agree with me in this. N. Fruitless the distinction 'twixt real and nominal essences. We are not acquainted with the meaning of our words. Real, ex- tension, existence, power, matter, lines, infinite, point, and many more are frequently in our mouths, when little, clear, and determin'd answers them in our understandings. This must be well inculcated. Vain is the distinction 'twixt intellectual and material world. V. Locke, lib. 4. c. 3. s. 27, where he says that is far more beau- tiful than this. S. Foolish in men to despise the senses. If it were not for them Mo. the mind could have no knowledge, no thought at all. All * * * of introversion, meditation, contemplation, and spiritual acts, as if these could be exerted before we had ideas from without by the senses, are manifestly absurd. This may be of great use in that it makes the happyness of the life to come more conceivable and agreeable to our present nature. The schoolemen & refiners in philosophy gave the greatest part of mankind no more tempting idea of heaven or the joys of the blest. The vast, wide-spread, universal cause of our mistakes is, that we do not consider our own notions. I mean consider them in them- selves, fix, settle, and determine them, — we regarding them with relation to each other only. In short, we are much out in study- ing] the relations of things before we study them absolutely and in themselves. Thus we study to find out the relations of figures to one another, the relations also of number, without endeavouring rightly to understand the nature of extension and number in them- selves. This we think is of no concern, of no difficulty, but if I mistake not 'tis of the last importance. Mo. I allow not of the distinction there is made 'twixt profit and pleasure. Commonplace Book. 435 Mo. 1 'd never blame a man for acting upon interest. He's a fool that acts on any other principles. The not considering these things has been of ill consequence in morality 41 . My positive assertions are no less modest than those that are introduced with c It seems to me/ c I suppose/ &c. ; since I declare, once for all, that all I write or think is entirely about things as they appear to me. It concerns no man else any further than his thoughts agree with mine. This in the Preface. I. Two things are apt to confound men in their reasonings one with another, ist. Words signifying the operations of the mind are taken from sensible ideas, sndly. Words as used by the vulgar are taken in some latitude, their signification is confused. Hence if a man use y m in a determined, settled signification, he is at a hazard either of not being understood, or of speaking impro- perly. All this remedyed by studying the understanding. Unity no simple idea. I have no idea meerly answering the word one. All number consists in relations 42 . Entia realia et entia rationis, a foolish distinction of the Schoolemen. M. We have an intuitive knowledge of the existence of other things P- besides ourselves, & order praecedaneous 43 is the knowledge of our own existence — in that we must have ideas or else we cannot think. S. We move our legs ourselves. 'Tis we that will their movement. Herein I differ from Malbranch 44 . Mo. Mem. Nicely to discuss Lib. 4. c. 4. Locke 45 . M. Mem. Again and again to mention & illustrate the doctrine of the reality of things, rerum natura, &c. M. W l I say is demonstration — perfect demonstration. Wherever men have fix'd & determin'd ideas annexed to their words they can hardly be mistaken. Stick but to my definition of likeness, and -'tis a demonstration y 1 colours are not simple ideas, all reds being like, &c. So also in other things. This to be heartily insisted on. E. The abstract idea of Being or Existence is never thought of by the vulgar. They never use those words standing for abstract ideas. 41 This tinges Berkeley's theological utili- quotation from Barrow. tarianism. 44 Who refunds human, as well as natural, 42 Cf. Principles, sect. 13, 1 19 — 122, into Divine agency. which disprove any physical reality corre- 45 In which Locke treats ' Of the Reality sponding to number in the abstract. of our Knowledge.' 43 Richardson gives this word. See his F f % 43 6 Commonplace Book, M. I must not say the words thing, substance, Sec. have been the cause of mistakes, but the not reflecting on their meaning. I will be still for retaining the words. I only desire that men would think before they speak, and settle the meaning of their words. Mo. I approve not of that which Locke says, viz. truth consists in the joining and separating of signs. I. Locke cannot explain general truth or knowledge without treat- ing of words and propositions. This makes for me against general ideas. Vide Locke, lib. 4. ch. 6. I. Men have been very industrious in travelling forward. They have gone a great way. But none have gone backward beyond . the Principles. On that side there lies much terra incognita to be travePd over and discovered by me. A vast field for invention. Twelve inches not the same idea with a foot. Because a man may perfectly conceive a foot who never thought of an inch. A foot is equal to or the same with twelve inches in this respect, viz. they contain both the same number of points. [Forasmuch as] to be used. Mem. To mention somewhat w ch may encourage the study of politiques and testify of me yt I am well dispos'd toward them. I. If men did not use words for ideas they would never have thought of abstract ideas. Certainly genera and species are not abstract general ideas. These include a contradiction in their nature. Vide Locke, lib. 4. s. 9. c. 7. A various or mixt cause must necessarily produce a various or mixt effect. This demonstrable from the definition of a cause; which way of demonstrating must be frequently made use of in my Treatise, & to that end definitions often prsemis'd. Hence 'tis evident that, according to Newton's doctrine, colours cannot be simple ideas. M. I am the farthest from scepticism of any man. I know with an intuitive knowledge the existence of other things as well as my own soul. This is w l Locke nor scarce any other thinking philosopher will pretend to 46 . 46 This and other passages refer to the an- cient scepticism founded on the impossibility of our ever comparing our thoughts about things with the real things in themselves, so that we can only compare our thoughts with one another, and never escape from the circle of subjectivity. Berkeley's philosophy was intended to refute this sort of scepticism. Commonplace Book. 437 I. Doctrine of abstraction of very evil consequence in all the sciences. Mem. Barrow's remark. Entirely owing to language. Locke greatly out in reckoning the recording our ideas by words amongst the uses and not the abuses of language. I. Of great use & ye last importance to contemplate a man put into the world alone, with admirable abilitys, and see how after long experience he would know wthout words. Such a one would never think of genera and species or abstract general ideas. I. Wonderful in Locke that he could, w n advanced in years, see at all thro' a mist ; it had been so long a gathering, & was consequently thick. This more to be admir'd than y 4 he did not see farther. Identity of ideas may be taken in a double sense, either as inclu- ding or excluding identity of circumstances, such as time, place, 6tc. Mo. I am glad the people I converse with are not all richer, wiser, &c. than I. This is agreeable to reason; is no sin. 'Tis certain that if the happyness of my acquaintance encreases, & mine not proportionably, mine must decrease. The not understanding this & the doctrine about relative good, discuss'd with French, Madden 47 , &c, to be noticed as 2 causes of mistake in judging of moral matters. Mem. To observe (w n you talk of the division of ideas into simple and complex) that there may be another cause of the un- definableness of certain ideas besides that which Locke gives ; viz. the want of names. M. Mem. To begin the First Book not with mention of sensation and reflection, but instead of sensation to use perception or thought in general. I. I defy any man to imagine or conceive perception without an idea, or an idea without perception. E. Locke's very supposition that matter &c motion should exist before thought is absurd, includes a manifest contradiction 48 . Locke's harangue about coherent, methodical discourses amount- ing to nothing, apply'd to the mathematicians. They talk of determining all the points of a curve by an equa- tion, mean they by this ? W* would they signify by the word points ? Do they stick to the definition of Euclid ? " Probably Samuel Madden, who after- 48 Berkeley's philosophy professes to give wards edited the Querist. the rationale of this. Commonplace Book. S. We think we know not the soul, because we have no ima- ginable or sensible idea annex'd to that sound. This the effect of prejudice. S. Certainly we do not know it. This will be plain if we ex- amine what we mean by the word knowledge. Neither doth this argue any defect in our knowledge, no more than our not knowing a contradiction. The very existence of ideas constitutes the soul 49 . S. Consciousness 50 , perception, existence of ideas, seem to be all one. Consult, ransack y r understanding. W* find you there besides several perceptions or thoughts? W* mean you by the word mind? You must mean something that you perceive, or yt you do not perceive. A thing not perceived is a contradiction. To mean (also) a thing you do not perceive is a contradiction. We are in all this matter strangely abused by words. Mind is a congeries of perceptions. Take away perceptions and you take away the mind. Put the perceptions and you put the mind. Say you, the mind is not the perception, not that thing which perceives. I answer, you are abused by the words ( that a thing.' These are vague and empty words with us. S. The having ideas is not the same thing with perception. A man may have ideas when he only imagines. But then this imagination presupposeth perception. M. That wch extreamly strengthens us in prejudice is y* we think we see an empty space, which I shall demonstrate to be false in the Third Book There may be demonstrations used even in Divinity. I mean in revealed Theology, as contradistinguish'd from natural ; for tho' the principles may be founded in faith, yet this hinders not but that legitimate demonstrations might be built thereon. Provided still that we define the words we use, and never go beyond our ideas. Hence 'twere no very hard matter for those 49 Does consciousness of phenomena then constitute self — so that self could not exist in an unconscious state? Here Berkeley's theory of Time comes in. But might not finite minds or persons be kept in existence during intervals of personal inactivity, in the same way as sensible things ? Berkeley has no clear teaching about finite minds — egos as distinguished from the Ego. 50 ' Consciousness,' a term seldom used by Berkeley, here equivalent to immediate per- ception — external and internal. 51 Again a ' Third Book.' This is done in the New Theory of Vision, and in the Principles, sect. 42 — 44. Commonplace Book. 439 who hold episcopacy or monarchy to be established jure Divino to demonstrate their doctrines if they are true. But to pretend to demonstrate or reason anything about the Trinity is absurd. Here an implicit faith becomes us 52 . S. Qu. if there be any real difference betwixt certain ideas of reflection & others of sensation, e. g. betwixt perception and white, black, sweet, &c. ? Wherein, I pray you, does the percep- tion of white differ from white men * -x- I shall demonstrate all my doctrines. The nature of demon- stration to be set forth and insisted on in the Introduction 53 . In that I must needs differ from Locke, forasmuch as he makes all demonstration to be about abstract ideas, w ch I say we have not nor can have. S. The understanding seemeth not to differ from its perceptions or ideas. Qu. What must one think of the will and passions ? E. A good proof that Existence is nothing without or distinct from perception, may be drawn from considering a man put into the world without company 54 . E. There was a smell, i.e. there was a smell perceiv'd. Thus we see that common speech confirms my doctrine. T. No broken intervals of death or annihilation. Those intervals are nothing; each person's time being measured to him by his own ideas 55 . I. We are frequently puzzl'd and at a loss in obtaining clear and determin'd meanings of words commonly in use, &c that because we imagine words stand for general ideas which are altogether inconceivable. I. c A stone is a stone/ This a nonsensical proposition, and such as the solitary man would never think on. Nor do I believe he would ever think on this : c The whole is equal to its parts,' &c. E. Let it not be said that I take away existence. I only declare the meaning of the word so far as I can comprehend it. L If you take away abstraction, how do men differ from beasts ? I answer, by shape, by language. Rather by degrees of more and less. 52 See e. g. Alciphron, Dial. VII. sect. 1 1 — proaches the Divine. 1 8, where the function of faith in finite 53 This not done, minds, with a sphere proportional to the 64 i.e. he would have no such word, intellectual development of the individual, is 55 i.e. Time is only relative to the indi- referred to. Faith becomes science as the vidual — the extreme form of the homo men.' individual intelligence developes and ap- sura principle. 44-0 Commonplace Book. W* means Locke by inferences in words, consequences of words, as something different from consequences of ideas ? I con- ceive no such thing. 1. N.B. Much complaint about the imperfection of language. M. But perhaps some man may say, an inert thoughtless substance may exist, though not extended, moved, &c, but with other proper- ties whereof we have no idea. But even this I shall demonstrate to be impossible, w n I come to treat more particularly of Existence 56 . Will not rightly distinguished from Desire by Locke — it seeming to superadd nothing to the idea of an action, but the uneasiness for its absence or non-existence. S. Mem. To enquire diligently into that strange mistery, viz. How it is that I can cast about, think of this or that man, place, action, w n nothing appears to introduce them into my thoughts, w n they have no perceivable connexion with the ideas suggested by my senses at the present ? I. 5 Tis not to be imagin'd w* a marvellous emptiness & scarcity of ideas that man shall descry who will lay aside all use of words in his meditations. M. Incongruous in Locke to fancy we want a sense proper to see substances with 51 . I. Locke owns that abstract ideas were made in order to naming. M. The common errour of the opticians, that we judge of distance by angles, strengthens men in their prejudice that they see things without and distant from their mind. E. I am persuaded, would men but examine w* they mean by the word existence, they wou'd agree with me. c. 20. s. 8. b. 4. of Locke 58 makes for me against the mathema- ticians. M. The supposition that things are distinct from ideas takes away all real truth, 6c consequently brings in a universal scepticism, since all our knowledge and contemplation is confin'd barely to our own ideas 59 . 66 Principles, sect. 77 — 81, 89. dogmatic assumption of doubtful proposi- 57 Essay, Bk. II. ch. 23, and the Bishop tions as first principles — that favourite one of Worcester's Answer (1697) to Locke's above all, ' that our assumed first principles First Letter. Locke's account of Substance, are not to be questioned.' and the controversy to which it gave rise, 59 i.e. To the phenomena of which we are may have been an immediate occasion of conscious or immediately percipient, with the Berkeley's New Conception of the Universe. apodeictic principles which enable us to under- 88 Where and elsewhere he condemns the stand them, or draw inferences about them. Co7nmonplace Book. 441 L Qu. whether the solitary man would not find it necessary to make use of words to record his ideas, if not in memory or medita- tion, yet at least in writing — without which he could scarce retain his knowledge 60 . We read in history there was a time when fears and jealousies, privileges of parliament, malignant party, and such like expres- sions of too unlimited and doubtful a meaning, were words of much sway. Also the words Church, Whig, Tory, &c, contribute very much to faction and dispute. S. The distinguishing betwixt an idea and perception of the idea has been one great cause of imagining material substances 61 . S. That God and blessed spirits have Will is a manifest argument against Locke's proofs that the Will cannot be conceiv'd, put into action, without a previous uneasiness. S. The act of the Will, or volition, is not uneasiness, for that un- easiness may be without volition. S. Volition is distinct from the object or idea for the same reason. S. Also from uneasiness and idea together. The understanding not distinct from particular perceptions or ideas. The Will not distinct from particular volitions. S. It is not so very evident that an idea, or at least uneasiness, may be without all volition or act. The understanding taken for a faculty is not really distinct from y e will. This allow'd hereafter. S. To ask whether a man can will either side is an absurd ques- tion, for the word c can' presupposes volition. N. Anima mundi, substantial form, omniscient radical heat, plastic vertue, Hylaschic principle — all these vanish 62 . M. Newton proves that gravity is proportional to gravity. I think that's all 63 . 60 He begins to discover that communica- tion with others is not the only use of signs. 61 But he elsewhere contrasts the idea or perception with the percipient, as these anti- thesis in a duality. 62 Yet they reappear after a fashion in Siris, with its chain or gradation of existence, which culminates in Intelligence — in analogy with some ancient Greek and modern Ger- man philosophy. 63 Cf. Berkeley's letter to Johnson, p. 1 79 ; also Be Motu. Commonplace Book. Qu. whether it be the vis inertias that makes it difficult to move a stone, or the vis attractive, or both, or neither ? Mem. To express the doctrines as fully and copiously and clearly as may be. Also to be full and particular in answering objections. S. To say ye Will is a power- [ 64 therefore] volition is an act. This is idem per idem. W 4 makes men despise extension, motion, &c, & separate them from the essence of the soul, is that they imagine them to be distinct from thought, and to exist in unthinking substance. An extended may have passive modes of thinking good actions. There might be idea, there might be uneasiness, there might be the greatest uneasiness w th out any volition, therefore the * * * M. Matter once allow'd, I defy any man to prove that God is not matter 65 . S. Man is free. There is no difficulty in this proposition, if we but settle the signification of the word free — if we had an idea annext to the word free, and would but contemplate that idea. S. We are imposed on by the words will, determine, agent, free, can, 6cc. S. Uneasiness precedes not every volition. This evident by ex- perience. S. Trace an infant in the womb. Mark the train & succession of its ideas. Observe how volition comes into the mind. This may perhaps acquaint you with its nature. S. Complacency seems rather to determine, or precede, or coincide w th & constitute the essence of volition, than uneasiness. S. You tell me, according to my doctrine a man is not free. I answer, tell me w* you mean by the word free, and I shall resolve you 66 . N. Qu. W* do men mean when they talk of one body's c touching' another ? I say you never saw one body touch, or (rather) I say, I never saw one body that I could say touch'd this or that other • for that if my optiques were improv'd, I should see intervalls and other bodies behind those wh ch now seem to touch. Mem. Upon all occasions to use the utmost modesty — to con- 64 So in MS. and Ends in sensible existence being, more- 65 Berkeley's philosophy substitutes Su- over, partially discovered in the principles of preme Mind for abstract or unperceived physical and mathematical science. Matter — on the ground that the necessities of 66 On free or proper agency in man, cf. Al- reason compel this — the Supreme Thoughts ciphron, Dial. VII. sect. 19 — 22. I Commonplace Book. 443 fute the mathematicians w th the utmost civility &c respect, not to style them Nihilarians, &c. N.B. To rein in y e satyrical nature. Blame me not if I use my words sometimes in some latitude. 'Tis w* cannot be helpt. "Tis the fault of language that you cannot always apprehend the clear and determinate meaning of my words. Say you, there might be a thinking substance — something un- known w ch perceives, and supports, and ties together the ideas. Say I, make it appear there is any need of it and you shall have it for me. I care not to take away anything I can see the least reason to think should exist. I affirm 'tis manifestly absurd — no excuse in the world can be given why a man should use a word without an idea. Certainly we shall find that w* ever word we make use of in matter of pure rea- soning has, or ought to have, a compleat idea annext to it, i. e. its meaning or the sense we take it in must be compleatly known 67 . 'Tis demonstrable a man can never be brought to imagine any- thing should exist whereof he has no idea 68 . Whoever says he does, banters himself with words. We imagine a great difference & distance in respect of know- ledge, power, &c, betwixt a man & a worm. The like difference betwixt man and God may be imagin'd, or infinitely greater difference. We find in our own minds a great number of different ideas. We may imagine in God a greater number, i. e. that ours in number, or the number of ours, is inconsiderable in respect thereof. The words difference and number, old and known, we apply to that w ch is unknown. But I am embrangled in words — 'tis scarce possible it should be otherwise 69 . The chief thing I do or pretend to do is onely to remove the mist or veil of words 70 . This has occasioned ignorance & confusion. 67 But cf. Principles, Introduction, sect. 19 — 20; Alcipbron, Dial. VII. sect. 8; and the Analyst. 68 i.e. no perception or imagination; and as we canuot perceive or imagine insensible Matter, he argues that it cannot exist. But, though we cannot imagine that of which we have no idea, may there not be uncreated conditions of the existence of ideas, which per se indeed are not imaginable, but which must be always realized in the realization of the concrete ideas or phenomena ? 69 To 'embrangle* or 'brangle' — to be involved in a dispute or difficulty. This is an attempt to realize the Divine, in distinc- tion from finite knowledge. 70 Cf. Principles, Introduction, sect. 24. 444 Commonplace Book. This has ruined the schoolmen and mathematicians, lawyers and divines. S. The grand cause of perplexity 6c darkness in treating of the Will, is that we imagine it to be an object of thought : (to speak with the vulgar), we think we may perceive, contemplate, and view it like any of our ideas, whereas in truth 'tis no idea, nor is there any idea of it. 5 Tis toto ccelo different from the under- standing, i. e. from all our ideas. If you say the Will, or rather volition, is something, I answer, there is an homonymy in the word c thing ' w n apply'd to ideas and volition, and understanding and will. All ideas are passive volitions [or actions] . S. Thing 6c idea are much what words of the same extent and meaning. Why, therefore, do I not use the word thing? Ans. Because thing is of greater latitude than idea. Thing compre- hends also volitions or actions. Now these are no ideas. S. There can be perception w th out volition. Qu. whether there can be volition without perception ? E. Existence not conceivable without perception or volition — not distinguished therefrom. T. N.B. Several distinct ideas can be perceived by sight and touch at once. Not so by the other senses. 5 Tis this diversity of sensations in other senses chiefly, but sometimes in touch and sight (as also diversity of volitions, whereof there cannot be more than one at once, or rather, it seems there cannot, for of that I doubt), gives us the idea of time — or is time itself 71 . W fc would the solitary man think of number ? S. There are innate ideas, i. e. ideas created with us 72 . S. Locke seems to be mistaken w n he says thought is not essen- tial to the mind 73 . S. Certainly the mind always and constantly thinks : and we know this too. In sleep and trances the mind exists not 74 — there is no time, no succession of ideas. S, To say the mind exists without thinking is a contradiction, nonsense, nothing. S. Folly to inquire w* determines the Will. Uneasiness, 6cc. are 71 Cf. Berkeley's letter to Johnson, p. 177. 73 Essay, Bk. II. ch. T. 72 i. e. connate ideas, or connate pheno- 74 This is one way of meeting the diffi- mena. What are these ? Not connate cnlty of gaps or intervals in the continuity notions, as in Siris, sect. 308. of conscious life. Commonplace Book. 445 ideas, therefore unactive, therefore can do nothing, therefore can- not determine the Will. g > Again, w* mean you by determine 75 ? jsj. For want of rightly understanding time, motion, existence, &c, T. men are forc'd into such absurd contradictions as this, viz. light moves 1 6 diameters of earth in a second of time 76 . S. Twas the opinion that ideas could exist unperceiv'd, or before perception, that made men think perception was somewhat different from the idea perceived — y t it was an idea of reflection, whereas the thing perceiv'd was an idea of sensation. I say, 'twas this made 'em think the understanding took it in, receiv'd it from without, w ch could never be did not they think it existed without 77 . jyj Properly speaking, idea is the picture of the imagination's making. This is y e likeness of, and refer'd to the c real idea,' or (if you will) thing 78 . g # To ask, have we an idea of Will or volition, is nonsense. An idea can resemble nothing but an idea. S. If you ask w* thing it is that wills, I answer, if you mean idea 79 by the word thing, or anything like any idea, then I say, 'tis no thing at all that wills. This how extravagant soever it may seem, yet is a certain truth. We are cheated by these general terms, thing, is, &c. S. Again, if by is you mean is perceived, or does perceive, I say nothing w ch is perceived or does perceive wills. S. The referring ideas to things w<* are not ideas, the using the term c idea of 80 ,' is one great cause of mistake, as in other matters, so also in this. S. Some words there are wch do not stand for ideas, viz. particles, will, &c. Particles stand for volitions and their concomitant ideas. S. There seem to be but two colours w ch are simple ideas, viz. those exhibited by the most and least refrangible rays, . . . [the 75 With Berkeley, volition is the proper 78 i. e. idea is rather a name for the re- meaning of action, which in its essence is presentation in imagination, than for that of self-originated, and to ask for the power or which we are originally conscious in the action which produces power or action is senses. It might have been well if he had absurd. always kept to this. 76 Time, Motion, Existence itself, are, 79 ' Idea,' i. e. the phenomena and effects with Berkeley, necessarily concrete and which when aggregated constitute the phy- relative. sical substance. 77 ' Without,' i. e. irrespective of being 80 As we must do in imagination, which known, either by God or by a finite and (unlike sense) is representative. sentient mind. 446 Commonplace Book. others], being the intermediate ones, may be formed by com- position. S- I have no idea of a volition or act of the mind, neither has any other intelligence, for that were a contradiction. N. B. Simple ideas, viz. colours, are not devoid of all sort of composition, tho' it must be granted they are not made up of distinguishable ideas. Yet there is another sort of composition. Men are wont to call those things compounded in which we do not actually discover the component ingredients. Bodies are said to be compounded of chymical principles, which, nevertheless, come not into view till after the dissolution of the bodies, w ch were not, could not be discerned in the bodies whilst remaining entire. I. All our knowledge is about particular ideas, according to Locke. All our sensations are particular ideas, as is evident. W* use then do we make of general ideas, since we neither know nor per- ceive them. S. 'Tis allow'd that particles stand not for ideas, and yet they are not said to be empty useless sounds. The truth really is, they stand for the operations of the mind, i. e. volitions. Mo. Locke says all our knowledge is about particulars. If so, pray w* is the following ratiocination but a jumble of words ? c Omnis homo est animal; omne animal vivit: ergo omnis homo vivit.' It amounts (if you annex particular ideas to the words c animal' and c vivit') to no more than this: c Omnis homo est homo; omnis homo est homo: ergo, omnis homo est homo.' A mere sport and trifling with sounds. Mo. We have no ideas of vertues & vices, no ideas of moral actions. Wherefore it may be question'd whether we are capable of arriving at demonstration about them 81 , the morality consisting in the volition chiefly. E. Strange it is that men should be at a loss to find their idea of Existence 82 , since that (if such there be distinct from perception) it is brought into the mind by all the ways of sensation and reflection; methinks it should be most familiar to us, and we best acquainted with it. 81 As Locke says we are. 82 i. e. of existence in the abstract, distinct from the concrete existence of which one is conscious in knowing and acting, and in what is actually known and pro- duced. Commonplace Book. 447 E. This I am sure, I have no idea of Existence 83 , or annext to the word existence. And if others have that's nothing to me; they can never make me sensible of it ; Simple ideas being incommu- nicable by language. S. Say you, the unknown substratum of volitions & ideas is some- thing whereof I have no idea. I ask, Is there any other being which has or can have an idea of it ? If there be, then it must be itself an idea ; which you will think absurd. S. There is somewhat active in most perceptions, i.e. such as ensue upon our volitions, such as we can prevent and stop : e. g. I turn my eyes toward the sun — I open them. All this is active. S. Things are twofold — active or inactive. The existence of active things is to act 84 ; of inactive to be perceiv'd. S. Distinct from or without perception there is no volition ; there- E # fore neither is there existence without perception. G. God may comprehend all ideas, even the ideas w ch are painfull 6c unpleasant, without being in any degree pained thereby. Thus we ourselves can imagine the pain of a burn, 6cc. without any misery or uneasiness at all 85 . Truth, three sorts thereof — natural, mathematical, & moral. Mo. Agreement of relation onely where numbers do obtain — of co- Mo* existence in nature — of signification ... by including in morality. j # Gyant who shakes the mountain that 's on him must be acknow- ledged — or rather thus: I am no more to be reckoned stronger than Locke, than a pigmy should be reckon'd stronger than a gyant because he could throw off the molehill w ch lay upon him, and the gyant could onely shake or shove the mountain that oppressed him. This in the Preface. I. Promise to extend our knowledge & clear it of those shamefull contradictions which embarrass it. Something like this to begin the Introduction in a modest way 86 . I. Whoever shall pretend to censure any part, I desire he would read out the whole, else he may perhaps not understand me — in the Preface or Introduction 87 . 83 i. e. of Existence supplied distinct from being perceived and produced, which last alone is presentable in sense, or representable in imagination — is ideal or phenomenal, in short. 84 This seems to recognize only the 8vva.fj.is, not the evtpyua of Aristotle. 85 This implies the possibility of God's knowing sensible things without being sen- tient — knowing those of His own Thoughts which are dimly signified to us in sense, interpreted in physical science. 86 Cf. Principles, Introduction, sect. I — 4. 87 Cf. Preface to Principles ; also to Dia- logues. 448 Commonplace Book, S. Doctrine of identity best explain'd by taking the Will for volitions, the Understanding for ideas. The difficulty of con- sciousness of w c are never acted surely solv'd thereby. I. I must acknowledge myself beholding to the philosophers who have gone before me. They have given good rules, though cer- tainly they do not always observe them. Similitude of adven- turers, who, tho' they attained not the desired port, they by their wrecks have made known the rocks and sands, whereby the passage of aftercomers is made more secure & easy. Preface or Introduction. Mo. The opinion that men had ideas of moral actions 88 has render'd the demonstrating ethiques very difficult to them. S. An idea being itself unactive cannot be the resemblance or image of an active thing. !• Excuse to be made in the Introduction for using the word idea, viz. because it has obtain'd. But a caution must be added. Scripture and possibility are the onely proofs with Malbranch. Add to these what he calls a great propension to think so. This perhaps may be questioned. Perhaps men, if they think before they speak, will not be found so thoroughly persuaded of the exist- ence of Matter 89 . M. On second thoughts 1 am on t'other extream. I am certain of that w ch Malbranch seems to doubt of, viz. the existence of bodies 90 . Mem. To bring the killing blow at the last, e. g. in the matter ^ cc# of abstraction to bring Locke's general triangle in the last 91 . I. They give good rules, tho' perhaps they themselves do not always observe them. They speak much of clear and distinct ideas, though at the same time they talk of general abstract ideas, &c. I'll [instance] in Locke's opinion of abstraction, he being as clear a writer as I have met with. Such was the candour of this great man that I perswade myself, were he alive 92 , he would not be offended that I differ from him, seeing that even in so doing I follow his advice, viz. to use my own judgement, see with my own eyes, & not with another's. Introduction. 88 i.e. that ethics was a science of phe- nomena. 89 i. e. of abstract, insensible Matter — rb (Ttpov of Plato — as distinguished from sensible things. 90 ' Bodies' — i. e. sensible things — not un- perceived Matter. 91 Cf. Principles, Introduction, sect. 13. 92 Locke died in October, 1704. Commonplace Book. 449 S. The word thing as comprising or standing for idea 6c volition usefull, as standing for idea and archetype without the mind 03 mischievous and useless. M 0, To demonstrate morality it seems one need only make a dic- tionary of words and see which included which. At least, this is the greatest part and bulk of the work. M°* Locke's instances of demonstration in morality are, according to his own rule, trifling propositions. P» Qu. How comes it that some ideas are confessedly allow' d by all P' to be onely in the mind 94 , and others as generally taken to be without the mind 95 , if, according to you, all are equally and only in the mind ? Ans. Because that in proportion to pleasure or pain ideas are attended with desire, exertion, and other actions which include volition. Now volition is by all granted to be in spirit. L If men would lay aside words in thinking, 'tis impossible they should ever mistake, save only in matters of fact. I mean it seems impossible they should be positive Sc secure that anything was true w ch in truth is not so. Certainly I cannot err in matter of simple perception. So far as we can in reasoning go without the help of signs, there we have certain knowledge. Indeed, in long deduc- tions made by signs there may be slips of memory. From my doctrine there follows a cure for pride. We are only to be praised for those things which are our own, or of our own doing — natural abilitys are not consequences of our volitions. M. Mem. Candidly to take notice that Locke holds some dangerous opinions; such as the infinity and eternity of Space — the possi- bility of Matter's thinking 96 . Once more I desire my reader may be upon his guard against the fallacy of words. Let him beware that I do not impose on him by plausible empty talk, that common dangerous way of cheating men into absurditys. Let him not regard my words 98 'without the mind,' i.e. abstracted 96 See Locke's Essay, Bk. II. ch. 13. from, or irrelative to all mind and volition §21, ch. 17. § 4; also Bk. IV. ch. 3. § 6 ; — Divine and finite. also his controversy with Bishop Stillingfleet 94 e. g. secondary qualities of sensible regarding the possibility of Matter having things, in which pleasure and pain are in the power of thinking. With Berkeley greater proportion. space is as much a creature as visible or 90 e. g. primary qualities, in which plea- tangible things, sure and pain are in less proportion. VOL. IV. G g 450 Commonplace Book. any otherwise than as occasions of bringing into his mind determined significations. So far as they fail of this they are gibberish, jargon, 6c deserve not the name of language. I desire 6c warn him not to expect to find truth in my book, or anywhere but in his own mind. W*ever I see myself 'tis impossible I can paint it out in words. Mo. N.B. To consider well w 1 is meant by that w ch Locke saith concerning algebra — that it supplys intermediate ideas. Also to think of a method affording the same use in morals 6cc. that this doth in mathematiques. Mo. Homo is not proved to be vlvens by means of any intermediate idea. I don't fully agree w th Locke in w fc he says concerning sagacity in finding out intermediate ideas in matter capable of demonstration 6c the use thereof; as if that were the onely means of improving and enlarging demonstrative knowledge. S. There is a difference betwixt power 6c volition. There may be volition without power. But there can be no power without volition. Power implyeth volition, 6c at the same time a con- notation of the effects following the volition. M. We have assuredly an idea of substance.. 'Twas absurd of S. Locke" to think we had a name without a meaning. This might prove acceptable to the Stillingfleetians. M. The substance of Body we know \ The substance of Spirit we S. do not know — it not being knowable, it being a purus actus. I. Words have ruin'd and overrun all the sciences — law, physique, chymistry, astrology, 6cc. I. Abstract ideas only to be had amongst the learned. The vulgar never think they have any such, nor truly do they find any want of them. Genera 6c species 6c abstract ideas are terms unknown to them. S. Locke's out 2 — the case is different. We can have an idea of body without motion, but not of soul without thought. Mo. God ought to be worship'd. This easily demonstrated when once we ascertain the signification of the words God, worship, ought. 99 Essay, Bk. I. ch. iv. § 1 8. See also Locke's Letters to Stillingfleet. 1 It is, according to Berkeley, the steadily maintained union of various sense-given phe- nomena, involving universality, which con- stitutes a sensible thing. 2 Essay, Bk. II. ch. i. § io — where he argues against the constancy or continuity of consciousness in men. Commonplace Book, 451 S. No perception, according to Locke, is active. Therefore no perception (i. e. no idea) can be the image or like unto that which is altogether active & not at all passive, i. e. the Will. S. I can will the calling to mind something that is past, tho* at the same time that w ch I call to mind was not in my thoughts before that volition of mine, & consequently I could have had no uneasiness for the want of it. S. The Will & the Understanding may very well be thought two distinct beings. S. Sed quia voluntas raro agit nisi ducente desiderio. V. Locke, Epistles, p. 479, ad Limburgum. You cannot say the m. t. is like or one with the m. v., because they be both minima, just perceived, and next door to nothing. You may as well say the m. t. is the same with or like unto a sound, so small that it is scarce perceiv'd. Extension seems to be a mode of some tangible or sensible quality according as it is seen or felt. S. The spirit — the active thing — that w c h is soul, & God — is the Will alone. The ideas are effects — impotent things. S. The concrete of the will & understanding I might call mind, not person, lest offence be given — there being but one volition acknowledged to be God. Mem. Carefully to omit defining of person, or making much mention of it. S. You ask, do these volitions make one Will? W* you ask is meerly about a word — unity being no more 3 . N.B. To use utmost caution not to give the least handle of offence to the Church or Churchmen. [ Even to speak somewhat favourably of the Schoolmen, and shew that they who blame them for jargon are not free of it themselves. Introd. Locke's great oversight seems to be that he did not begin with his third book, at least that he had not some thought of it at first. Certainly the a d & 4 th books don't agree w th wt he says in r 3 d - 3 Does this resolve the difference between a succession of volitions and an identical person into an affair of words? Gg2 45 2 Commonplace Book. M. If Matter 4 is once allow'd to exist, clippings of weeds and parings of nails may think, for ought that Locke can tell — tho' he seems positive of the contrary. Since I say men cannot mistake in short reasoning about things demonstrable, if they lay aside words, it will be expected this Treatise will contain nothing but w* is certain & evident de- monstration, & in truth I hope you will find nothing in it but what is such. Certainly I take it all for such. Introd. !• When I say I will reject all propositions wherein I know not fully and adequately and clearly, so far as knowable, the thing meant thereby, this is not to be extended to propositions in the Scripture. I speak of matters of Reason and Philosophy — not Revelation. In this I think an humble, implicit faith becomes us (when we cannot comprehend or understand the proposi- tion), such as a popish peasant gives to propositions he hears at mass in Latin. This proud men may call blind, popish, implicit, irrational. For my part I think it is more irrational to pretend to dispute at, cavil, and ridicule holy mysteries, i. e. propositions about things that are altogether above our know- ledge, out of our reach. When I shall come to plenary knowledge of the meaning of any fact, then I shall yield an explicit belief. Introd 5 . Complexation of ideas twofold. Y s refers to colours being complex ideas. Considering length without breadth is considering any length, be the breadth w* it will. M. I may say earth, plants, &c. were created before man — there being other intelligences to perceive them before man was created 6 . M. There is a philosopher 7 who says we can get an idea of sub- stance by no way of sensation or reflection, & seems to imagine that we want a sense proper for it. Truly if we had a new sense it could only give us a new idea. Now I suppose he will 4 i.e. unperceived Matter, with its sup- periods? Why should there be any greater posed powers. . difficulty to Berkeley in these than in ex- 5 Nothing exactly corresponding to this plaining the existence of a table or a house, and the preceding in the Introduction or while one is merely looking at it ? Preface to the Principles or to the Dialogues. 7 Locke, who describes ' substance ' as for what is said on faith, cf. Alcipbron, ' only an uncertain supposition of we know Dial. VII., and the Analyst. not what.' Essay, Bk. I. ch. 4. § 18. 6 But what of the earliest geological Commonplace Book. 453 not say substance, according to him, is an idea. For my part, I own I have no idea can stand for substance in his and the Schoolmen's sense of that word. But take it in the common vulgar sense, & then we see and feel substance. E. N.B. That not common usage, but the Schoolmen coined the word Existence, supposed to stand for an abstract general idea. Writers of Optics mistaken in their principles both in judging of magnitudes and distances. 1. 'Tis evident y fc w n the solitary man should be taught to speak, the words would give him no other new ideas (save only the sounds, and complex ideas which, tho' unknown before, may be signified by language) beside w* he had before. If he had not, could not have, an abstract idea before, he cannot have it after he is taught to speak. Mo. c Homo est homo, 5 &c. comes at last to Petrus est Petrus, &c. Now, if these identical propositions are sought after in the mind, they will not be found. There are no identical mental propositions. 'Tis all about sounds and terms. Mo. Hence we see the doctrine 8 of certainty by ideas, and proving by intermediate ideas, comes to nothing. Mo. We may have certainty & knowledge without ideas, i. e. without other ideas than the words, and their standing for one idea, i. e. their being to be used indifferently. Mo. It seems to me that we have no certainty about ideas, but only about words. 'Tis improper to say, I am certain I see, I feel, 6cc. There are no mental propositions form'd answering to these words, & in simple perception 'tis allowed by all there is no affirmation or negation, and consequently no certainty 9 . Mo. The reason why we can demonstrate so well about signs is, that they are perfectly arbitrary & in our power — made at pleasure. Mo. The obscure ambiguous term relation, which is said to be the largest field of knowledge, confounds us, deceives us. 8 Locke, who makes it consist in the criterion of their truth. Berkeley's philo- agreement of ' our ideas with the reality of sophy of reality was intended to relieve this things.' See Essay, Bk. IV. ch. 4. § 18. scepticism. Here the ancient and modern sceptical objec- 9 [This seems wrong. Certainty, real tion rises — that if we have no immediate certainty, is of sensible ideas. I may be perception of the very reality, we cannot certain without affirmation or negation.] — ■ compare our ideas with it, and so have no Author. This seems to need qualification. 454 Commonplace Book. Mo. Let any man shew me a demonstration, not verbal, that does not depend either on some false principle, or at best on some principle of nature which is y e effect of God's will, and we know not how soon it may be changed. I. Qu. What becomes of the ietern£ veritates ? Ans. They vanish 10 . I. But, say you, I find it difficult to look beneath the words and uncover my ideas. Say I, Use will make it easy. In the sequel of my Book the cause of this difficulty shall be more clearly made out. I. To view the deformity of error we need onely undress it. E. c Cogito ergo sum.' Tautology. No mental proposition answering thereto 11 . N. Knowledge, or certainty, or perception of agreement of ideas Mo. as to identity and diversity, and real existence vanisheth, of relation becometh merely nominal, of co-existence' remaineth. Locke thought in this later our knowledge was little or nothing. Whereas in this only real knowledge seemeth to be found 12 . P. We must w th the mob place certainty in the senses. 'Tis a man's duty, 'tis the fruit of friendship, to speak well of his friend. Wonder not therefore that I do w* I do. I. A man of slow parts may overtake truth, &c. Introd. Even my shortsightedness might perhaps be aiding to me in this matter — 'twill make me bring the object nearer to my thoughts. A pur- blind person, &c. Introd. S- Locke to Limborch, &c. Talk of judicium intellectus preceding the volition: I think judicium includes volition. I can by no means distinguish these — -judicium^ intellectus^ indijferentia^ un- easiness to many things accompanying or preceding every volition, as e. g. the motion of my hand. g Qu. W* mean you by my perceptions, my volitions ? Both all the perceptions I perceive or conceive 13 , 6tc. are mine; all the volitions I am conscious to are mine. 10 This and the preceding apparently re- solve all judgments which are not what Kant calls analytical into contingent judgments. Are those then which are involved in Ber- keley's own Principle — which express the need for active and pe rcipient Mind, as the con- stant correlative, and the only proper cause in the universe — are those contingent too ? 11 Not so, if read as = Ego sum cogitans. 12 See Locke's Essay, Bk. IV. ch. I, and ch. 3. § 9. The stress Berkeley here lays on 'co-existence' is significant. 13 But is a mere imagination equivalent to perception, and different from it only in degree ? Commonplace Book. S. 'Homo est agens liberum. 5 What mean they by homo and agens in this place ? £. Will any man say that brutes have the ideas — Unity Sc Existence ? I believe not. Yet if they are suggested by all the ways of sensation, 'tis strange they should want them 14 . I. It is a strange thing and deserves our attention, that the more time and pains men have consumed in the study of philosophy, by so much the more they look upon themselves to be ignorant & weak creatures. They discover flaws and imperfections in their faculties w ch other men never spy out. They find them- selves under a necessity of admitting many inconsistent, irre- concilable opinions for true. There is nothing they touch with their hand, or behold with their eyes, but has its dark sides much larger and more numerous than w* is perceived, 6c at length turn scepticks, at least in most things. I imagine all this pro- ceeds from, 6cc. Exord. Introd. 15 I. These men with a supercilious pride disdain the common single information of sense. They grasp at knowledge by sheafs 6c bundles. ('Tis well if, catching at too much at once, they hold nothing but emptiness 6c air.) They in the depth of their under- standing contemplate abstract ideas. It seems not improbable that the most comprehensive 8c sublime intellects see more m.v.'s at once, i. e. that their visual systems are the largest. Words (by them meaning all sorts of signs) are so necessary, that instead of being (w n duly us\i or in their own nature) pre- judicial to the advancement of knowledge, or an hindrance to knowledge, that without them there could in mathematiques them- selves be no demonstration. Mem. To be eternally banishing Metaphisics, 8cc, and recalling men to Common Sense 16 . S. We cannot conceive other minds besides our own but as so many selves. We suppose ourselves affected w th such 8c such thoughts 8c such and such sensations 17 . 14 Cf. Principles, sect. 13, 120. to rid the world of mere abstractions, and to 15 Cf. Principles, Introduction, sect. 1. return, through reflection, to concrete reality 16 This is the professed design of Berke- in its constant relation to living Spirit, ley's concrete metaphysics, in which he seeks 11 One sort of external world that is I 456 Commonplace Book. S. Qu. whether composition of ideas be not that faculty which chiefly serves to discriminate us from brutes ? I question whether a brute does or can imagine a blue horse or chimera. Naturalists do not distinguish betwixt cause and occasion, Useful to enquire after co-existing ideas or occasions. Mo. Morality may be demonstrated as mixt mathematics. S. Perception is passive, but this not distinct from idea. There- fore there can be no idea of volition. Algebraic species or letters are denominations of denominations. Therefore Arithmetic to be treated of before Algebra. 2 crowns are called ten shillings. Hence may appear the value of numbers. Complex ideas are the creatures of the mind. Hence may appear the nature of numbers. This to be deeply discussed. I am better informed & shall know more by telling me there are 10,000 men, than by shewing me them all drawn up. I shall better be able to judge of the bargain you'd have me make w n you tell me how much (i. e. the name of y e ) money lies on the table, than by offering and shewing it without naming. I regard not the idea, the looks, but the names. Hence may appear the nature of numbers. Children are unacquainted with numbers till they have made some progress in language. This could not be if they were ideas suggested by all the senses. Numbers are nothing but names — never words. Mem. Imaginary roots — to unravel that mystery. Ideas of utility are annexed to numbers. In arithmetical problems men seek not any idea of number. They only seek a denomination. This is all can be of use to them. Take away the signs from Arithmetic and Algebra, and pray w* remains ? These are sciences purely verbal, and entirely useless but for practice in societies of men. No speculative knowledge, no com- paring of ideas in them ls . conceivable by us is that of which another with them, in physical or in moral science, mind is percipient — because we have the ours become assimilated to them, archetype of this in our own experience — 18 Cf. Berkeley's Arithmetica and Miscel- which, ex hypothesi, we have not of unper- lanea Mafhemafica, and various passages in ceived Matter ; but which we may have of his following works, the Divine Ideas, so far as by participation Commonplace Book. 457 Qu. whether Geometry may not properly be reckon'd amongst the mixt mathematics— Arithmetic & Algebra being the only abstracted pure, i. e. entirely nominal — Geometry being an application of these to points 19 ? Mo. Locke of Trifling Propositions, [b. 4. c. 8] Mem. Well to observe & con over that chapter. E. Existence, Extension, <3tc. are abstract, i. e. no ideas. They are words, unknown and useless to the vulgar. Mo. Sensual pleasure is the summum boyium. This the great principle of morality. This once rightly understood, all the doctrines, even the severest of the Gospels, may clearly be demonstrated. Mo. Sensual pleasure, qua pleasure, is good &c desirable by a wise man 20 . But if it be contemptible, 'tis not qua pleasure but qua pain, or cause of pain, or (which is the same thing) of loss of greater pleasure. I. W n I consider, the more objects we see at once the more distant they are, and that eye which beholds a great many things can see none of them near. By idea I mean any sensible or imaginable thing 21 . To be sure or certain of w l we do not actually perceive 22 (1 say perceive, not imagine), we must not be altogether passive, there must be a disposition to act, there must be assent, w ch is active. Nay, what do I talk ! there must be actual volition. What do we demonstrate in Geometry but that lines are equal or unequal ? i.e. may or may not be called by the same name 23 . I. I approve of this axiom of the Schoolmen, c Nihil est in intel- M. lectu quod non prius fuit in sensu.' I wish they had stuck to it. It had never taught them the doctrine of abstract ideas 24 . 19 Minima sensibilia. 2 ' All pleasures, qua pleasures, are neces- sarily productive of correlative desires, as pains or uneasinesses are of correlative aver- sions. This is implied in the very nature of pleasure and pain. 21 Here is Berkeley's definition of idea. The want of separate terms for things sen- sible, and things imagined led to confusion. 22 e. g. of what we believe in mediate or acquired perceptions. 23 Here as elsewhere he resolves geometry, so far as demonstrative, into a system of analytical and hypothetical judgments ; so far as concerned with what is real, into con- tingent judgments. 24 Compare this remarkable statement with Siris, sect. 308, and with the contrast Commonplace Book. S. c Nihil dat quod non habet/ or, the effect is contained in the G. cause, is an axiom I do not understand or believe to be true. E. Whoever shall cast his eyes on the writings of old or new philosophers, and see the noise is made about formal and objective Being, Will, &c. G. Absurd to argue the existence of God from his idea. We have no idea of God. 'Tis impossible 25 . M. Cause of much errour & confusion that men knew not what £. was meant by Reality ' i6 . I. Des Cartes, in Med. 2, says the notion of this particular wax is less clear than that of wax in general ; and in the same Med., a little before, he forbears to consider bodies in general, because (says he) these general conceptions are usually confused. jyL Des Cartes, in Med. 3, calls himself a thinking substance, and S. a stone an extended substance ; and adds that they both agree in this, that they are substances. And in the next paragraph he calls extension a mode of substance. S. 'Tis commonly said by the philosophers, that if the soul of man were self-existent it would have given itself all possible perfection. This I do not understand. Mo. Mem. To excite men to the pleasures of the eye & the ear, which surfeit not, nor bring those evils after them, as others. S. We see no variety or difference betwixt the volitions, only between their effects. 'Tis one Will, one Act, distinguished by the effects. This Will, this Act, is the spirit, operative principle, soul, &c. No mention of fears and jealousies, nothing like a party. M. Locke in his 4 th Book 27 , and Des Cartes in Med. 6, use the same argument for the existence of objects, viz.' that sometimes we see, feel, &c. against our will. S > While I exist or have any idea, I am eternally, constantly willing; my acquiescing in the present state is willing. £ t The existence of any thing imaginable is nothing different from imagination or perception 28 . Volition or Will, w ch is not im- between Sense and Reason, in the preceding uses idea — would imply that God is a phe- and following sections of that treatise. But nomenon. how is the statement consistent even with the 26 Cf. Principles, sect. 89. constructive assumptions of the Principles'? 27 Ch. II. § 5. 25 To have an idea of God — as Berkeley 28 Why add — 'or perception'? Commonplace Book. 459 aginable, regard must not be had to its existence # * * first Book. Mo. There are four sorts of propositions. c Gold is a metal -J c Gold is yellow-' c Gold is fixt;' c Gold is not a stone' — of which the first, second, and third are only nominal, and have no mental propositions answering them. M. Mem. In vindication of the senses effectually to confute what Des Cartes saith in the last par. of the last Med., viz. that the senses oftener inform him falsely than truely — that sense of pain tells me not my foot is bruised or broken, but I, having frequently observed these two ideas, viz. of that peculiar pain and bruised foot go together, do erroneously take them to be inseparable by a necessity of nature,— as if nature were anything but the ordin- ance of the free will of God 29 . M. Des Cartes owns we know not a substance immediately by S. itself, but by this alone, that it is the subject of several acts. Ans. to 2 d objection of Hobbs. S. Hobbs in some degree falls in with Locke, saying thought is to the mind or himself as dancing to the dancer. Object. S. Hobbs in his Object. 3 ridicules those expressions of the scholastiques — c the will wills,' &c. So does Locke. I am of another mind 30 . S. Des Cartes, in answer to Object. 3 of Hobbs, owns he is distinct from thought as a thing from its modus or manner. E. Opinion that existence was distinct from perception of horrible consequence. It is the foundation of Hobbs's doctrine, &c. M. Malbranch in his illustration 31 differs widely from me. He P- doubts of the existence of bodies. I doubt not in the least of E - this. P. I differ from Cartesians in that I make extension, colour, 6cc. to exist really in bodies independent of our mind 32 . All y s carefully and lucidly to be set forth. 1 29 Here we have Berkeley's arbitrariness must be a preceding volition, and so on ad in the coexistences and sequences of sen- infinitum ; while what is asserted is, that this sible phenomena, the favourite thought acting is the one proper, because inde- which runs through the Theory of Vision, pendent, sort of action, which needs no and his whole philosophy of the sensible previous activity, world. 31 Recherche, I. 19. '■" This against the quibble, that if 32 i.e. mind is different from its sense- (volunlary) acting is self-originated, its cause given phenomena. 460 Commonplace Book. M. Not to mention the combinations of powers, but to say the P« things, the effects themselves, do really exist, even w n not actually perceived, but still with relation to perception 33 . The great use of the Indian figures above the Roman shews arithmetic to be about signs, not ideas — or not ideas different from the characters themselves 34 . M. Reasoning there may be about things, or ideas, or actions — but N. demonstration can be only verbal. I question, no matter 6tc. G. Quoth Des Cartes, the idea of God is not made by me, for I can neither add to nor subtract from it. No more can he add to or take from any other idea, even of his own making. S. The not distinguishing 'twixt Will and ideas is a grand mistake with Hobbs. He takes those things for nothing which are not ideas 35 . jyi Say you, At this rate all's nothing but idea — mere phantasm. I answer, Everything as real as ever. I hope to call a thing idea makes it not the less real. Truly I should perhaps have stuck to the word thing, and not mentioned the word idea, were it not for a reason, and I think a good one too, which I shall give in the Second Book 3 6 . I. Idea is the object or subject of thought. Y 1 1 think on, what- S. ever it be, I call idea. Thought itself, or thinking, is no idea. J Tis an act, i. e. volition, i. e. as contradistinguished to effects — the Will. I. Locke, in B. 4. c. 5, assigns not the right cause why mental Mo. propositions are so difficult. It is not because of complex but because of abstract ideas. Y e idea of a horse is as complex as that of fortitude. Yet in saying the c horse is white 3 I form a mental proposition with ease. But when I say c fortitude is a virtue, 5 1 shall find a mental proposition hard, or not at all to be come at. S. Pure intellect I understand not 37 . 33 i e. to a conscious mind, but not ne- tivists as they are now called. cessarily to mine ; for they are independent 3fi Is this Part II. of the Principles ? of my will, and I only participate in the 37 The thought of uncreated or necessary perception of them. relations, to which all actual existence must ■ A Cf. the Arithmetica. conform, but which are realizable only in 85 i. e. which are not phenomena. This their actual applications, was not then at recognition of Will even then distinguished least in Berkeley's mind. Berkeley from the phenomenalists, or posi- Commonplace Book. 461 Locke is in y e right in those things wherein he differs from y e Cartesians, and they cannot but allow of his opinions if they stick to their own principles or causes of Existence &c other ab- stract ideas. G. The properties of all things are in God, i. e. there is in the §• Deity Understanding as well as Will. He is no blind agent, and in truth a blind agent is a contradiction 38 . G. I am certain there is a God, tho' I do not perceive Him — have no intuition of Him. This not difficult if we rightly understand w l is meant by certainty. g. It seems that the soul, taken for the Will, is immortal, in- corruptible. S. Qu. whether perception must of necessity precede volition ? S. Error is not in the Understanding, but in the Will. What I Mo. understand or perceive, that I understand. There can be no errour in this. Mo. Mem. To take notice of Locke's woman afraid of a wetting, in N. the Introd., to shew there may be reasoning about ideas or things. M. Say Des Cartes & Malbranch, God hath given us strong inclinations to think our ideas proceed from bodies, or that bodies do exist. Pray w l mean they by this ? Would they have it that the ideas of imagination are images of, and proceed from, the ideas of sense? This is true, but cannot be their meaning, for they speak of ideas of sense themselves as proceeding from, being like unto — I know not w* 39 . M. Cartesius per ideam vult omne id quod habet esse objectivum S. in intellectu. V. Tract, de Methodo. S. Qu. May there not be an Understanding without a Will ? S. Understanding is in some sort an action. S. Silly of Hobbs, &c. to speak of the Will as if it were motion, with which it has no likeness. M. Ideas of sense are the real things or archetypes. Ideas of imagination, dreams, &c. are copies, images of these. M. My doctrines rightly understood, all that philosophy of Epicurus, ?8 This assumption is the essence of Ber- ing for a direct perception of some of the keley's philosophy — 'a blind agent is a phenomena of which a ' perceived ' sensible contradiction.' thing is composed. 39 This is the basis of Berkeley's reason- 462 Commonplace Book. Hobbs, Spinosa, &c, which has been a declared enemy of religion, comes to the ground. G. Hobbs & Spinosa make God extended. Locke also seems to do the same 40 . 1. Ens, res, aliquid dicuntur termini transcendentales. Spinosa, E. p. 76, prop. 40, Eth. part 2, gives an odd account of their original. Also of the original of all universals — Homo, Canis, &c. G. Spinosa (vid. Praef. Opera Posthum.) will have God to be c omnium rerum causa immanens,' and to countenance this pro- duces that of St. Paul, c in Him we live,' 6cc. Now this of St. Paul may be explained by my doctrine as well as Spinosa's, or Locke's, or Hobbs's, or Raphson's 41 , &c. S. The Will is purus actus, or rather pure spirit not imaginable, not sensible, not intelligible, in no wise the object of the understand- ing, no wise perceivable. S. Substance of a spirit is that it acts, causes, wills, operates, or if you please (to avoid the quibble y* may be made of the word c it ') to act, cause, will, operate. Its substance is not knowable, not being an idea. G. Why may we not conceive it possible for God to create things out of nothing ? Certainly we ourselves create in some wise when- ever we imagine. E. c Ex nihilo nihil fit.' This (saith Spinoza, Opera Posth. p. 464) N. and the like are called veritates aterna, because c nullam fidem habent extra mentem.' To make this axiom have a positive signification, one should express it thus : Every idea has a cause, i. e. is produced by a Will 42 . P. The philosophers talk much of a distinction 'twixt absolute & relative things, or 'twixt things considered in their own nature & the same things considered with respect to us. I know not 40 Berkeley's horror of absolute space and atoms is partly explained by now antiquated dogmas of his age, in natural philosophy. 41 Ralph [?] Raphson, author of Demon- strate de Deo (1710), and also of De Spado Reali, seu ente Infinite : conamen matbe- matico-metaphysicum (1697), to which Ber- keley refers in one of his letters to Johnson. Cf. p. 177. See also Green's Principles of Natural Philosophy (17 12). 42 It is then and thus only that this truism can become applicable. Note here Berkeley's version of the causal axiom, which is really the constitutive principle of his whole philosophy — viz. every phenome- non is sustained by a free intelligent agent. Commonplace Book. 463 wt they mean by c things considered in themselves.' This is nonsense, jargon. S* It seems there can be no perception — no idea — without Will, seeing there are no ideas so indifferent but one had rather have them than annihilation, or annihilation than them. Or if there be such an equal balance, there must be an equal mixture of pleasure and pain to cause it — there being no ideas perfectly void of all pain & uneasiness but w l are preferable to anni- hilation. Recipe in animum tuum, per cogitationem vehementem, rerum ipsarum, non literarum aut sonorum imagines. Hobbs against Wallis. Tis a perfection we may imagine in superior spirits, that they can see a great deal at once with the utmost clearness and dis- tinction, whereas we can only see a point 43 . Mem. W n I treat of mathematiques to enquire into the con- troversy 'twixt Hobbes and Wallis, G. Every sensation of mine which happens in consequence of the general known laws of nature, & is from without, i. e. inde- pendent of my will, demonstrates the being of a God, i. e. of an unextended, incorporeal spirit, which is omnipresent, omni- potent, &c. M. I say not with J. S. [John Sergeant] that we see solids. I reject his c solid philosophy' — solidity being only perceived by touch 44 . S. It seems to me that will and understanding — volitions & ideas — cannot be severed, that either cannot be possibly without the other. E. Some ideas or other I must have, so long as I exist or will. S. But no one idea or sort of ideas being essential. M. The distinction between idea and ideatum I cannot otherwise conceive than by making one the effect or consequence of dream, 43 So Locke on a perfect memory. Essay, Bk. II. ch. x. § 9. 44 John Sergeant was the author of Solid Philosophy asserted against the Fancies of the Ideists (London, 1 697); also of The Method to Science (1696). He was a de- serter from the Church of England to the Church of Rome, and wrote several pieces in defence of Roman theology — some of them in controversy with Tillotson. 464 Commonplace Book. reverie, imagination — the other of sense and the constant laws of nature. P. Dico quod extensio non concipitur in se et per se, contra quam dicit Spinoza in Epist. s a ad Oldenburgium. G. My definition of the word God I think much clearer than that of Des Cartes &c Spinoza, viz. c Ens summe perfectum &c absolute infinitum/ or c Ens constans infinitis attributis, quorum unum- quodque est infinitum 45 .' 'Tis chiefly the connexion betwixt tangible and visible ideas that deceives, and not the visible ideas themselves. S. But the grand mistake is that we know not what we mean by c we,' or c selves,' or c mind,' See. 'Tis most sure & certain that our ideas are distinct from the mind, i. e. the Will, the Spirit. S. I must not mention the understanding as a faculty or part of the mind. I must include understanding & will in the' word Spirit — by which I mean all that is active. I must not say that the understanding differs not from the particular ideas, or the will from particular volitions. S. The Spirit, the Mind, is neither a volition nor an idea. N. I say there are no causes (properly speaking) but spiritual, S. nothing active but Spirit. Say you, This is only verbal ; 'tis only annexing a new sort of signification to the word cause — & why may not others as well retain the old one, and call one idea the cause of another which always follows it ? I answer, If you do so I shall drive you into many absurditys. I say you cannot avoid running into opinions you'll be glad to disown, if you stick firmly to that signification of the word cause. Mo. In valuing good we reckon too much on the present & our own. Mo. There be two sorts of pleasure. The one is ordained as a spur or incitement to somewhat else, & has a visible relation and subordination thereto; the other is not. Thus the pleasure of 45 See Des Cartes, Meditations, III ; Spinoza, Epist. II, ad Oldenburgium. Commonplace Book. 465 eating is of the former sort, of musick of the later sort. These may be used for recreation, those not but in order to their end. Mo. Three sorts of useful knowledge — that of coexistence, to be treated of in our Principles of Natural Philosophy ; that of relation in Mathematiques ; that of definition, or inclusion, or words (which perhaps differs not from that of relation) in Morality. S. Will, understanding, desire, hatred, &c, so far forth as they are acts or active, differ not. All their difference consists in their objects, circumstances, &c. N. We must carefully distinguish betwixt two sorts of causes — physical 6c spiritual. N. Those may more properly be called occasions. Yet (to comply) we may call them causes — but then we must mean causes y* do nothing. S. According to Locke, we must be in an eternal uneasiness so long as we live, bating the time of sleep or trance, &c. ; for he will have even the continuance of an action to be in his sense an action, & so requires a volition, & this an uneasiness. I. I must not pretend to promise much of demonstration. I must cancell all passages that look like that sort of pride, that raising of expectation in my friend. I. If this be the case, surely a man had better not philosophize at all ; no more than a deformed person ought to cavil to behold himself by the reflex light of a mirrour. I. Or thus, like deformed persons who, having beheld themselves by the reflex light of a mirrour, as displeased with their diseases. M. What can an idea be like but another idea ? We can compare it with nothing else — a sound like a sound, a colour like a colour. M. Is it not nonsense to say a smell is like a thing which cannot be smelt, a colour is like a thing w h cannot be seen ? M. Bodies exist without the mind, i. e. are not the mind, but distinct r from it. This I allow, the mind being altogether different there- from. P. Certainly we should not see motion if there was no diversity of colours. vol. iv. h h 466 Commonplace Book. P. Motion is an abstract idea, i. e. there is no such idea that can be conceived by itself. I. Contradictions cannot be both true. Men are obliged to answer objections drawn from consequences. Introd. S. The Will and Volition are words not used by the vulgar. The learned are bantered by their meaning abstract ideas. Speculative Math, as if a man was all day making hard knots on purpose to unty them again. Tho* it might have been otherwise, yet it is convenient the same thing w<* is M. V. should be also M. T., or very near it. S. I must not give the soul or mind the scholastique name c pure act/ but rather pure spirit, or active being. S. I must not say the Will or Understanding are all one, but that they are both abstract ideas, i. e. none at all — they not being even ratione different from the spirit, qua faculties, or active. S. Dangerous to make idea 6c thing terms convertible. That were the way to prove spirits are nothing. Mo. Qu. whether Veritas stands not for an abstract idea ? M. ? Tis plain the moderns must by their own principles own there are no bodies, i. e. no sort of bodies without the mind, i. e unper- ceived. S. Qu. whether the Will can be the object of prescience or any G. knowledge ? P. If there were only one ball in the world, it could not be moved. There could be no variety of appearance. According to the doctrine of infinite divisibility, there must be some smell of a rose, v. g. at an infinite distance from it. M. Extension, tho' it exist only in the mind, yet is no property of the mind. The mind can exist without it, tho' it cannot without the mind 46 . But in Book II. I shall at large shew the difference there is betwixt the soul and body or extended being S. 'Tis an absurd question w ch Locke puts, whether man be free to will? 46 This is one way in which Berkeley scious mind. Does not Ferrier misconceive expresses the subordination of sensible things him here ? See his Institutes of Meta- to mind : conscious mind is possible in the physics, pp. 389 — 390, where he says that absence of all that is sensible, but sensible Berkeley's ontology invests the Deity with phenomena are not possible without con- such senses as belong to man. Commonplace Book. 467 Mem. To enquire into the reason of the rule for determining questions in Algebra. It has already been observed by others that names are nowhere of more necessary use than in numbering. M. I will grant you that extension, colour, 6cc. may be said to be without the mind in a double respect, i. e. as independent of our will, and as distinct from the mind 47 . Mo. Certainly it is not impossible but a man may arrive at the N. knowledge of all real truth as well without as with signs, had he a memory and imagination most strong and capacious. Therefore reasoning & science doth not altogether depend upon words or names 48 . N. I think not that things fall out of necessity. The connexion of no two ideas is necessary, 'tis all the result of freedom, i. e. 'tis all voluntary 49 . M. If a man with his eyes shut imagines to himself the sun &c S. firmament, you will not say he or his mind is the sun or extended, tho' neither sun or firmament be without his mind 50 . S. 5 Tis strange to find philosophers doubting &c disputing whether they have ideas of spiritual things or no. Surely 'tis easy to know. Vid. De Vries 51 , De Idels Innatis^ p. 64. S. De Vries will have it that we know the mind agrees with things not by idea but sense or conscientia. So will Malbranch. This a vain distinction. August 28th, 1708. The Adventure of the [Shirt?]. It were to be wished that persons of the greatest birth, honour, & fortune, would take that care of themselves by education, industry, literature, & a love of virtue, to surpass all other men 47 This double duality, with some vacilla- 49 This is fundamental in Berkeley. tion of expression, runs through Berkeley. 50 The dependence of extension upon per- 48 Berkeley always insists that we should ception does not imply that extension is an keep our thinking as much as possible in- attribute of mind — which throws some light tuitive of the individual objects which our on what Berkeley means by the existence of words denote — ' ipsis consuescere rebus,' as sense-ideas 'in a mind' — that sui generis Bacon says, — to escape the dangers of relation. But his language here tends to artificial signs. This is the drift of his confuse perception with imagination, attacks on abstract ideas. 51 Gerard De Vries, the Cartesian. H h i 468 Commonplace Book. in knowledge & all other qualifications necessary for great actions as far as they do in qua ity 6c titles ; that princes out of them might always chose men fit for all employments and high trusts. Clov. B. 7. One eternity greater than another of the same kind. In what sense eternity may be limited. . T. Whether succession of ideas in the Divine intellect ? T. Time, train of ideas succeeding each other. Duration not distinguished from existence. Succession explained by before, between, after, & numbering. Why time in pain longer than time in pleasure ? Duration infinitely divisible, time not so. T. The same to vvv not common to all intelligences. Time thought infinitely divisible on account of its measure. Extension not infinitely divisible in one sense. Revolutions immediately measure train of ideas, mediately duration. T. Time a sensation, therefore onely in y e mind. Eternity is onely a train of innumerable ideas. Hence the immortality of y e soul easily conceiv'd, or rather the immortality of the person, that of y e soul not being necessary for ought we can see. Swiftness of ideas compar'd with y* of motions shews the wisdom of God. W fc if succession of ideas were swifter, w* if slower ? M. ffall of Adam, use of idolatry, use of Epicurism & Hobbism, dispute about divisibility of matter, &c. expounded by material substances. Extension a sensation, therefore not without the mind. M. In the immaterial hypothesis, the wall is white, fire hot, &c. Primary ideas prov'd not to exist in matter, after the same manner y* secondary ones are prov'd not to exist therein. Demonstrations of the infinite divisibility of extension suppose length without breadth, or invisible length, wch is absurd. M. World w th out thought is nec quid, nec quantum, nec quale, &c. M. 3 Tis wondrous to contemplate y e World empty'd of intelligences 52 . • r>2 Of all mind — Divine and finite ? Commonplace Book. 469 Nothing properly but Persons, i. e. conscious things, do exist. All other things are not so much existences as manners of y e existence of persons 53 . Qu. about the soul, or rather person, whether it be not com- pleatly known? Infinite divisibility of extension does suppose the external ex- istence of extension ; but the later is false, ergo y e former also. Qu. Blind man made to see, would he know motion at I st sight ? Motion, figure, and extension perceivable by sight are different from those ideas perceived by touch w ch goe by the same name. Diagonal incommensurable w th y e side. Quaere how this can be in my doctrine ? N. Qu. how to reconcile Newton's 2 sorts of motion with my doctrine ? Terminations of surfaces & lines not imaginable per se. Molyneux J s blind man would not know the sphere or cube to be bodies or extended at first sight 54 . Extension so far from being incompatible w th , yt 'tis impossible it should exist without thought. M. Extension itself or anything extended cannot think — these being meer ideas or sensations, whose essence we thoroughly know. No extension but surface perceivable by sight. M. W" we imagine 2 bowls v. g. moving in vacuo, 'tis only con- ceiving a person affected with these sensations. M. Extension to exist in a thoughtless thing [or rather in a thing void of perception — thought seeming to imply action], is a con- tradiction. Qu. if visible motion be proportional to tangible motion ? T. In some dreams succession of ideas swifter than at other times. M. If a piece of matter have extension, that must be determined to a particular bigness & figure, but Sec. Nothing corresponds to our primary ideas w th out 55 but powers. Hence a direct & brief demonstration of an active powerfull Being distinct from us, on whom we depend. 83 Is an extended thing, then, a mode in 55 Does 'without' mean here independent which a person exists ? of our will, or distinct from our perception, 54 See Locke's Essay, Bk. II. ch. 9. § 8. or both ? 47o Commonplace Book. The name of colours actually given to tangible qualities by the relation of ye story of the German Count. Qu. How came visible & tangible qualities by the same name in all languages ? Qu. Whether Being might not be the substance of the soul, or (otherwise thus) whether Being, added to y e faculties, compleat the real essence and adequate definition of the soul ? N. Qu. Whether, on the supposition of external bodies, it be pos- sible for us to know that any body is absolutely at rest, since that supposing ideas much slower than at present, bodies now apparently moving w d then be apparently at rest ? M. Qu. What can be like a sensation but a sensation ? Qu. Did ever any man see any other things besides his own ideas, that he should compare them to these, and make these like unto them ? T. The age of a fly, for ought that we know, may be as long as y l of a man. Visible distance heterogeneous from tangible distance demon- strated 3 several ways : — I st . If a tangible inch be equal or in any other reason to a visible inch, thence it will follow y* unequals are equals, w cil is absurd : for at what distance would the visible inch be placed to make it equal to the tangible inch ? 3 d . One made to see that had not yet seen his own limbs, or any thing he touched, upon sight of a foot length would know it to be a foot length, if tangible foot & visible foot were the same idea — sed falsum id, ergo et hoc. 3 dl y. From Molyneux's problem, w ch otherwise is falsely solv'd by Locke and him. M. Nothing but ideas perceivable 56 . A man cannot compare i things together without perceiving them each. Ergo, he cannot say anything w ch is not an idea 57 is like or unlike an idea. s6 To perceive what is not an idea (as 57 i. e. a something perceived. He refers Berkeley uses idea) is to perceive what is here to the sceptical objection, not perceived, which is a contradiction. Commonplace Book. 471 Bodies &c. do exist even w 11 not perceived — they being powers in the active being 58 . Succession a simple idea, [succession is an abstract, i. e. an inconceivable idea,] Locke says 59 . Visible extension is [proportional to tangible extension, also is] encreated 6c diminish'd by parts. Hence taken for the same. If extension be without the mind in bodies, Qu. whether tangible or visible, or both ? Mathematical propositions about extension & motion true in a double sense. Extension thought peculiarly inert because not accompany'd pleasure & pain; hence thought to exist in matter, as also for that it was conceiv'd common to 2 senses, [as also the constant perception of 'em]. Blind at I st sight could not tell how near what he saw was to him, nor even whether it be w th out him or in his eye 60 . Qu. Would he not think the later ? Blind at i st sight could not know y* w* he saw was extended 61 until he had seen and touched some one selfsame thing — not knowing how minimum tangibile would look. Mem. That homogeneous particles be brought in to answer the objection of God's creating sun, plants, &c. before animals. In every bodie two infinite series of extension — the one of tangible, the other of visible. All things to a blind [man] at first seen in a point. Ignorance of glasses made men think extension to be in bodies. Homogeneous portions of matter — useful to contemplate them. Extension if in matter changes its relation w th minimum visibile, wch seems to be fixt. Qu. whether m. v. be fix'd ? Each particle of matter if extended must be infinitely extended, or have an infinite series of extension. ^i. e. sensible things would have a po- 60 4 In his eye,' — rather, independent of tential existence in the Divine Will and all that is sensible, organic or extra-organic. Thought, even if there were a cessation of How could he know, in seeing, properly so all finite sense-consciousness — in the intel- called, which is a purely conscious state, lectual and supersensible activity of God. that visual consciousness was connected with 59 With Berkeley, time or succession is an organism ? change, and (so-called) time, abstracted from 61 i. e. tangibly or really extended, concrete changes, is absurd. 472 Commonplace Book. M. If the world be granted to consist of Matter, 'tis the mind gives it beauty and proportion. W* I have said onely proves there is no proportion at all times and in all men between a visible 6c tangible inch. Tangible and visible extension heterogeneous, because they have no common measure ; also because their simplest constituent parts or elements are specifically different, viz. punctum visibile & tan- gibile. N.B. The former seems to be no good reason. M. By immateriality is solv'd the cohesion of bodies, or rather the dispute ceases. Our idea we call extension neither way capable of infinity, i. e. neither infinitely small or great. Greatest possible extension seen under an angle w ch will be less than 1 80 degrees, the legs of w<* angle proceed from the ends of the extension. N. Allowing there be extended, solid &c. substances without the mind, 'tis impossible the mind should know or perceive them ; the mind, even according to the materialists, perceiving onely the impressions made upon its brain, or rather the ideas attending these impressions. Unity in abstracto not at all divisible, it being as it were a point, or with Barrow nothing at all ; in concreto not divisible ad infinitum, there being no one idea demonstrable ad infinitum. Any subject can have of each sort of primary qualities but one particular at once. Locke, b. 4. c. 3. s. 15. Qu. whether we have clear ideas of large numbers themselves, or onely of their relations ? Of solidity see L. b. 2. c. 4. s. 1, 5, 6. If any one ask w* solidity is, let him put a flint between his hands and he will know 62 . Extension of body is continuity of solid, &c. ; extension of space is continuity of unsolid, 6cc. Why may not I say visible extension is a continuity of visible points, tangible extension is a continuity of tangible points? m ^ Mem. That I take notice that I do not fall in w^ sceptics, Fardella 63 , 6cc, in that I make bodies to exist certainly, w ch they doubt of. r ' 2 Berkeley uses Solidity in more than one philosopher Fardella (1650 — 1718) main- meaning, tained, by reasonings akin to those of Male- 63 The Italian physical and metaphysical branche, that the existence of the material M. Commonplace Book, 473 M. I am more certain of y e existence &c reality of bodies than Mr. Locke, since he pretends onely to w* he calls sensitive know- ledge, whereas I think I have demonstrative knowledge of their existence — by them meaning combinations of powers in an un- known substratum. M. Our ideas we call figure &c extension, not images of the figure and extension of matter ; these (if such there be) being infinitely divisible, those not so. 5 Tis impossible a material cube should exist, because the edges of a cube will appear broad to an acute sense. Men die or are in [a] state of annihilation oft in a day. S. Powers. Qu. whether more or one onely ? Lengths abstract from breadths are the work of the mind. Such do intersect in a point at all angles. After the same way colour is abstract from extension. Every position alters the line. Qu. whether ideas of extension are made up of other ideas, v.g. idea of a foot made up of general ideas of an inch ? The idea of an inch length not one determined idea. Hence enquire the reason why we are out in judging of extension by the sight, for which purpose 'tis meet also to consider the frequent & sudden changes of extension by position. No stated ideas of length without a minimum. M. Material substance banter'd by Locke, b. 2. c. 13. s. 19. M. In my doctrine all absurdities from infinite space <3cc. cease 64 . Qu. whether if (speaking grossly) the things we see were all of them at all times too small to be felt, we should have confounded tangible & visible extension and figure ? T. Qu. whether if succession of ideas in the Eternal Mind, a day world could not be proved by reason, and For, when a phenomenon given in sense could only be maintained by faith in reve- reaches the minimum stnsibile, it reaches lation. See his Universe Philosophice Sys- the margin of its possible existence : it tema (1690), and especially his Logica cannot be infinitely little : insensible sensa- (1696). tions cannot exist. And so too of the in- 64 He eliminates the quantitatus infinite. finitely great. 474 Commonplace Book. does not seem to God a iooo years, rather than a iooo years a day? But one only colour 6c its degrees. Enquiry about a grand mistake in writers of dioptricks in assigning the cause of microscopes magnifying objects. Qu. whether a blind [man] made to see would at i st give the name of distance to any idea intromitted by sight, since he would take distance y i that he had perceived by touch to be something existing without his mind, but he would certainly think that nothing seen was without his mind ? Space without any bodies being in rerum natura would not be extended, as not having parts, in that parts are assigned to it w th respect to body; from whence also the notion of distance is taken. Now without either parts or distance or mind, how can there be space, or anything beside one uniform Nothing ? Two demonstrations that blind made to see would not take all things he saw to be without his mind, or not in a point — the one from microscopic eyes, the other from not perceiving distance, i.e. radius of the visual sphere. The trees are in the park, i.e. whether I will or no, whether I imagine anything about them or no. Let me but go thither and open my eyes by day, & I shall not avoid seeing them. By extension blind [man] would mean either the perception caused in his touch by something he calls extended, or else the power of raising that perception, w ch power is without, in the thing termed extended. Now he could not know either of these to be in things visible till he had try'd. Geometry seems to have for its object tangible extension, figures, & motion — and not visible 65 . A man will say a body will seem as big as before, tho' the visible idea it yields be less than w* it was ; therefore the bigness or tangible extension of the body is different from the visible extension. 85 Cf. Essay on Vision, sect. 149 — 59, nor visible extension makes the object of where he concludes that 1 neither abstract geometry.' Commonplace Book. 475 Extension or space no simple idea — length, breadth, & solidity being three several ideas. Depth or solidity now perceived by sight. Strange impotence of men. Man without God wretcheder than a stone or tree ; he having onely the power to be miserable by his unperformed wills, these having no power at all. Length perceivable by hearing — length & breadth by sight — length, breadth, & depth by touch. G. W* affects us must be a thinking thing, for w* thinks not cannot subsist. Number not in bodies, it being the creature of the mind, depending entirely on its consideration, & being more or less as the mind pleases. Mem. Quaere whether extension be equally a sensation with colour ? The mob use not the word extension. Tis an abstract term of the Schools. P. Round figure a perception or sensation in the mind, but in the body is a power. L[ocke], b. 2. c. 8. s. 8. Mem. Mark well the later part of the last cited section. Solids, or any other tangible things, are no otherwise seen than colours felt by the German Count. M. ' Of and c thing 3 causes of mistake. The visible point of he who has microscopical eyes will not be greater or less than mine. Qu. whether the propositions & even axioms of geometry do not divers of them suppose the existence of lines &c. without the mind ? T. Whether motion be the measure of duration ? Locke, b. 2. c. 1 4. s. 19. Lines & points conceived as terminations different ideas from those conceiv'd absolutely. Every position alters a line. S. Blind man at i st would not take colours to be without his mind ; but colours would seem to be in the same place with the coloured extension : therefore extension w& not seem to be without the mind. 476 Commonplace Book. All visible concentric circles whereof the eye is the centre are absolutely equal. Infinite number — why absurd — not rightly solv'd by Locke. Qu. how "'tis possible we should see flats or right lines ? Qu. why the moon appears greatest in the horizon ? Qu. why we see things erect when painted inverted ? T. Question put by Mr. Deering touching the thief and paradise. M. Matter tho' allowed to exist may be no greater than a pin's head. Motion is proportionable to space described in given time. Velocity not proportionable to space describ'd in given time. M. No active power but the Will : therefore Matter, if it exists, affects us not. Magnitude when barely taken for the ratio partium extra partes, or rather for co-existence & succession, without considering the parts co-existing & succeeding, is infinitely, or rather indefinitely, or not at all perhaps, divisible, because it is itself infinite or indefinite. But definite, determined magnitudes, i.e. lines or surfaces consisting of points whereby (together w th distance & position) they are determined, are resoluble into those points. Again. Magnitude taken for co-existence and succession is not all divisible, but is one simple idea. Simple ideas include no parts nor relations — hardly separated and considered in themselves — nor yet rightly singled by any author. Instance in power, red, extension, Sec. M. Space not imaginable by any idea received from sight — not imaginable without body moving — not even then necessarily existing (I speak of infinite space), for w* the body has past may be conceiv'd annihilated. JVI. Oh.* What can we see beside colours ? what can we feel beside hard, soft, cold, warm, pleasure, pain ? Qu. Why not taste & smell extension ? Qu. Why not tangible & visible extensions thought hetero- geneous extensions, so well as gustable & olefactible perceptions thought heterogeneous perceptions ? or at least why not as hetero- geneous as blue 6c red ? Moon w n horizontal does not appear bigger as to visible exten- Commonplace Book. 477 sion than at other times; hence difficulties and disputes about things seen under equal angles &c. cease. All potentitf alike indifferent. A. B. W l does he mean by his potentia ? Is it the will, desire, person, or all or neither, or sometimes one, sometimes t'other ? No agent can be conceiv'd indifferent as to pain or pleasure. We do not properly speaking, in a strict philosophical sense, make objects more or less pleasant, but the laws of nature do that. A finite intelligence might have foreseen 4 thousand years agoe Mo. the place and circumstances, even the most minute & trivial, of my present existence. This true on supposition that uneasiness determines the will. Doctrines of liberty, prescience, &c. explained by billiard balls. S. W* judgement would he make of uppermost and lowermost who had always seen through an inverting glass ? All lines subtending the same optic angle congruent (as is evi- dent by an easy experiment) — therefore they are equal. We have not pure simple ideas of blue, red, or any other colour (except perhaps black) because all bodies reflect heterogeneal light. Qu. whether this be true as to sounds (& other sensations), there being, perhaps, rays of air w ch will onely exhibit one par- ticular sound, as rays of light one particular colour. Colours not definable, not because they are pure unmixt thoughts, but because we cannot easily distinguish & separate the thoughts they include, or because we want names for their component ideas. By Soul is meant onely a complex idea, made up of existence, willing, & perception in a large sense. Therefore it is known and it may be defined. We cannot possibly conceive any active power but the Will. S. In moral matters men think ('tis true) that they are free, but this freedom is only the freedom of doing as they please, w ch freedom is consecutive to the Will, respecting only the operative faculties 66 . Men impute their actions to themselves because they wilPd 66 Berkeley gives an obscure, vacillating, account of moral activity or volition. 478 Commonplace Book. them, and that not out of ignorance, but whereas they have the consequences of them, whether good or bad. This does not prove men to be indifferent in respect of desiring, If anything is meant by the potentia of A. B. it must be desire ; but I appeal to any man if his desire be indifferent, or (to speak more to the purpose) whether he himself be indifferent in respect of w* he desires till after he has desired it — for as for desire itself, or the faculty of desiring, that is indifferent, as all other faculties are. Actions leading to heaven are in my power if I will them : therefore I will will them. Qu. concerning the procession of Wills in infinitum. Herein mathematiques have the advantage over metaphysiques and morality. Their definitions being of words not yet known to y e learner, are not disputes; but words in metaphysiques & morality being mostly known to all, the definitions of them may chance to be contraverted. M. The short jejune way in mathematiques will not do in meta- physiques & ethiques, for y* about mathematical propositions men have no prejudices, no anticipated opinions to be encounter'd, they not having yet thought on such matters. 'Tis not so in the other 2 mentioned sciences. A man must [there] not onely demonstrate the truth, he must also vindicate it against scruples and established opinions which contradict it. In short, the dry, strigose, rigid way will not suffice. He must be more ample 6c copious, else his demonstration, tho' never so exact, will not go down with most. Extension seems to consist in variety of homogeneal thoughts co-existing without mixture. Or rather visible extension seems to be the co-existence of colour in the mind. S. Enquiring and judging are actions which depend on the operative Mo. faculties, w ch depend on the Will, w ch is determin'd by some un- easiness; ergo &c. Suppose an agent w ch is finite perfectly in- different, and as to desiring not determin'd by any prospect or consideration of good, I say, this agent cannot do an action Commonplace Book. 479 morally good. Hence 'tis evident the suppositions of A. B. are insignificant. Extension, motion, time, number no simple ideas, but include succession in them, which seems to be a simple idea. Mem. To enquire into the angle of contact, 6c into fluxions, 6cc. The sphere of vision is equal whether I look onely in my hand or on the open firmament, for i st , in both cases the retina is full; 2 d , the radius's of both spheres are equall or rather nothing at all to the sight ; 3 dl y, equal numbers of points in one 6c t'other. In the Barrovian case purblind would judge aright. Why the horizontal moon greater ? Why objects seen erect ? N. To what purpose certain figure and texture connected w th other perceptions ? Men estimate magnitudes both by angles and distance. Blind at i 8t could not know distance, or by pure sight abstracting from experience of connexion of sight and tangible ideas we can't perceive distance. Therefore by pure sight we cannot perceive or judge of extension. Qu. whether it be possible to enlarge our sight or make us see at once more, or more points, than we do, by diminishing the punctum visibile below 30"? L Speech metaphorical more than we imagine, insensible things, 9' 6c their modes, circumstances, 6cc. being exprest for the most part by words borrow'd from things sensible. Hence manyfold mistakes. S. The grand mistake is that we think we have ideas of the opera- tions of our minds. Certainly this metaphorical dress is an argu- ment we have not. Qu. How can our idea of God be complex 6c uncompounded, when his essence is simple 6c uncompounded? V. Locke, b. 2. s. 35 67 - G. The impossibility of defining or discoursing clearly of such things proceeds from the fault 6c scantiness of language, as much 67 [' Omnes reales rerum proprietates continentur in Deo.' What means Le Clerc &c. by this? Log. I. ch. 8.] — Author. 480 Commonplace Book. perhaps as from obscurity & confusion of thought. Hence I may clearly and fully understand my own soul, extension, &c, and not be able to define them. M. The substance wood sl collection of simple ideas. See Locke, b. 2. c. 26. s. j . Mem. concerning strait lines seen to look at them through an orbicular lattice. Qu. whether possible that those visible ideas w ch are now con- nected with greater extensions could have been connected with lesser extensions, — there seeming to be no necessary connexion between those thoughts ? Speculums seem to diminish or enlarge objects not by altering the optique angle, but by altering the apparent distance. Hence Qu. if blind would think things diminished by convexes, or enlargM by concaves ? P. N. Motion not one idea. It cannot be perceived at once. M. Mem. To allow existence to colours in the dark, persons not P. thinking, 8cc. — but not an absolute, actual existence. J Tis prudent to correct men's mistakes without altering their language. This makes truth glide into their souls insensibly. M. Colours in y e dark do exist really, i. e. were there light, or as P. soon as light comes, we shall see them, provided we open our eyes, and that whether we will or no. How the retina is filPd by a looking-glass ? Convex speculums have the same effect w th concave glasses. Qu. whether concave speculums have the same effect w th con- vex glasses ? The reason why convex speculums diminish & concave magnify not yet fully assign'd by any writer I know. Qu. why not objects seen confus'd when that they seem inverted through a convex lens ? Qu. how to make a glass or speculum which shall magnify or diminish by altering the distance without altering the angle ? No identity (other than perfect likeness) in any individuals besides persons. N. As well make tastes, smells, fear, shame, wit, virtue, vice, & all thoughts move w th local motion as immaterial spirit. Commonplace Book. On account of my doctrine, the identity of finite substances must consist in something else than continued existence, or relation to determined time & place of beginning to exist — the existence of our thoughts (which being combined make all sub- stances) being frequently interrupted, & they having divers beginnings & endings. Qu. whether identity of person consists not in the Will ? No necessary connexion between great or little optique angles and great or little extension. Distance is not perceived: optique angles are not perceived. How then is extension perceiv'd by sight ? Apparent magnitude of a line is not simply as the optique angle, but directly as the optique angle, & reciprocally as the confusion, &c. (i. e. the other sensations or want of sensation that attend near vision). Hence great mistakes in assigning the magnifying power of glasses. Vid. Moly [neux], p. 182. Glasses or speculums may perhaps magnify or lessen without altering the optique angle, but to no purpose. Qu. whether purblind would think objects so much diminished by a convex speculum as another ? Qu. wherein consists identity of person ? Not in actual con- sciousness, for then I'm not the same person I was this day twelve- month, but while I think of w* I then did. Not in potential, for then all persons may be the same, for ought we know. Mem. Story of Mr. Deering's aunt. Two sorts of potential consciousnesses — natural 6c preter- natural. In the last § but one I mean the latter. If by magnitude be meant the proportion anything bears to a determined tangible extension, as inch, foot, &c, this, 'tis plain, cannot be properly & per se perceived by sight; & as for determin'd visible inches, feet, &c., there can be no such thing obtain'd by the meer act of seeing — abstracted from expe- rience, &c. The greatness per se perceivable of the sight is onely the pro- portion any visible appearance bears to the others seen at the same time; or (which is the same thing) the proportion of any particular vol. iv. 1 i 482 Commonplace Book. part of the visual orb to the whole. But mark that we perceive not it is an orb, any more than a plain, but by reasoning. This is all the greatness the pictures have per se. Hereby meere men cannot at all judge of the extension of any object, it not availing to know the object makes such a part of a sphaerical surface except we also know the greatness of the sphaerical surface, for a point may subtend the same angle w th a mile, & so create as great an image in the retina, i. e. take up as much of the orb. Men judge of magnitude by faintness and vigorousness, by dis- tinctness and confusion, with some other circumstances, by great & little angles. Hence 'tis plain the ideas of sight which are now connected with greatness might have been connected w th smallness, and vice versa— there being no necessary reason why great angles, faint- ness, and distinctness without straining, should stand for great extension, any more than a great angle, vigorousness, and con- fusion. My end is not to deliver metaphysiques altogether in a general scholastic way, but in some measure to accommodate them to the sciences, and shew how they may be useful in optiques, geometry, &cc. Qu. whether per se proportion of visible magnitudes be per- ceivable by sight? This is put on account of distinctness and con- fusedness, the act of perception seeming to be as great in viewing any point of the visual orb distinctly, as in viewing the whole confusedly. Mem. To correct my language & make it as philosophically nice as possible — to avoid giving handle. If men could without straining alter the convexity of their crystallines, they might magnify or diminish the apparent diameters of objects, the same optic angle remaining. The bigness in one sense of the pictures in the fund is not determin'd, for the nearer a man views them, the images of them (as well as other objects) will take up the greater room in the fund of his eye. Mem. Introduction to contain the design of the whole — the nature and manner of demonstrating, &c. Two sorts of bigness accurately to be distinguished, they being Commonplace Book. 483 perfectly and toto ccelo different — the one the proportion that any one appearance has to the sum of appearances perceived at the same time w th it, w ch is proportional to angles, or if a surface to segments of sphaerical surfaces, — the other is tangible bigness. Qu. w* would happen if the sphserae of the retina were enlarged or diminish'd ? We think by the meer act of vision we perceive distance from us, yet we do not ; also that we perceive solids, yet we do not ; also the inequality of things seen under the same angle, yet we do not. Why may I not add, we think we see extension by meer vision ? yet we do not. Extension seems to be perceived by the eye, as thought by the ear. As long as the same angle determines the minimum visibile to two persons, no different conformation of the eye can make a different appearance of magnitude in the same thing. But it being possible to try the angle, we may certainly know whether the same thing appears differently big to two persons on account of their eyes. If a man could see " objects would appear larger to him than to another ; hence there is another sort of purely visible magnitude beside the proportion any appearance bears to the visual sphere, viz. its proportion to the M. V. Were there but one and the same language in the world, and did children speak it naturally as soon as born, and were it not in the power of men to conceal their thoughts or deceive others, but that there were an inseparable connexion between words 6c thoughts, so y* posito uno ponitur alterum by the laws of nature , Qu. would not men think they heard thoughts as much as that they see [extension 68 ] ? All our ideas are adaequate, our knowledge of the laws of nature is not perfect &c adaequate 69 . Men are in the right in judging their simple ideas to be in the e8 'distance' — on opposite page. phenomena, is adequate; indirect or ac- 69 Direct perception, or consciousness of quired perception is inadequate. 4 8 4 Commonplace Book. things themselves. Certainly heat & colour is as much without the mind as figure, motion, time, &c. We know many things w ch we want words to express. Great things discoverable upon this principle — for want of considering w ch divers men have run into sundry mistakes, endeavouring to set forth their knowledge by sounds, w ch foundering them, they thought the defect was in their knowledge, while in truth it was in their language. Query whether the sensations of sight arising from a man's head be liker the sensations of touch proceeding from thence or from his legs ? Or, Is it onely the constant &c long association of ideas entirely different that makes me judge them the same ? W* I see is onely variety of colours & light. W* I feel is hard or soft, hot or cold, rough or smooth, &c. W* resemblance have these thoughts with those ? A picture painted w th great variety of colours affects the touch in one uniform manner. I cannot therefore conclude that because I see 2, I shall feel % ; because I see angles or inequalities, I shall feel angles or inequalities. How therefore can 1 — before experience teaches me — know that the visible leggs are (because 2) connected w th the tangible ones, or the visible head (because one) connected w th the tangible head? M. All things by us conceivable are — 1 st, thoughts; 2ndly, powers to receive thoughts ; 3rdly, powers to cause thoughts ; neither of all w ch can possibly exist in an inert, senseless thing. An object w th out a glass may be seen under as great an angle as w 1 * 1 a glass. A glass therefore does not magnify the appearance by the angle. S. Absurd that men should know the soul by idea — ideas being inert, thoughtless. Hence Malbranch confuted 70 . 70 But the Divine ideas of Malebranche and the real ideas, sensations, or phenomena of Berkeley differ. Commonplace Book. 485 I saw gladness in his looks. I saw shame in his face. So I see figure or distance. Qu. why things seen confusedly thro' a convex glass are not magnify'd ? Tho' we should judge the horizontal moon to be more distant, why should we therefore judge her to be greater ? What connexion betwixt the same angle, further distant, and greaterness ? My doctrine affects the essences of the Corpuscularians. Perfect circles, Sec. exist not without (for none can so exist, whether perfect or no), but in the mind. Lines thought divisible ad infinitum because they are supposed to exist without 71. Also because they are thought the same when view'd by the naked eye, &c w n view'd thro' magnifying glasses. They who knew not glasses had not so fair a pretence for the divisibility ad infinitum. No idea 7 2 of circle, &c. in abstract. Metaphysiques as capable of certainty as ethiques, but not so capable to be demonstrated in a geometrical way, because men see clearer & have not so many prejudices in ethiques. Visible ideas come into the mind very distinct. So do tangible ideas. Hence extension seen &c felt. Sounds, tastes, Sec. are more blended. Qu. Why not extension intromitted by the taste in conjunction with the smell — seeing tastes 6c smells are very distinct ideas ? Blew and yellow particles mixt, while they exhibit an uniform green, their extension is not perceiv'd ; but as soon as they exhibit distinct sensations of blew and yellow, then their extension is perceiv'd. Distinct perception of visible ideas not so perfect as of tangible — tangible ideas being many at once equally vivid. Hence heterogeneous extension. Object. Why a mist increases not the apparent magnitude of an object, in proportion to the faintness 7 y ? Mem. To enquire touching the squaring of the circle, Sec. That seems smooth Se round to the touch may to sight 71 1 without,' i. e. independent of all con- 72 i. e. in Berkeley's meaning of 1 idea,' sciousness or perception of them. When which gives intuitive as distinct from sym- they get too small for that they cease to bolical knowledge, exist at all, according to Berkeley. 73 Cf. Essay on Vision, sect. 71. 486 Commonplace Book. seem quite otherwise. Hence no necessary connexion betwixt visible ideas and tangible ones, In geometry it is not prov'd that an inch is divisible ad infinitum. Geometry not conversant about our compleat, determined ideas of figures, for these are not divisible ad infinitum. Particular circles may be squar'd, for the circumference being given a diameter may be found betwixt w ch & the true there is not any perceivable difference. Therefore there is no difference — extension being a perception, &c a perception not perceived is contradiction, nonsense, nothing. In vain to alledge the difference may be seen by magnifying-glasses, for in y t case there is ('tis true) a difference perceiv'd, but not between the same ideas, but others much greater, entirely different therefrom 74 . Any visible circle possibly perceivable of any man may be squar'd, by the common way, most accurately ; or even perceivable by any other being, see he never so acute, i.e. never so small an arch of a circle ; this being w t makes the distinction between acute & dull sight, and not the m. v., as men are perhaps apt to think. The same is true of any tangible circle. Therefore further enquiry of accuracy in squaring or other curves is perfectly needless, &c time thrown away. Mem. To press w* last precedes more homely, & so think on't again. A meer line or distance is not made up of points, does not exist, cannot be imaging or have an idea framed thereof, — no more than meer colour without extension 75 . Mem. A great difference between considering length w th out breadth, & having an idea of or imagining length without breadth 76 . Malbranch out touching the crystallines diminishing, L. i.e. 6. 'Tis possible (& perhaps not very improbable, that is, is some- times so) we may have the greatest pictures from the least objects. 74 This is the Principle directed against infinite divisibility, and quantitative infinity. Cf. Malebranche, Recherche, lib. I. c. 6. That and the following chapters seem to have been in Berkeley's mind in writing many of these sentences. 75 He here assumes that extension (visible) is implied in the perception of colour. 76 This strikingly illustrates Berkeley's use of ' idea.' Commonplace Book. Therefore no necessary connexion betwixt visible &c tangible ideas. These ideas, viz. great relation to sphara visua/is or to the m. v. (wch is all that I would have meant by having a greater picture) .& faintness, might possibly have stood for or signify' d small tangible extensions. Certainly the greater relation to s. v. and m. v. does frequently, in that men view little objects near the eye. . Malbranch out in asserting we cannot possibly know whether there are 2 men in the world that see a thing of the same bigness. V. L. 1. c. 6. Diagonal of particular square commensurable w th its side, they both containing a certain number of m. v. I do not think that surfaces consist of lines, i.e. meer distances. Hence perhaps may be solid that sophism w ch would prove the oblique line equal to the perpendicular between 2 parallels. Suppose an inch represent a mile, ywoo °f an inc h is nothing, but 10 1 00 of y e mile represented is something : therefore xt ^ij- of an inch, tho' nothing, is not to be neglected, because it represents something, i.e 10 1 00 of a mile. Particular determined lines are not divisible ad infinitum^ but lines as us'd by geometers are so, they not being determined to any particular finite number of points. Yet a geometer (he knows not why) will very readily say he can demonstrate an inch line is divisible ad infinitum. A body moving in the optique axis not perceived to move by sight merely, and without experience. There is ('tis true) a successive change of ideas, — it seems less and less. But, besides this, there is no visible change of place. Mem. To enquire most diligently concerning the incommensu- rability of diagonale & side — whether it does not go on the suppo- sition of units being divisible ad infinitum, i. e'. of the extended thing spoken of being divisible ad infinitum (unit being nothing ; also v. Barrow, Lect. Geom.), &c so the infinite indivisibility deduced therefrom is a petitio principii ? The diagonal is commensurable with the side. M. From Malbranch, Locke, &c my first arguings it can't be prov'd P. that extension is not in matter. From Locke's arguings it can't be proved that colours are not in bodies. 488 Commonplace Book. Mem. That I was distrustful at 8 years old, and consequently by nature disposed for these new doctrines. Qu. How can a line consisting of an unequal number of points be divisible [ad infinitum] in two equals ? Mem. To discuss copiously how & why we do not see the pictures, M. Allowing extensions to exist in matter, we cannot know even P. their proportions — contrary to Malbranch. M. I wonder how men cannot see a truth so obvious, as that extension cannot exist without a thinking substance 77. M. Species of all sensible things made by the mind. This prov'd either by turning men's eyes into magnifyers or diminishers. Y r m. v. is, suppose, less than mine. Let a 3 rd person have perfect ideas of both our m. vs. His idea of my m. v. contains his idea of yours, &c somewhat more. Therefore 'tis made up of parts — therefore his idea of my m. v. is not perfect or just, which diverts the hypothesis. Qu. whether a m. v. or t. be extended ? Mem. The strange errours men run into about the pictures. We think them small because should a man be suppos'd to see them their pictures would take up but little room in the fund of his eye. It seems all lines can't be bisected in 2 equall parts. Mem. To examine how the geometers prove the contrary. 'Tis impossible there should be a m. v. less than mine. If there be, mine may become equal to it (because they are homo- geneous) by detraction of some part or parts. But it consists not of parts, ergo &c. 77 The. dependence of extension and space perties of being immediately and ineradically upon a conscious mind does not necessarily certain, of being universally present in all imply that space is contingent or created. It phenomena, of being knowable in their first may be the uncreated condition of the per- intention and defined as what they are, and ceived or actual existence of the sensible sort of being in nature the same, in all objects of phenomena. Berkeley's early notions however different. They thus become the about space and time distinguish his point common basis or bond of union between all of view from that of Kantian and later philo- other cognitions, and as such the starting- sophy, with its necessary and universal ele- point and corner-stone of philosophy.' (See ment. ' Time and space alone,' says an emi- Time and Space (p. 122), by Shadworth H. nent living metaphysician, 4 unite the pro- Hodgson.) Commonplace Book. Suppose inverting perspectives bound to y e eyes of a child, & continued to the years of manhood — when he looks up, or turns up his head, he shall behold w* we call under. Qu. What would he think of up and down " 8 ? M. I wonder not at my sagacity in discovering the obvious tho' amazing truth; I rather wonder at my stupid inadvertency in not finding it out before — 'tis no witchcraft to see. M. Our simple ideas are so many simple thoughts or perceptions, and that a perception cannot exist without a thing to perceive it, or any longer than it is perceiv'd ; that a thought cannot be in an unthinking thing; that one uniform simple thought can be like to nothing but another uniform simple thought. Complex thoughts or ideas are onely an assemblage of simple ideas, and can be the image of nothing, or like unto nothing but another assemblage of simple ideas, &c. M. The Cartesian opinion of light &c colours &c. is orthodox enough even in their eyes who think the Scripture expression may favour the common opinion. Why may not mine also ? But there is nothing in Scripture that can possibly be wrested to make against me, but, perhaps, many things for me. M. Bodies &c. do exist whether we think of 'em or no, they being taken in a twofold sense — 1. Collections of thoughts 2. Collections of powers to cause those thoughts 79 . These later exist, tho' perhaps a parte ret it may be one simple perfect power 80 . Qu. whether the extension of a plain, look'd at straight and slantingly, survey'd minutely & distinctly, or in the bulk and con- fusedly at once, be the same ? N.B. The plain is suppos'd to keep the same distance. The ideas we have by a successive, curious inspection of y e 78 This to illustrate the necessary relative- ness of those terms, and elsewhere applied to the inverted images on the retina. Cf. Essay on Vision, sect. 88 — 119. 79 He here uses thoughts = perceptions. See below, where perceptions = passive thoughts. 80 i. e. the Supreme or Divine power, into which Berkeley in the end resolves all so- called physical forces and their correlations. 490 Commonplace Book. minute parts of a plain do not seem to make up the extension of that plain view'd & considered all together. Ignorance in some sort requisite in y e person that should disown the Principle. Thoughts do most properly signify, or are mostly taken for the interior operations of the mind, wherein the mind is active. Those y* obey not the acts of volition, and in w ch the mind is passive, are more properly call'd sensations or perceptions. But y l is all a case. Extension being the collection or distinct co-existence of mini- mums, i.e. of perceptions intromitted by sight or touch, it cannot be conceiv'd without a perceiving substance. P. Malbranch does not prove that the figures & extensions exist not when they are not perceiv'd. Consequently he does not prove, nor can it be prov'd on his principles, that the sorts are the work of the mind, and onely in the mind. M. The great argument to prove that extension cannot be in an P- unthinking substance, is that it cannot be conceiv'd distinct from or without all tangible or visible quality. JVL Tho' matter be extended w th an indefinite extension, yet the mind makes the sorts. They were not before the mind perceiving them, & even now they are -not without the mind. Houses, trees, &c, tho 5 indefinitely extended matter do exist, are not without the mind 81 . M. The great danger of making extension exist without the mind, is that if it does it must be acknowledg'd infinite, immutable, eternal, &c, wch w [\\ be to make either God extended (w ch I think dangerous), or an eternal, immutable, infinite, increate being beside God 82 . I. Finiteness of our minds no excuse for the geometers 83 . M. The Principle easily proved by plenty of arguments ad ahsurdum. The twofold signification of Bodies, viz. 81 Because they involve sensation, and of mechanical science and theology in the law or universality. Newtonian age. 82 This is written at the point of view 83 Cf. Principles, Introduction, sect. 2. Commonplace Book. 491 j. Combinations of thoughts ; 2. Combinations of powers to raise thoughts. These, I say, in conjunction with homogeneous particles, may solve much better the objections from the creation than the sup- position that Matter does exist, — upon w ch supposition I think they cannot be solvM. Bodies taken for powers do exist w ft not perceiv'd; but this existence is not actual 84 . W R I say a power exists, no more is meant than that if in the light I open my eyes, and look that way, I shall see it, i.e. the body, &c. Qu. whether blind before sight may not have an idea of light and colours & visible extension, after the same manner as we perceive them w th eyes shut or in the dark— not imagining but seeing after a sort ? Visible extension cannot be conceiv'd added to tangible ex- tension. Visible and tangible points can't make one sum. There- fore these extensions are heterogeneous. A probable method propos'd whereby one may judge whether in near vision there is a greater distance between the crystalline &c fund than usual, or whether the crystalline be onely rendered more convex. If the former, then the v. s. is enlarg'd, & the m. v. corresponds to less than 30", or w*ever it us'd to correspond to. Stated measures, inches, feet, &c, are tangible not visible extensions 85 . Locke, More, Raphson, &cc. seem to make God extended. 'Tis nevertheless of great use to religion to take extension out of our idea of God, 6c put a power in its place 86 . It seems dan- gerous to suppose extension, w ch is manifestly inert, in God. But, say you, The thought or perception I call extension is not itself in an unthinking thing or Matter — but it is like something 81 i. e. This is, in a way, the distinction of Ivvanis and evepytia. It helps too to explain Berkeley's real meaning when he sometimes speaks of the ideas or phenomena, given in the sense experience of different persons, almost as if they were independent entities, which circulate among minds, while in fact he credits them only with a de- pendent sui generis existence. >5 Yet tangible extensions too are relative. 86 This is the ground of Berkeley's moral interest in the common philosophical account of Matter, and of his objection to it. Kis own belief in what is now called objectivity is founded on causality (in bis meaning of efficient cause), after a previous analysis of space into sensible extension. (For his own use of ' objective,' cf. Siris, sect. 292.) 492 Commonplace Book. wch is in Matter. Well, say I, Do you apprehend or conceive wt you say extension is like unto, or do you not ? If the later, how know you they are alike ? How can you compare any things besides your own ideas ? If the former, it must be an idea, i. e. perception, thought, or sensation — w ch to be in an unperceiving thing is a contradiction 8 7. I. I abstain from all flourish & powers of words & figures, using a great plainness & simplicity of simile, having oft found it difficult to understand those that use the lofty & Platonic, or subtil &c scholastique strain 88 . M. Whatsoever has any of our ideas in it must perceive ; it being that very having, that passive recognition of ideas, that de- nominates the mind perceiving — that being the very essence of perception, or that wherein perception consists. The faintness w ch alters the appearance of the horizontal moon, rather proceeds from the quantity or grossness of the intermediate atmosphere, than from any change of distance, w ch is perhaps not considerable enough to be a total cause, but may be a partial of the phenomenon. N.B. The visual angle is less in cause the horizon. We judge of the distance of bodies, as by other things, so also by the situation of their pictures in the eye, or (w ch is the same thing) according as they appear higher or lower. Those w ch seem higher are farther off, &c. Qu. why we see objects greater in y e dark ? whether this can be solVd by any but my principles ? M. The reverse of y e Principle introduced scepticism. M. N.B. On my principles there is a reality : there are things : there is a rerum natura. Mem. The surds, doubling the cube, Sec. 87 To be 1 in an unperceiving thing,' i. e. to exist'unperceived. Now, whatever is per- ceived or known is, as something perceived, an idea — in Berkeley's language : we know it as a something known : to know it posi- tively as something unknown involves con- tradiction. 88 This as to the 4 Platonic strain ' is not the tone of Siris. Commonplace Book. 493 We think that if just made to see we should judge of the dis- tance & magnitude of things as we do now ; but this is false. So also w* we think so positively of the situation of objects. Hays's, KenTs 89 , Sec. method of proving the infinitesimals of the 3 d order absurd, & perfectly contradictions. Angles of contact, &c verily all angles comprehended by a right line &c a curve, cannot be measur'd, the arches intercepted not being similar. The danger of expounding the H. Trinity by extension. M. Qu« Why should the magnitude seen at a near distance be P. deem'd the true one rather than that seen at a farther distance ? Why should the sun be thought many 1000 miles rather than one foot in diameter — both being equally apparent diameters ? Cer- tainly men judgM of the sun not in himself, but w th relation to themselves. M. 4 principles whereby to answer objections, viz. 1. Bodies do really exist tho' not perceiv'd by us 90 . 2. There is a law or course of nature. 3. Language & knowledge are all about ideas ; words stand for nothing else. 4. Nothing can be a proof against one side of a contradic- tion that bears equally hard upon the other 91 . What shall I say? Dare I pronounce the admired aKpCfitia mathematica, that darling of the age, a trifle ? Most certainly no finite extension divisible ad infinitum. M. Difficulties about concentric circles. N. Mem. To examine & accurately discuss the scholium of the 8 th definition of Mr. Newton's 92 Principia. 89 John Keill (1671 — 1721), the eminent covery of the method of fluxions, mathematician, educated at the University 90 Thus stated in various preceding pas- of Edinburgh ; in 1 7 10 Savilian Professor of sages. Astronomy at Oxford, and the first to teach 91 So in Kant's antinomies, and Hamilton's the Newtonian philosophy in that University. law of the conditioned. In 1708 he was engaged in a controversy 92 Newton became Sir Isaac on April 16, in support of Newton's claims to the dis- 1705. Was this written before that date? 494 Commonplace Book. Ridiculous in the mathematicians to despise sense. Qu. Is it not impossible there should be general ideas ? All ideas come from without. They are all particular. The mind, 'tis true, can consider one thing w th out another ; but then, considered asunder, they make not 2 ideas 93 . Both together can make but one, as for instance colour & visible extension. The end of a mathematical line is nothing. Locke's argu- ment that the end of his pen is black or white concludes nothing here. Mem. Take care how you pretend to define extension, for fear of the geometers. Qu. why difficult to imagine a minimum? Ans. Because we are not used to take notice of 'em singly; they not being able singly to pleasure or hurt us, thereby to deserve our regard. Mem. To prove against Keill y* the infinite divisibility of matter makes the half have an equal number of equal parts with the whole. Mem. To examine how far the not comprehending infinites may be admitted as a plea. Qu. Why may not the mathematicians reject all the extensions below the M. as well as the dd s , &c, w ch are allowed to be some- thing, & consequently may be magnify'd by glasses into inches, feet, &c, as well as the quantities next below the M. ? Big, little, and number are the works of the mind. How there- fore can y e extension you suppose in Matter be big or little ? How can it consist of any number of points ? P. Mem. Strictly to remark L[ocke], b. 2. c. 8. s. 8 94 . Schoolmen compar'd with the mathematicians. Extension is blended w th tangible or visible ideas, & by the mind praescinded therefrom. Mathematiques made easy — the scale does almost all. The scale can tell us the subtangent in y e parabola is double the abscisse. W* need of the utmost accuracy w n the mathematicians own in rerum natura they cannot find anything corresponding w th their nice ideas. 93 i. e. two individual things, or images of what he means by idea, what by quality, two individual things. and what the relation between ideas and 94 In which Locke explains and illustrates qualities. Commonplace Book. 495 One should endeavour to find a progression by trying w th the scale. Newton's fluxions needless. Anything below a M. might serve for Leibnitz's Differential Calculus. How can they hang together so well, since there are in them (I mean the mathematiques) so many contradict oria arguti corn, sheep, pasture ; fine view to the left of a country well inhabited ; white houses, extended fields, 552 Journal of a rows of trees, groves, scattered trees, the whole a wide plain, ii + 10, corn, wide unenclosed plain, few trees, reddish soil, not very rich and somewhat sandy. 1 1 + 25, passed through Gua- gniano, a considerable village and well built; stony road, corn, vines, fig-trees, stone walls for hedges, open stony ground, burnt grass, as indeed everywhere ; sheep a small flock ; large vineyards right and left ; walnuts ; spacious corn-fields on left, behind them trees, and behind the trees a considerable town ; corn right and left ; beans. 12 + 5, olive grove, corn and vines and walnuts and almonds mixed with the olive-trees ; got out of the grove at 12+40; olives and vines to the left, open country, corn and scattered trees on the right ; flax, corn and olives right and left. i2-f 50, a wood, oaks and other forest trees thin, much under- wood, oxen and cows, large birds like cranes. 1 + 20, quit the wood for a large plain covered with divers sorts of pretty green shrub and thyme, which we have often met with, and supply the place of heath and fern ; stubble, goats and sheep right ; corn right, shrub left, the country wide and flat ; scattered trees and groves in view, but no enclosures; stony field on the right, open pasture, sheep and oxen, corn, oxen ; air perfumed with speermint growing over an ample space right and left. 2, Bracciano, a poor village, where we dined under a fig-tree by the side of a well in a poor man's garden, who helped us to a salad, &c. ; this village belongs to the Archbishop of Brindisi. 4, we set out from Bracciano. Large green plain, in which corn; shrub, corn, pasture, cattle, goats, sheep; small ascent; shrub, wide stony field; shrub and stony ground ; long tract of corn, interrupted in one place with a little flax, in another with a few olives ; rocky ground and corn on the left; road rocky; corn right and left; parched pasture, amidst wall of huge uncemented stones grown rough with age, on the right. 7 + 5, Casal-nuovo ; Franciscan convent; treatment there ; friar at midnight knocking at the door and singing ; Thomas and Scotus ; conversation with the guardian in Latin, and another friar. Franciscans, except Capuchins, not bitten or poisoned by the tarantula, those animals having been cursed by St. Francis ; the habit worn twenty-four hours cures the tarantato. 29. Walk out in the morning ; meet a physician gathering simples in a field near the town. He judged the distemper of the taran- Tour in Italy. 553 tati to be often feigned for lewd purposes, &c, as the spiritati. The wonderful fountain, which, being in a great subterraneous grotto, runs into a cistern without ever filling it n . Great remains of double walls of huge stones, and fosse of the ancient Mandu- rium. The odd small old building, consisting of a double rotunda and a large niche at the upper end and some walls, as of a vestibule beyond it, said by the inhabitants to have been a temple of the Sun, afterwards turned into a church ; some old pictures of saints on the wall; seems built in the early times of Christianity. Many, if not most, of the great stones in the old walls seemed a congregation of oyster and scollop shells entire, cemented together by hard plaster. Convents six, and one nunnery; 8000 souls, though I think over reckoned, belonging to the Prince of Francavilla. Corn, flax, and cotton in great plenty about Casal- nuovo. 7 + 50, left Casal-nuovo ; corn, olives left ; few figs and walnuts right ; pasture amidst quarries ; roads very rocky ; low shrubs and thyme; land open and poor; corn and figs for half a mile before we come to Oria. 10 + 5, Oria, situate on a rocky hill; chain of small hills about two miles long, and Oria on one of them. A bishopric; fragments of old pillars in the streets; goodly prospect to Gravina, Brundisium, Lecce, &c. Inscription as follows on a pedestal lying in the churchyard of the cathedral : — D. M. COCCETA M. F. PRIMA V. A. XX M. COCCEIUS FILI.E PlENTisspi/E. Plain of vast extent round on all sides; part of an old Roman wall near the castle ; belongs to the Prince of Francavilla. N. B. Several caves or grottoes in a rocky hill near Uria. Set out from Uria at 1, after having dined wretchedly in a stable, that being the only place we could find in the town; stony ground, corn and olives in abundance, figs, vines; long tracts of corn and long tracts of vines alternately, olives and fig trees; ditches on each side the road, and bramble hedges. 2+4, grove of olives, ground gently wavy. 2 +40 m., quit the grove; large open tract of ground, stony field, spacious field of oats, stony road, shrubs right, vineyard left. Francavilla about 2 miles on our right ; vines right and left ; vineyard left, field of beans right ; ridge of fruitful hills about two miles off on right; corn, beans. [Rudia* the country of Ennius, placed by Cluverius between Uria and 11 [Berkeley here quotes Pliny Lib. ii. He adds, ' N.B. The Physician mistook Livy c. 103, of part of which the description of for Pliny.'] the fountain is an abridged translation. 554 Journal of a Tarentum midway ; but we saw no ruins of that town. At Lecce they placed Rudise within two or three miles of that city. M.] This afternoon single houses up and down the country thicker than usual ; few scattered trees throughout; pasture and stubble; cows, oxen, sheep, corn, and ciceri; stony field, ploughed land, corn; shrub on left, corn right; beans, corn; stones and shrub right; ample prospect of open country, pasture, ploughed land, &c, , bounded by gentle hills or risings. Get out of the spacious stony shrub; easy descent; olive grove, corn, garden stuff. Gulf of Taranto in view; large vineyard right and left; parched rough pasture. S. Giorgio, a considerable town on our left ; corn, open. Pass close by a village on our left; pasture and corn; rough, stony, shrubby ground ; flock of sheep, almost all black, the com- mon colour in these parts ; large shrubby, stony tract, and corn 6cc. a small distance to the right; slew a black serpent, 4 feet long ; ploughed land, corn, shrub. Come to the side of an arm of the Gulf on our right; great space of corn ; olives at a distance to the left, on a gentle hill ; the ridge of low mountains still continued on the other side of the sea; tufts of ciceri, rushes, olives, corn, cows and oxen; ascent ; shrub ; space of corn ; corn, olives, vines, the olive trees large and many among the corn; vines and fig trees; olives, vines, and gardens; convents, houses; olives, pasture; corn left, convents and gardens right and left. Arrived at the Zoccolanti Scalsi [Barefooted Friars ?] by 8 -f 1. 8 + 3, open corn and Tarentum. 30. Taranto, trade in corn and oil ; inhabitants 1 5,000 ; no taste in the buildings; streets narrow and extreme dirty. Archbishop's palace noble; spacious apartments; loggie overlooking the whole Gulf of Tarentum ; the serenity and noble prospect of that Gulf. Handsome seminary near the Archbishop's palace; logic, philo- sophy, theology, humanity taught in the same; youth, secular and ecclesiastic, are taught, dieted, and lodged for 30 ducats per annum each. *N. B. These seminaries common. Fine inlaid chapel in the cathedral, which hath likewise ancient pillars in the great aisle, with rude chapiters ; various coloured marbles in the inlayings, found in the ruins of the ancient city. Nothing more beautiful than this oval inlaid chapel, painted well enough above with the life of St. Cataldus, an Irishman, formerly Arch- Tour in Italy. 555 bishop of Tarentum, now patron of the city ; his body behind the great altar. [The skull of St. Cataldo in the silver head (which they say was finished by an angel) of his silver statue. His tongue also uncorrupted. M.] A Gothic building shown for Pilate's house. Several noble families settled in Taranto. Tarantato that we saw dance here, no looking-glass or sword ; stamped, screeched, seemed to smile sometimes; danced in a circle like the others. The Consul, &c. inform us that all spiders except the long-legged ones bite, causing the usual symptoms, though not so violent as the large ones in the country. He tells me the tarantula causes pain and blackness to a great square round the bite ; thinks there can be no deceit, the dancing is so laborious ; tells me they are feverish mad, and sometimes after dancing throw themselves into the sea, and would drown if not prevented ; that in case the tarantula be killed on biting, the patient dances but one year; otherwise to the death of the tarantula. Ruins of old walls on the sea-shore, half a mile from modern Tarentum 12 . Ruins of an amphitheatre (different from what we had elsewhere seen, as being without the passages) \ of a mile from the town, between the foresaid ruins and the town. A mile from town the same way an old church and the grotto or subterraneous passage from the little sea to the gulf, built of huge stones. All spiders, except those with very long legs and those in houses, white and black. The taking of the tarantula out with a straw nothing singular, and done without whistling or spittle. Tarentum now in an island, with two bridges. Two old columns of Verde antico in the chapel. The ruins of the amphitheatre defaced by the friars, who have a convent there, and a garden in the amphitheatre. Medals and intaglios found here; gold and silver, wrought and unwrought, found along the side of the little sea, which makes them believe the street of the goldsmiths' shops was there. Corn, wine, oil, fruits in abundance in the territory of Tarentum. Consul says the scorpion likewise causes dancing 1 K 12 [Vallardi in his Itinerario Italio says, through, chiefly by the holes of the [braces ?], ' The harbour being choked can only receive and sending in a moist vapour swells the small barks.'] corn to 43 increase in the 100 : to prevent 13 [Berkeley gives in a brief form the infor- its rotting by this moisture they change it mation and quotations relative to Tarentum, every 8 daies from one magazine to another, which are now to be found in Cramer's The experiment easily made by weighing Italy. He also adds this note :] — 1 Inhabit- equal bulks of theirs and the peasants'^corn ants of Taranto place their magazines of just brought in. This affirmed by the Con- corn near the sea, which insinuates itself fessor to the Germans.' 556 yournal of a 3i. 8 4- i y set out from Tarentum. The ancient Tarentum on a tongue of land between two seas, same way by which we came towards Fagiano, a town of the Albanian colony. Left our last road on the left ; olives and corn, and open corn fields ; wide green wavy pasture, large flock of black sheep. No mountains in the heel of Italy. Coarse pasture, open corn ; all the way corn and pasture ; open country ; hills at our left distant, sea near our right. No B. Mistake in the maps making the heel mountainous, there being nothing more than gentle hills or risings, and few of them. Dined with an Albanian priest at Fagiano, who treated us very civilly ; he could give no account of the first settling that colony. The men, he said, had been formerly employed in some wars of Italy, and during their absence the women taking no care of their books, they were destroyed; so their MSS. histories and records perished. 1500 souls in Fagiano, all Albaneses, and speaking the Albanian tongue ; their children learn the Italian at school. Fagiano a clean, irregular town ; instead of our thatched cabins, small, square, flat-roofed, white houses. The priest told us the arm, e. g. being bitten by the tarantula swelled, confirmed, as indeed everybody, that common notion of the tarantula's death curing the bite. His house very neat. Everywhere great respect for a knowledge of the English, owing to our commerce, fleets, and armies. Ancient Greek chapel painted with barbarous figures, and inscriptions much defaced, in characters partly Greek and partly barbarous. This priest never drank wine except at the sacrament, having an antipathy to it. Beside Fagiano, La Rocca, S. Giorgio, and 3 or 4 more towns mostly Albanese, but Fagiano entirely. Bed of cuorioli, or broken shells of periwinkles, &c, along the shore of the small sea, used formerly, as they say, in dying purple ; wool in the fish called baricella, of which stockings, waistcoats, 8cc, like silk, but stronger. A little fish in the shell with the baricella, which, standing on the top of the open broad shell (the lower end being shaped like a horn, and always stuck in the ground), sees the approaching porpoise, and retreating into the baricella, gives him notice to shut his shell. Three or four drops of oil spilt on the sea enables fishers to see the bottom. Abbate Calvo said Count Thaun had given 40,000 pistoles for Tour in Italy. 557 the continuation of his government the last year; a grain per rotolo tax on the beef; the butchers discount with the town- collectors by little bits of stamped lead given by the free persons for the tax of each rotolo. Two islands in the gulf that break the winds and make the harbour more secure. Taranto walled ; a strong castle ; soldiers 128. June 1. 1 + j, set out from Taranto over the other bridge. Corn, large grove of olives; corn mixed with olives, being great old trees, as indeed in every other grove ; corn fields ; corn, apples, olives, pomegranates, and other fruit trees ; shrub and corn fields ; a forest \ of a mile distant left ; ridge of low fruitful hills or risings all the way about a mile and a half distant on our right. Town Matsafra on the side of the said ridge. The country we pass through plain, and though fruitful, hardly any houses to be seen. Dried pastures, unequal ground, being descent; a small vale, in which tufts of rushes, olives, figs, 6cc; ascent. A small village on left; corn fields planted with young olives in rows; long vine- yards right and left, with figs and other fruit trees ; poor pasture ; corn right, olives left ; a great open country, not a perfect level, but nearly so, consisting of pasture, corn, and a vast large shrub of wild thyme, &c. 5 -f 35', ground wavy ; some corn amidst the shrub; rugged stony ground, hills and vales mostly covered with shrub. 7-1-32', out of the shrub; corn fields, grove of olives; ine- quality of hill and dale ; ground rocky ; still olives, corn among the olives ; quarry of white stone on the right, wide corn field on left ; road hewn through the rock; corn and olives on both sides; stone walls, beans. 8+10', Castalneta; the people drawn up in the street in lines to see us ; the number of clergy or abbates besides the regulars; these loiter in the streets, particularly at Mandu- rium the Theatines. Letter to the Dominicans from a clergyman at Taranto; their inhospitality in refusing to lodge us; we are received at the Capucins; sit round their fire in the kitchen. Castalneta belongs to the Prince of Acquaviva, of a Genoese family. A bishopric, 6000 souls; 3 convents of men and % of women; city dirty, and nothing remarkable in art, nature, or antiquity. Odd to find the fame of Whig and Tory spread so far as the inland parts of South Italy, and yet one of the most 558 Journal of a knowing fathers asked whether Ireland were a large town. [Library Scholastic, and some few expositors with a few fathers in a small room. One or two Classics. They take it ill to be asked if they have any poets. In another convent, they said ' What have we to do with Virgil ? we want good sound books for disputing and preaching/ JVL] June 2. Set out at 7 + 1 1\ the friars in a body accompanying us to the gate of the convent. Land unequal ; corn, vines, figs, almonds intermixed; corn, open country; large shrub to the left, pasture and few scattered fruit trees to the right ; shrub on right and left. 8 + 50', get out of the great shrub into a spacious tract of wavy country, or distinguished by risings; in it not a tree in view; some corn, some shrub, much the greater part stony pasture; a small brook, no cattle nor houses, except one or two cottages, occur in this ample space ; sheep feed here in winter, in summer in the Abruzzo, grass here being dried up in the summer, and a fresh crop in September ; in the Abruzzo pinched with cold in the winter. These easy hills, or rather risings, and plains great mountains in the maps. This immense region to the right and left, a perte de *vue y appears desert, not a man nor beast; those who own the sheep mentioned are men of the Abruzzo, many of them very rich, and drive a great trade, sending their wool to Manfredonia, and so by sea to Venice ; their cheese to Naples and elsewhere up and down the kingdom; they nevertheless live meanly like other peasants, and many with bags of money shan't have a coat worth a groat; much cloth made at Venice. 10-1-40', grass deeper, white, yellow, red, blue flowers mixed with it. 10 + 55', vast opening before and on the right, on the left rocky hills; in all this vast tract not a tree or man or beast to be seen, and hardly 2 or 3 scattered poor houses; an infinite number of butter- flies, and shrubs mixed with the pasture. 11 + 25', rocky ground ; opening on right into a far extended green corn vale between green hills bearing corn to the very tops ; rocky hills left, stony ground, a vale before with corn and vines and a few trees. The hills round have corn, but no trees, except those on the right, which are barren and rocky, without either trees or corn ; pasture, wild corn, vines left; corn right, vines left for a long space; road Tour in Italy. 559 cut through the rock. Inconveniently cold for several hours this morning; ciceri, vines, corn; great quarries in rocky hills on our left; few figs on left, corn on right ; rocky ground ; vines right and left. Matera 1 + 30; archbishopric, souls 17,000; they seem to mis- reckon, being deceived by the figure of the town. Houses 10, one above another like seats in a theatre, built down the sides of an oval hole ; more men cannot stand on a mountain than on the under plain. Dined in a garden, offered by a farrier of the town as we were looking for a tree in the suburbs ; the man very civil and well behaved, which is the general character. Guardian of the Franciscan's letter to Gravina; he's displeased that we stayed not there in Matera, as Calvo had intimated in his letter to him. Nothing extraordinary in the buildings or churches ; all these inland towns in our return inferior to those on the Adriatic. 6, set out from Matera ; vines, corn, walled gardens of fruit-trees, rocky road, wide opening descent, mostly high mountains at a distance on the left; hills below; pasture and corn; hills and vales all green ; pasture, corn, shrub, the last but little and on the hills. Vines left, corn, pasture ; the same hilly country continued in the night ; a world of shining flies ; rocky hills. Lost our way ; arrived after much wandering afoot at a Franciscan convent without the walls of Gravina at 11 in the night, dark. [Grana dat et vina Clara urbs Gravina inscribed over a gate of the town. M.] Last reckoning of the inhabitants 9850; walled town, duke's palace, bishopric, cathedral; well paved with white marble ; situate among naked green hills ; 5 convents of men and 3 of women ; unhealthy air in wet weather. Duke a wretch ; princes obliged by del Caspio to give their own or the heads of the banditti with whom they went sharers. Priests count the number of their parishioners at Easter; Bishop of Gravina dead these two years, since which no bishop in the town, the Viceroy not admitting the person made bishop by the Pope, as being a foreigner. N. B. The Bishop of Matera 12,000 crowns a year; these bishops not so poor as commonly tl ought. In Matera and Gravina they make a distinction between nobile and cavalere, the latter being esteemed the higher rank. June 3. Part from Gravina at 10; open green fields and hills mostly covered with corn backwarder than in the plain; corn the com- 560 Journal of a modity of the country. Here and there rocky; rocky barren moun- tains about three miles distant on right ; not a tree ; some trees on our right thinly scattered; a small brook; pasture and little corn, ii, great scene opening, long chain of barren mountains distant about 3 miles on right; open pasture, not a tree, and pretty plain, wavy rather than hilly ; few blue mountains distant on left ; a little corn on the right, thistles left ; for half an hour passed a green vale of pasture bounded with green risings right between our road and the stony mountains. 11+40, vast plain, corn, the greater part pasture between ridges of mountains; Appennine on the left, old Vultur on the right; hardly a house on the plain or hills ; the Vultur near and is a stony barren moun- tain. 1 -f 20, a deep vale, diversified with rising hills reaching to the mountains on left. 1 + 25, Poggio Ursini, where we dined ; chaplain lent us his chamber in the Duke of Gravina's. Masseira, dirty; the Duke spends some time there in hunting. Tarantula not in this country; he hath seen several bitten with a black swoln mark as large as half-a-crown ; they knew not they were bitten till dancing; tarantula bites only in the hot months; a peasant at Canosa laughed at their biting, and said he had often taken them in his hands. Duke of Gravina 30,000 ducats per annum feudo, and 30,000 negotio. Doors and entrances of the houses dirty and forbidding here and elsewhere, but otherwise at Lecce. 3 + 40, set out from Poggio Ursini along the same plain; pasture, corn ; beans left, corn right. 4 + 10, descent into a vale; pasture left, meadow right with hay made; corn, plain, pasture, and green hills on right and left. After a little straying, turn to the left and descend ; tall thistles 5 foot high ; corn in the vale ; corn and pasture. 5, great length of corn along the bottom of the vale on the right, small hills and large spaces of rising ground well covered with corn and pasture. [N.B. Italians living in towns makes 'em polite; the contrary observable in the English. M.] Still between the mountains as before; ample space again; wood at a good distance on left, 2 of great length along the low mountains. 6 -f 20, descend into a spacious plain (not a perfect plain, but rising lands and vales intermixed) ; corn, pasture, and wood ; not a house in view this afternoon. 6 4- j , Spennazzuola, a village belonging to the Duke of Calabretta, inhabitants about 3000; this seems too many for so loicr in Italy. 561 small a place, and yet I was assured it by a priest of the town ; 3 convents. Situate pleasantly, having on one side fine wood and hilly glens with trees and corn, on the other an open country, corn, and pasture ; fleas innumerable. June 4. Set out at 6 -f § ; open hills, corn, and pasture as before ; corn, large space of ground, shrub thin, and pasture; forest trees on the right, ridge of woody mountains three miles on left ; wide vale, shrub, and pasture opening to the left, displaying a delight- ful scene, a fruitful ridge of hills well wooded bounding the sight. 8, wood on right, and shrub succeeding. Lopalozzo, town on a pleasant hill on the left; fruitful pleasant plain between over swelling hills and mountains on left ; vale between gentle hills ; pasture, corn, shrub ; rising ground, corn, pasture and corn in a long vale on right, wood on the gentle hill that bounds it ; rising land, pasture, shrub or copse ; descent into an ample plain ; corn, shrub, pasture advancing obliquely to the woody mountains, beyond which higher mountains ; delightful small vale, environed with gentle hills most crowned with wood, a river or rather rivulet running through. 9 + i, ascent, little space, through a wood ; rising opeu corn field right, wood left; beyond the corn on right, pasture with cattle, and beyond that chain of fruitful hills ; up and down through the skirts of a wood, soil stiff reddish clay, glade opening to the fruitful hills on right. 9 + 40, large corn field, bounded with gentle hills, a few scattered trees among the corn right, forest left ; down a hill, at the bottom of which a rivulet, forest on both sides, long glade opening to the left bounded by the mountains. Left Acherontium, now Cirenza 14 , on our left behind, on a moun- tain's top. 10 + 25, Brionre, a city on a mountain left, and Barial on the mountain side ; large shrub, being the skirt of the forest ; a large plain, shrub, pasture, much corn, in which Venosa. All this while advancing obliquely to the mountains on the left; glen, large walnut trees in the same descending road along the right side of it, bits of old walls on our right of the road ; corn, vines, olives, 6cc. on the steep hills on either side ; pass over a brook at bottom of our descent, which stony ; stony ascent after the brook, grottoes on the left ; the same glen, after turning, now on right. [ 14 Acerenza. OrgJ] VOL. IV. O O 562 Journal of a Arrived at Venosa at 12; poor ill-built town inhabited by pea- sants ; souls 5000 ; bishopric ; churches mean ; statue of Horace, being a sorry Gothic bust placed on the frieze of a pillar in the place. Horatius Flaccus by name, well known to all the poor men of the town, who flocked about to tell us on seeing us look at the statue ; the men of this town in crowds gaping and follow- ing us about the town, the idlest canaille and most beggarly I have anywhere seen. Morsels of inscriptions in the walls, pieces of pillars and other ornaments of rich marble about the streets. Near the cathedral old brick walls shown us for the house of Horace. c This, 5 say they, c we have by tradition/ By the foun- tain remains of 2 busts, with an inscription maimed underneath, beginning C C. Tullio;' fine white marble lion at the same fountain. Two or three more monumental stones with maimed epitaphs in a row. Venosa belongs to the Prince of Torella. 3, set out from Venosa, which is situate on a rising ground in a vale between the horns of the Apennine (the horn on our left entering the town, low and fruitful, the Vultur anciently). Rising ground, descent ; walnuts, pomegranates, olives, figs, vines, corn ; ascent, fruit-trees on right and left, corn, and pasture, and wavy plain. 4, along a narrow road between hills, thicket on either side, vale; brook on our left; stony road ascending, coarse narrow vale on the right bounded by stony or rocky hills ; narrow between hills, vale opening to the right, pasture, much corn, herd of swine. Leucrienna; small river on the right running through the vale; turn to the right through corn part ripe and part reaped ; pass a stream ; hills close on the left, vale with pasture and corn ex- tended on the right. 6 + J, narrower between hills, presently large opening ; ploughed land right, corn left ; not a house this afternoon ; wide vale opening to the right and left ; old church ; green hills left, partly covered with wood ; corn reaped and ripe ; two little houses near each other. River Aufidus in view on right, running so as to make oblique angles with our road; his banks deep and shore spacious, showing him outrageous at certain times; his margin adorned with green trees. 7 -f- i, crossed Aufidus ; steep ascent, then a spacious plain, corn; corn everywhere suffers for want of rain. Wide pasture after the corn; flock of sheep, black as usual; a straw cabin belonging to one of the Abruzzo shep- herds; ascent, stony coarse pasture full of thistles; not a tree; Tour in Italy. 563 pasture less stony. Cappella, small town on a rock distant 6 miles left; ample space of corn right and left. 9, ascend out of the vale. N. B. All this day environed by mountains. After our ascent through a difficult path, many ups and downs, stony, nar- row and uneasy, among shrubby mountains, &c. on foot, we arrived in the night at an ample opening, much corn, and thence by an unequal stony road descended to the town of Ascoli, where we arrived at 10 -f \. While on foot in the dark, about \ a mile before our chaises (which we had lost and sought crying), we passed by some country folks eating beans in a field, who kindly asked us to partake. Ascoli hath 500 friars ; bishopric; 10,000 ducats; Duke of Ascoli residing there, 15,000 ducats per annum from tenants, besides 10,000 from negotio. Roman bricks and frag- ments in the walls of houses, several pieces of pillars, imperfect or defaced Roman inscriptions, grottoes in the hill adjoining. Situation on a hill, environed mostly by a plain, corn and pasture ; not a tree ; hills on the left. Inhabitants are clergy and peasants. They boast of a saint's finger kept in a church of a convent on a hill overlooking the town, which, so far as the church is visible, prevents the bite of the tarantula. Convents in Ascoli 3 ; stone lions several here as at Venosa and Beneventum. 5- Set out from Ascoli at 7 ; descent, coarse pasture most, some corn left ; plain, some corn, much pasture ; plain, opening to the sea on right. 7 + J , bridge over the Carapella ; Villa Cedri about 10 miles wide on left on a hill ; ground dried and burnt like a turf. N. B. Mornings cold, afternoons hot ; ascent, convent on right ; soon after descent, some corn, most pasture, soil burnt black, road black like turf; large parched plain continues, bounded on each side by hills. 9 ascent, then descent into a large vale ; parched ground, grass and corn, large grove of wild pear-trees right. Troja, on a hill before us, ascent ; large field of corn in a vale on right, better or less parched land than before. Troja left on our right about 6 miles. 10 -f f, past a bridge over a perfectly dried stream; stony road through woods; out of the wood, hill covered with wood left, shrubby hills on right. 11+20, Ponte Bovino; set out from Ponte Bovino, or the Great Inn, at 2 +3. Stone road through the A pen nine on the side of the Cerbalus, which runs through the 002 5^4 Journal of a bottom of the glen on left; woody mountains right and left. Bovino, city on the mountain top left, the deep vale or glen on left full of trees, spots of corn now and then, as well in the vale on left as on the mountain on right; between whiles delightful openings of cultivated land among ; bridge. Bauro, town on the mountain left; long bridge over a glen. Monteon, town on mountain right; another bridge; dry river now and then shows itself; large fountain built of square stone, pleasant shading from either hand across the road. 6 -j- 20, the mountains sink on either side and the road opens, the wood decreasing ; fields of shrub, and corn mixed therewith, on the sides of the mountain ; flat slips of green corn along the bottom of the vale left ; bridge ; wood ends in shrub; pasture and corn fields on a hill left. Savignano left, Greci right; both on points of hills. Out of the shrub into an open hilly country, corn and pasture ; bridge over a dry river, not a drop of water; country grows more plain, wavy corn country, not a house to be seen, hills fruitful. 10 -f Ariano ; after several hours of windy rainy, cold weather; forced to have a fire, being exceeding cold (not wet), the 5th of June, N. S. June 6. 8 -f- 25, left Ariano ; descent, large prospect of fruitful low hills covered with corn and trees like England right and left. Grove left, delightful prospect of wide vale and chain of adverse hills fruitful. Furmini on a hill left ; descent for some time past ; rising hills fruitful, yielding view like the county of Armagh. Brook;" Bonito on a fruitful hill right, the other brook or branch of Fumo- rella between Ariano and La Grotta. Wavy, hilly, open country; corn and grass, some hills (especially about La Grotta and on the sides at some distance) well planted with trees, others bare of trees ; little shrub near La Grotta. La Grotta at 1 1 ; procession ; peasants in fine clothes, host under canopy ; firing guns, streamers and standards flourished; confraternities, clergy, &c; red and blue petticoats, &c. hung out for arras. N. B. A procession in the same place before. Ascent between corn fields, hills and vales thick scattered with trees ; ascent through enclosed road, on both sides fine gentle hills covered with corn and adorned with trees ; all this day cold, though wrapped in my cloak; foggy, mizzling, bleak weather, like that in Ireland ; beans, corn ; ascent all the Tour in Italy. 565 way from La Grotta to Fricento 15 . Shrub and corn, long view of pleasant hills left, long grove of oaks on pleasant rising ground right ; ample fields on gentle hills, fern, corn, oaks ; deep glen or vale full of trees left, another vale right ; beans, corn, oaks scat- tered all about; most ample prospect, opening hills, partly wooded, partly naked; towns on points of hills, beautiful vales, elegant confusion, all this on looking to the north from a hill. [In a sanctuary on Monte Virgine are contained the bones of Shadrach, Mesech, and Abednego. This in the famous monastery there resorted to for miracles, indulgences, and reliques numberless. M.] Stony road, corn, top of a hill covered with fern ; short descent, corn. Jesualto in a vale right, vale of great extent running parallel to our road on right, and terminated on the other side by moun- tains finely wooded and thrown together. [Mons Tabor, anciently Mons Taburnus. M.] From Fricento (where we dined sub dio without the town, in the view of many people) we went down a descent of three miles, through wood, corn, and pasture, to the Amsancti lacus; triangular, whitish, stinking; about 40 paces about. Famiglietta threw in a dog, who, after half an hour, came out bones. Peasants find birds, hares, goats, wolves, &c. dead about it, and go to look for them in the mornings during summer : 5 years agone 2 men found dead. The water good for the itch, wounds, leprosy ; cold ; thrown a yard high ; other the like lakes, but small ; depth unfathomable. Silver all turned yellow, whereas Vesuvius and Solfatara turn black ; oaks smell, being burnt. Small stream hard by the lake, of a like whitish water. Stone hollowed at one end, somewhat like a font, said to be a remain of the temple. N.B. Our entertainment at Famiglietta' s, &c. June 7. Vale, and beyond that vale, craggy, high, green, shrubby moun- tain ; open fields ; woods ; fields planted with trees around ; Vesu- vio; towns and white houses scattered on the hills to the right, with Mons Taburnus ; Amsancti valles to the left — this on looking to the west. Pianura, Campi Taurasini 16 , Benevento lontano ; flat ploughed land, wood in the middle — north. Trevico right, Ariano left; sea between naked mountains thrown variously together; villages, ploughed land, and woods in the vale; Fiume Albi — east [ i5 Frigento. Org.] [ I6 ? See Smith's Diet, of Ancient Geography, in art. 'Taurasia.'] 566 Journal of a prospect. Amsancti valles ; two fine woods ; rising land between S. Angelo delli Longobardi right, and La Guardia delli Longo- bardi left ; high mountains to the right and left, lower before — south. Six bishoprics and 2 archbishoprics; Taurasi and La Torella. Fricento belongs to the Principe della Torella; 25,000 souls [2500. M.] ; July and \ August without fires. An image on Monte Virgine protects the country about as far as visible, from tarantulas, which, say they, are here likewise. Two bears slain last year in a neighbouring wood. June 8. Set out from Fricento at 12; down hill- corn, pasture, open; a few scattered trees; shrub left, corn, deep vale right; before, a vast opening, vale between rising hills, green, yellow, red, different shades of; corn fields, with woods and scattered trees; lost the way among beans and corn ; got into the great road ; descent ; rising hills, corn, woods ; fruit trees and few vines on either side the road ; adverse long hill or fruitful mountain on the other side the Calore; Monte Mileto and Monte Fusco in the same. 6, left Ponte Calore ; passed the river, which in Italy is large enough ; ascent up a paved road ; corn, pasture, trees ; vari- ous rising ground. Monte Mileto left, on a hill covered with wood ; vines twining round trees left, corn and trees right ; vines hanging in festoons from tree to tree; Monte Fusco right; veiy good made road ; immense prospect of vale and hills right, part wooded, part not. This view seen to advantage from Monte Fusco and Monte Mileto ; our road like lightning. 8, got to the top, whence a new extended scene discovered of vales and hills covered with wood, likewise of high mountains, and several towns scat- tered on the sides and tops of hills ; country beautiful, fruitful, various, populous ; very many new towns in delightful situations, some on the points of hills, others hanging on precipices, some on gentle slopes, &c. Double most noble scene (just described both) seen from Monte Fusco, lying to the eastward and westward; highest mountains right and left, covered with trees. Ponte del Prato; large bridge, hardly a drop of water under it; hills and vales all round, richly covered with trees, as well fruit as others, and vines and spots of corn ; another bridge over a valley for the convenience of travelling. Prato, a town right; ascent; descent; Tour in Italy. 567 long bridge over a valley ; cross a bridge over the Sabato, 4 miles before we reach Avellino; shining flies. From Sabato we pass along an enclosed level road to Avellino, where we arrived at 10 + Avellino reckons (I doubt misreckons) 30,000; 'tis an open, handsome town, situate in a vale among high mountains covered with wood. Fountain and town -house adorned with busts and statues handsome enough. N.B. Best inn I met with in the kingdom here. June 9th. Set out from Avellino at 6 + 50 ; a tall avenue of elms ; grove of hazels (much esteemed here) on each side the road, and vines in festoons from pole to pole among the nuts on left; avenue ends, being a mile long. All this way on right and left high hills covered thick with trees, chesnut or continued forest ; large wall- nuts on the wayside; grapes in festoons on both sides. 8 + J, hazels end. 8 + 20, pass through Monteforte, a small town; as- cent ; descent ; stony unequal road, between mountains covered with chesnuts close on either side ; hazels, walnuts, chesnuts all the way ; vines in festoons ; large cherries, great number of trees thick laden with them all along the road ; hill on left almost naked, having only the stumps of trees ; bridge. Pass through a village; vineyards in festoons right and left; village; vines and fruit trees; another village; figs, cherries, vines, &c. right and left; village. 11 -f ^, vineyards right and left; olives and vines left, vines right. (N.B. Corn, hemp, Sec. among the vines for the most part.) Vineyards right and left. 1, Nola; souls, 3000; 7 convents men, 5 women. POLLIO JULIO CLEMENTIANO SUBVENTUI CIVIUM NECESSITATIS AURARIyE DEFENSORI, LIBERTATIS REDONATORI VIM POPULI OMNIUM MUNERUM RECREATORI UNIVERSA REGIO ROMANA PATRONO PR^ESTANTISSIMO STATUAM COLLOCAVIT 17 . First inscription under a statue in the court of a private house ; 17 [Berkeley has here copied another in- nor is it plainly written. It seems to be scription, but it does not appear correct : thus : — FILLE SEX. F. RUFIN^E SORRERI FIGI SERENI AUG. LARUM MINISTRI. LD. DD. VICTORIA AUG. AUGUSTALES.] 5 68 Journal of a 2 other inscriptions under % of the 4 statues ancient in the place before the cathedral ; one of the remaining two is of the same Pollius, the inscription of the other is defaced. The Bell. Bishop 4000 crowns, out of which pension 2000. Left Nola at 3 + § ; c Thisus Alus Cujus,' &c. over the Jesuits' gate along the facade of the convent; apples, plums, cherries; pears, apricots, vines, corn on each side the road. 4 + J, festoon vineyards right and left, also corn; Campagna between mountains; Vesuvius left. 5 + f , a village ; still festoon vineyards, elms, corn right and left, but no mountains, at least none in view. 64-5, village. 6 + vil- lage. N.B. The greatest part of this afternoon vines round elms without festoons. 8, Naples. Road from Rome to Naples. 1st post 6 miles, through the flat campagna; some hay and corn ; not a tree ; hardly a cottage. 2nd post to Marino, 6 miles through the like flat campagna, though ascending insensibly towards Marino, which is a pretty, clean village, belonging to the Constable Colonna. 3rd post 9 miles, to Veletri. About % miles after Marino, pass by the lake of Castel Gondolfo on our right; view of Castel Gondolfo; land pretty well tilled in the beginning of this post. Within 3 miles of Veletri, steep descent to that city. This post over and among hills and woods. 4th post 8 miles and \. First mile and \ through enclosures and trees; 7 last through rising ground, being spacious, open, green corn fields. Cisterna, seat of the Prince of Caserta. 5th post 7 miles from Cisterna, the better part through a forest with deer, belonging to the Prince. 6th post 8 miles from Sermeneta, lying through the Campagna. A mile and \ on the other side Sermeneta attacked for a giulio. N.B. The Campagna green, and in niany parts woody, flat, and marshy ; no houses ; hardly any corn ; no cattle, but a few buffa- loes. 7th post to Piperno, seven miles. Near a mile in the Cam- pagna di Roma ; the other 6 among hills and fruitful vales. Piperno situate on a hill. 8th post 8 miles: 2 first among wood and hills; 6 last through a plain champaign, mostly uninhabited, &c. Tour in Italy. 569 9th post to Terracina, 8 miles, along the side of shrubby, stony hills on left. Some ruins, seeming of sepulchres, on the road ; on the right Monte Circello in view. All this post on right marshy low ground, little cultivated or inhabited. 10th post to Fondi, 10 miles. Limits of the kingdom entered within 6 miles of Fondi. Near 2 miles beyond the boundaries passed on our left a sepulchre of huge square stones, very noble and entire, now turned into a stable for asses; no inscription. The 2 first miles of this post close along the sea, being edged on the left by mountains ; many broken rocks has fallen in an earth- quake on the road ; about 5 miles further having woody and stony hills on left close, and at small distance on right the Palus Pomptina; land flat, marshy, hardly inhabited for the illness of the air. 3 last miles through a fruitful plain ; oranges, &c. before we reached Fondi. A small river seemed to render it marshy and unwholesome, flowing by the city on the side towards Rome. nth post from Fondi to Itri, 7 miles. First 3 or 4 miles over a plain, gently ascending, planted with cypress, orange, and lemon trees near the town of Fondi ; last 3 miles between and over hills on the Appian Way : these hills extend across to the sea. 12th post from Itri to Mola, 5 miles. Itri a town poor and dirty, but pretty large. This post enclosed between hills right and left; many olives, almost all on the Appian Way. 13th post from Mola to the Garigliano, 8 miles. A large grove of olives, after which near 4 miles stony, unequal, shrubby ground ; 4 miles more, fine corn country, meadows also pleasant, and scattered trees in sight. Near the Garigliano we passed between an old aqueduct on the left and certain large ruins on the right, as of an amphitheatre. This post we had the mountains near us on left and sea on the right. Divers ruins, as seeming of sepulchres, this post on the road side. Greater part of this post on the Appian Way, whereof fragments appear entire, and ending abruptly, as if part had been cut off or taken away. Liris larger than the Vulturnus. N.B. Treeto on a hill on the other side the aqueduct. 14th post from Garigliano to S. Agata, 10 miles. Ferry over the river; open, large, flat, pleasant meadows along the Liris, which flowed on our left; after which, chain of mountains on our right; country unequal, with pleasant risings; within 4 miles of 57° Journal of a S. Agata country thick planted with vines and olives, especially the latter, of which a perfect wood near S. Agata. N.B. Sessa fine town within less than a mile of S. Agata. Henceforward to Naples the Campania felix, which begins either at the river Liris, or on the other side Sessa, the ancient Suessa Aurunca. 15th post from S. Agata, 10 miles. 2 first miles through a country thick set with vines, olives, &o, in which the Appian Way, no more of which to Naples ; hills these two miles on left and right ; at the end of these two miles a village, [Cassano] where the view of the Appian road. After this village a hilly country, and great part of the road cut through a rock ; then a wood of oaks, cypress, &cc. ; after which delicious country like the following post. 1 6th post 9 miles to Capoa, through delicious green fields, plain and spacious, adorned with fruit trees and oaks so scattered and disposed as to make a most delightful landscape, much corn and fruit, many white country houses beautifying the prospect- mountains on our left. 18 Terra di Lavoro, 56,990, besides Naples, its casali, and about \ a dozen more from towns whose fuochi 19 are not numbered. Fuochi. Aversa I 9°5 Capua and casali 5343 Caserta and casali 1 1 84 Fuochi. 188 Fundi Itri 440 Madaluni 749 Principato citra Salerno Fuochi Auletta 119 Eboli 355 Nocera di Pagani 536 Fuochi. Salerno ^36 Scafati 68 Vietri 185 Principato ultra. Fuochi. Ariano 749 Avellino 600 Fricento Fuochi. 88 18 The following notices are on the oppo- site page : — (1) Principato citra all Picenza [Picentia on the coast] with part of Lucania and Campania felix : its metropolis Salerno. Cities 18, whereof Salerno and Amalfi are A.B.Pcs, the rest Bps. Grain and wine plenty. (2) Principato Ulteriore, provincia Hirpina, with a small part of the land of the Samnites and Campanians; of 13 cities, 2, i.e. Bene- ventum and Conza, ABps, the rest Bps. Wine, chesnuts, hunting, fishing. 19 [This word is indistinctly written. It looks like fuodi. I believe it to be fuochi = fires, i.e. hearths or families, as in the phrase pro aris et foe is.'] Tour in Italy. 571 Basilicata. Fuochi Lago Negro 570 Spennazuola 491 Fuochi. Venosa 473 Matera 2027 Calabria bassa 6 citra. Fuochi. Castro Villari 183 Cosenza 1854 Cassano 284 Tarsia , Terranuova Fuochi. 37 168 Calabria alta 6 ultra. Fuochi. Catanzaro 2651 Cotronei 60 Cotrone 446 Isola 112 Fuochi. Monteleone 1 793 Pizzo 442 Rofarno 379 Seminara 945 Terra d'Otranto Fuochi. Brindisi 1428 Castellaneta 691 Casalnovo 1002 Fuochi. Fagiano 123 Lecce 33°° Taranto 1870 Terra di Bari. Fuochi. Bari 2345 R Barletta X 735 R Canosa 269 Gravina 1916 Giovenazzo 628 Fuochi. Monopoli 1864R Molfetta 1247 Mola M36 Trani ■87 Visceglia alias Biseglia... 1692 Capitanata. Ascoli 381, In the Kingdom of Naples — Princes 128 Dukes 200 Marquesses 200 Counts 24 Archbishops 21 Bishops 127 N.B. Reckoning the eldest sons and double titles. Gran corte della Vicaria, supreme court like (somewhat to our 57 2 Journal of a King's Bench. Governed by the Regent of the Vicaria a Cavaliere, who therefore is assisted by judges civil and criminal. The great officers have the precedence, title, and stipend due to their places, but their power is exercised by the King ; that of the Great Constable (i. e. Captain General) by the generals, colonels, capitani d'arme, 6cc; that of the Gran Giustitiere by the Regent of the Vicaria; and in like sort of the rest. Collaterale is the supreme royal tribunal, composed of the seven great officers, the Consiglieri di Stato and the Regent i, or of the 7 officers and Regenti della Cancellaria. This hath supreme power in making laws, punishing magistrates, commerce, &cc. Sacro Consiglio, consisting of President and Counsellors. An- ciently the kings of Naples appointed judges of appeal from the Vicaria and other tribunals. But Alfonsus the First of Arragon took away those judges, constituting this Sacro Consiglio di Giustitia to judge of appeals from all parts of the kingdom. Not only causes of appeal, but likewise first causes are determined by them, for which the President delegates such Counsellors to judge as he pleases. Their sentences are given in the King's name. Regia Camera, which takes cognizance of the royal income or patrimony (as they call it), i.e. taxes, customs, &c; in a word, all that belongs to the Exchequer. Gran corte della Vicaria, above explained, but this its place. So much from Capaccio ; what follows next from Pacichelli and others. i mo . Tribunale is the Consiglio di Stato, consisting of such persons as Viceroy pleases : a sort of Cabinet. 2°. Tribunale is the Collaterale, consisting of six regents of the Cancellaria, who have great power, or rather sovereign, in the management of affairs relating to civil institutions, commerce, &c. 3 0 . II Sagro Consiglio, un Presidente con Ventiquattro Consig- lieri, hear appeals, and also first causes: acts in the King's name. 4°. La Regia Camera detta la Sommaria ha per capo il gran Camerlengo ma esercita la Giurisdittione per un Luogotenente scelto dal Re. Under him are 8 presidents, doctors, and 3 presi- dents [?], idiots' advocate, procurator fiscal, secretario, registers, accountants, clerks, dec, qui si maneggia il patrimonio reale, 6tc, si affitton gabelle, &c. La gran Corte della Vicaria si Administra da un Luogotenente Tour in Italy. 573 che si elegge ogni due anni del Vicere detto Regente. This court is divided into the two udienze civile et criminale, 6 judges to each. Divers other tribunals, as that of S. Lorenzo, governed by the eletti, 7 in number, but with 6 votes, one being chosen out of and for each Seggio, except that of Montagna, which chooses two, one for itself, and one for Ponella and Seggio incorporated with it, but they have only one voice. N.B. The eletto del popolo is thus chosen : — Every ottina (of which there be 29, into which the whole city is divided, being the same with regions or wards) nameth two persons, which making in number 58, these assemble, and with the Secretary of the Piazzo del Popolo for Revisori delli voti ; after which every of the 58 names being eletto, which is often done with maledic- tion and invective scurrilus, si bussolano and si notano i voti and the six with most votes are written in a note and carried to the Viceroy (by 8 persons chosen by ballot out of the 58), who names which he pleases for eletto. The 58 likewise name a council of ten persons to assist their eletto. Every ottina likewise names 6 persons, whereof the Viceroy chooseth one for capitano of that ottina, who is a sort of justice of peace, taking care that no one offends or is offended in his ottina, take care of the poor, 6cc. ; great power commanding so great a people. Capitani and eletti del popolo govern as long as the Viceroy or the Piazza pleases, but ordinarily for 6 months. The power of the Tribunal of the eletti extends to setting a price on the annona; take care also of the health, for which they appoint two deputies, one a noble the other a plebeian, who govern a felucca that visits all ships, boats, &c, and sees that nothing contagious enters the city. The eletti themselves pay a salary to these, and give out patents for ships parting from Naples, as likewise pay the man who watches to see the quaran- tine duly performed and goods aired. The Grassiero is a huomo Regio, or magistrate appointed by the King. He was first joined to the council of the eletti in a.d. 1562, in the time of the Viceroy Don Perafan di Ribera, Duke d' Alcala, under the pretext only of providing the city with corn, but by little and little hath crept into all business, and now in fact is president of the Tribunal of the eletti, who can do nothing with- out him. 574 Journal of a Divers other tribunals or courts of lesser note;, as la Zecca Regia per Pesi et Misure, per li Notari, per Dottori in Legge et Medi- cina, &c, 6cc. A parliament or deputation of 24 persons, 12 deputati del Baronaggio and 1 2 della cita di Napoli, give a donative, for which effect use to be assembled by King's letter every 2 years. The city pays no part of these donatives, yet the deputies of the city are the first to vote, and subscribe, and have precedence in all cases, but with this difference, that the city hath but one vote and the Baronaggio 12, 6 titolatos and 6 plain barons. Their use the Donative. These deputies or parliament meet in the convent of S. Lorenzo; the Viceroy at the opening goes to hear read the King's letter before the parliament by the Secretary of State, and at the close goes to receive their compliance with it. Giulio Cesare Capaccio assures us that in his time the garden herbs eaten every month amounted to 30,000 ducats in the city of Naples; likewise that the gabella on fruit (it not being J of a farthing per pound of our measure and money) amounted or (which is more) was set for 80,000 ducats per annum, exclusive of oranges, lemons, bergamots, and the like. Four castles in Naples to protect and bridle the city : — Castel St. Elmo, Castel Nuovo, Castel dell' Ovo, and II Torrione del Carmine. Si ricavavano prima dal regno 5 milioni e piu di rendita, oggi perd se ne ritrahe da due millioni in circa. Pacichello, published 1703. The nobility of the several parts or districts of the city of Naples were used anciently to assemble in certain public places or piazzas in each district, where they conversed together. These places being much frequented, they came to build certain open porticos, sustained by arches and railed round, where they met together, which in process were improved and beautified in imi- tation of the portici of the ancient Greeks and Romans, and separated or appropriated to those families that used to assemble in them; and from being places of mere chat or conversation, grew to be so many courts, in which they considered and debated on choosing magistrates and providing for the health and plenty of the city. The Seggios are five. N.B. The Seggios are five, viz. il S?ggio di Capoana, di Nido, di Montagna, di Porto, di Porta nuova. Tour in Italy. 575 Lac Virginis in Ecclesia S. Ludovici apud P.P. minimos S tl Francisci a Paulo asservatum liquefit quolibet assumptionis die. Sanguis Johannis Baptistse liquefit quotidie in ecclesia quadam Neapoli prout mihi referebat Dux quidam Neapolitanus. Sbirri 150 tyrannized the island of Ischia cruelly, on account of seven persons who had slain one of their number. The re- lations to the number of 100 taken up and imprisoned at Ischia; general orders that no one remain in their houses in the country, all with their goods being obliged to repair to the towns; people met in the masserias beaten unmercifully. Fear and trembling, and no going to do their business in their vineyards for 10 days, then allowed to return, some to their houses, others not. Cellars of wine throughout the island all this while left wide open at the mercy of the Sbirri. Relations of the banditti seized in the churches. Some few, many of the prisoners allowed the liberty of walking about the fortress. The prisoners most part poor old women, the men absconding and lying out of their houses in the woods for fear. Commissario della Campagna, with his Sbirri, continued about a month at Ischia. The inhabitants may kill one another without fear of punishment, this rout being never made but for the death of a Sbirri. We were alarmed and roused out of our beds by 35 Sbirri one night. The people of this island in other respects good enough, but bloodthirsty and revengeful. Those of Foria and Moropane of worst fame for murdering, being said by the rest of the island to have no fear of God or man. The habit of the Ischiots: a blue skull-cap, woollen; a shirt and pair of drawers; in cold weather, doublet and breeches of wool. They wear each by his side a broad pruning-knife, crooked at the end, with which they frequently wound and kill one another. Piano now Pieio, Casa Nizzola now Casamici, Fiorio now Foria. A fine plain all round Pieio, planted with vines, corn, and fruit trees. The amphitheatre about a mile and half round the top, whence on all sides a shelving bank descends to the flat bottom, the which bank clothed with oaks. Oaks, elms, chesnuts, and cupe [?] in this island. East of the amphitheatre (which is called La Vataliera vulgarly) is a village called Cumana, and beneath a shady valley 5?6 Joitrnal of a called II Vallone Cumana, between that village (seated on a moun- tain called II Monte di Borano) and a high mountain called La Montagna di VeZ2,i. Pleasant vineyards overlooking Ischia on the middle between the two towns. On the north side of the Cremate, about % mile long and i broad, fine hills covered with myrtle and lentiscus; vales too among them, and towards the sea fruitful with vines, &:c. Here- abouts Pontanus formerly had a villa. Onwards to the north-west you pass through roads planted with myrtle, &c, vineyards, and little inequalities of hill, vale, wood, shrub, &c. to the lake, about a mile round, on the border of which the Bagno di Fontana. Vistas in the island very various, as sometimes in a plain thick planted with trees and vines, obstructing a distant view ; at other times a patent prospect in a vale environed with fruitful hills, on which white houses scattered. Borano with its steeple makes a pretty prospect, being situate on a hill. Sometimes a deep road with high banks on either side, very refreshing in the heats; sometimes deep and tremendous precipices, many round hills gently rising, covered to the top with vines; sometimes horrid rocks and grottoes, and clefts in the earth with bridges over them in some places. The bath Ulmitello lies to the south part of the island in a deep cleft between rocks, which opens into the strand of the sea ; it is a well or two without buildings. South of Testanio there is a strange confusion of rocks, hills, vales, clefts, plains, and vineyards one above another, jumbled together in a very singular and romantic manner. North or north-west stands the Sudatorio di Castiglione in the side of a rock, on which Jasolino tells you may be seen the ruins of a castle since the days of Hiero. I saw some ruins of an old wall, but nothing that looked like Greek or Roman work, the stones and cement being but rude. I saw likewise the ruins of a piscina, or receptacle for water, well plastered. Between this rock and the sea, in the vale, lies Casa Cumana, a small village where Jasolin thinks the Eubceans first inhabited. Near the sea-shore, likewise in the vale, I saw the Bagno di Castiglione. Two eletti in the city of Ischia officers of the city supreme. When they go out of office they name each two candidates, out of Tour in Italy. 577 which the eletti del popolo for next year are chosen by the parla- rnento, consisting of twenty persons, 10 countrymen, ten citizens, the which parliament is new made reciprocally by the eletti as soon as they come into employment. This parliament consults of things relating to the well governing the town, assessing taxes, 6cc. In Furia they have a syndic for supreme magistrate, likewise •chosen by the people ; there is another syndic between Borano and Fontana, one year in Borano, and names a deputato to govern in Fontana, and vice versa. This magistrate sets prices on meat, bread, corn, wine, &c. Catapani are inferior officers that go about the shops inspecting bread, wine, measures, 8cc. So far Signor Giam. Battista. Jachino and Aniele say that once only in three years the syndic is in each of the- 3 following towns — Fontana, Borano, Casamici, the syndic sending two deputati to the other places. Twenty men constitute the senate of each of these 3 towns, and Furia, which hath constantly its own syndic. These all vote for the eletti of 'Ischia, who (if I mistake not) reciprocally make the syndics. Several gentlemen of Ischia taken up and sent, some to be im- prisoned at Naples, others at Surrento, others at Caprea, at the same time that near 200 were imprisoned as relations of the ban- ditti in the castle of Ischia. These gentlemen were taken up on suspicion of having favoured somehow the flight or concealment of them. Among the rest some of the eletti, Don Francesco Menghi, and Don Domenico Riufreschi, a man of great note, were confined in their houses. South-west of the island, on the sea-shore near the Castle of S. Angelo, is the Arena of S. Angelo, as also a hot bath. In some places a smoke and sulphureous smell issues from the sand ; in others, making a hole, there suddenly issues out hot water, which in a little time boils eggs, beans, or other things for the peasants. Natale saith there are forty in the parliament of Ischia, as many constitute that of Furia, 20 in the others. The eletti and syndics are proposed by the Marquis del Vasto or his Castellano, double to the respective parliaments, who choose which they like. The parliament men for life ; judge changed once a year. Ischia, Campagnano, Pieio, Cumana, Testanio, Borano, Fon- tana, Moropane, Pansa, Furia, Casamici, Cufa. vol. iv. p p 578 Journal of a Inhabitants of Fontana keep flocks of sheep and goats. Lower parts of Mont S. Nicolo clothed with vines; upper part with barley, wheat, and Indian corn ; top naked and white. Fontana situate among oak trees. Narrow, deep vales, like cracks in the earth cloven by an earthquake, as appears by the opposite sides tallying, as also from their shape : a bridge over one of these. Furia in a plain situate at a corner of the island, having a sort of mole and harbour ; the country about it full of vines and fruit trees. Some rough land and ups and downs between that and Lo Lacco. This last town and Casamici situate among vines and fruit trees, after which hills covered with myrtles and len- tkcus, glens, groves of chesnuts, Sec. The clergy of Ischia get each a Caroline a mass; the parish priest is not allowed to say above one mass a day; admits others into share of the profits arising from masses for the dead. The number of the clergy in Ischia accounted for by their lodging the goods of the family in the name and under the pro- tection of the priest, who in case of murder or the like crimes secures them from forfeiture. The bishop admits none to orders who is not invested first with the sum of 700 ducats. c Pontificum collegium usque ad Theodosii senioris tempora Romse fuit. Quibus uno edicto sacerdotum omnium reditus fisco appli- cati sunt/ Zosimus. Fat quails in Ischia sold for 3 farthings a piece ; these brought by wind from Africa hither and to Caprea, whose bishop's revenue, consisting mostly of quails, is uncertain as the wind. Women imprisoned at Ischia as relations of the banditti after divers weeks set free at five ducats a head. Quinces also and medlars in the island ; and, among other fruits unknown to us, two deserving note particularly, viz. lazzaruoli and suorli. The inhabitants make a good deal of money out of dried figs and uvae passae. Confraternity of 100 persons in Testanio. When any one of these dies, a hundred masses are said for his soul at the expense of the society, it being a Caroline a mass. The like fraternities all over the island, as well as everywhere else in Italy. The parish priest's fee is 7 carlines a death, a hen a birth, 15 carlines a mar- riage. On New Year's day, Easter day, Corpus Christi day, he Tour in Italy. 579 dispenses indulgences, and all that are worth money bring it him on these occasions according to their ability. Mem. The celebration of St. George's (the patron of Testanio) day and other festivals. Women's ornaments large gold earrings, and if married, many large gold rings set with false stones on their fingers; but the principal finery consists in the apron, particoloured and em- broidered with tinsel, &c. ; these worn only on holidays, no more than the rings. The Ischiots likewise make presents of their wine and corn, &c. to the church, for supplying wax candles and keeping it in repair. At certain times laymen go about begging money for buying wax candles. Meeting them once on a time, I asked them for whom they sought charity. A woman standing by said, c For Jesus Christ.' Not a beggar to be seen in the island, except now and then a poor foreigner that comes to the baths. No stories or notions of ghosts among the common people. In marriages of Ischiots, the wedding-day, the relations of the bride, brothers, sisters, &c, accompany her to the bridegroom's house (her father and mother excepted, who always stay at home) : having left her there, they return to the house of the bride's father and there sup, as the relations of the bridegroom do at his house. Next morning relations of both parties bring presents of hemp, napkins, shirts, utensils for the house, &c. neatly done up in baskets, to the house of the bridegroom, where they are treated all that day at dinner. In burials the fraternities accompany the corpse ; nearest rela- tions mourn a month, not shaving their beards for so long. Burrhi [?] the chemist told Sealy he could do the miracle of St. Januarius' blood. This Sealy is a lively old man that has eat 2000 vipers. I have seen him eat them raw and moving. 'Si quis piorum manibus locus; si, ut sapientibus placet, non cum corpore extinguuntur magnae animse ; placide quiescas, nosque domum tuam ab infirmo desiderio et muliebribus lamentis ad con- templationem virtutum tuarum voces,' &c. Tacitus, In Vita Agri- cola. N.B. This like papists praying to the dead. p p 1 58o Journal of a N.B. The description given of the Bonzi in Japan by Maffeius (lib. 12) agrees to the Jesuits exactly, there being no such power- ful and crafty institution among the old Romans as may serve to match them or be drawn into parallel. 3 or 400 ducats a common portion for a woman in lschia. Sept. 7. N.S. 171 7. Between 5 and six in the morning it began to thunder, and continued without a moment's intermission in one peal for the space of above an hour, during which time the south sky seemed all on fire. Quails said to be met in great numbers on the sea, swimming with one wing up for a sail. The demoniacs of S. Andrea della Valle something like the foaming priestesses or mad Bacchanals among the ancients. Mem. To consult V. Maximus for parallels to the Church of Rome. Oranges, lemons, olives, and medlars likewise grow in the island of lschia. Near relations, as son e.g., on the death of his father abstains two days from all nourishment, even a piece of bread or sup of wine j nothing but a cup of water. Ischiots' linen all made of hemp. c Urbe capta a Gallis, virgines vestales pedibus abeuntes L. Albinius in plaustrum recipit depositis inde uxore et liberis/ Thinking of the English merchant at Leghorn who left his mother out of his will to leave all to the Jesuits or friars, puts me in mind of this. Sunday morning, Sept. 19. N.S. Fair weather, without rain, wind or thunder; saw three flashes of lightning come into the chamber. Children now, as formerly, brought to the temple of Romulus and Remus. Abbate Barbiere. Roman matrons, near 200, condemned for poisoning many prin- cipal persons of the city, anno U. C. 424, of which thing saith Livy, c Prodigii ea res loco habita : captisque magis mentibus quam con- sceleratis similis visa.' Tour in Italy. 58i Dictator made for striking a nail in the wall of Jupiter's temple. Qu. if nothing like this in the Roman Church. c Volsci Pontias, insulam sitam in conspectu litoris sui, incolu- erant.' L. 9. d. 1. Mem. To consult Dionysius Hallicarn. of the Roman religious rites, and A. Gellius and Plutarch. The Holy Scriptures, as formerly the books of the Sybils, made a secret. The oracles of Sybilla Cumana were kept in a stone chest in a cellar under the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, inspected only by the Quindecimviri in cases of sedition, loss of battles, pro- digies, or the like, when they directed how to proceed in expiating the gods. Livy, Dionysius, &c. Before the 15 there were ten ; and before them, two. Livy, speaking of the Decemviri sacris faciun- dis, calls them c Carminum Sibyllse ac fatorum populi Romani In- terpretes.' Seculare carmen, 8cc. and the Jubilee. Both honour their deities with fine statues. Both worship them with plays. Fireworks, music meetings, comedies, letting off guns, are reckoned fine devotions in the Church of Rome, not omitting gaudy decorations of their churches, possibly somewhat like lectisterniums Qu. whether as incense, so wax candles, were used by the hea- thens. The leaves of myrtle and lentiscus dried and sent to the tanners in Naples. Qu. about this, and whether there may not a like use be made of leaves in England. Road between the lake and Ischia lying through the remains of eruptions. The stones I saw among these remains, particularly those worn under foot, confirm the streets of Naples being paved with the matter of eruptions. Strabo (lib. 5) saith Procita was anciently broken off from Ischia : that the Eretrians and Chalcedonians (or people of Chalcis) were obliged to quit Ischia by earthquakes and eruptions of fire, of which, saith he, there are many in the island : the same also 19 [On the opposite page Berkeley writes thus : — ' N.B. About five years since, or less, Mr. Littlejohn was present at a represen- tation of our Saviour's passion at the Palace in Naples. It was a comedy, horridly ridi- culous. As Judas acted best, they cried out " Viva Giuda," &c. This was very shocking to some serious Protestants present. Qu. whether the ancients did not, as a piece of religion, represent or act certain passages of the history of their fabulous deities.'] 582 Journal of a obliged persons sent by Hiero to quit a building they had begun. Hence the fable of Typhceus lying underneath it. He quotes Pindar as being of opinion that the whole tract of Italy, being from Cumae, and so on to Sicily, is hollowed underground with great caverns corresponding with each other. Hence ^Etna, Vesuvius, Solfatara, Ischia, Liparean Islands burn, and that therefore he feigned Typhceus to be under that tract. He likewise quotes Timeus for horrible eruptions and earthquakes from Monte Epomeo, which caused even the inhabitants on the coast of the continent to withdraw with fright into the midland parts of Campania. So far Strabo. Pliny (lib. 3. c. 6) saith Ischia was called iEnaria, from the good reception or station ^Eneas' ships met with there; and Pythecusse, from the Greek Pythos, signifying an earthen pitcher or sort of earthen vessel. Ovid, Metam. 1. 14: — c Inarimen Prochytamque legit sterilique locatas Colle Pythecusas;' where Pythecusae and Inarime are plainly distinguished, the former seeming to signify only the town on the rock. Mem. To consult Lucan (lib. 5), and likewise for the Island Ischia. It is observable that Livy too distinguishes iEnaria from Pythe- cusae. The same passage (1. 8. d. 1) of Livy makes the Eubceans to have inhabited Ischia before Cuma, which Strabo says was the oldest city in Italy or Sicily. Hence Ischia the most anciently inhabited. Aloes and Indian figs grow wild in several parts of the island, at least the aloes grow wild ; likewise dates, almonds, walnuts. The vista from S. Nicolo. South — Caprea, and mountains be- yond the Bay of Salerno. South-east — Promontory of Minerva, and beyond that the Cape of Palinurus, vulg. Capo di Palinuro, Massa, Vico, Surrento, Castelmare, all on the side of a chain of mountains. East — Vivaro, Procita, Miseno, Baiae, Pozzuolo, Pausilypo, top of Naples or S. Elmo, Vesuvius. North-east — Cuma. North — Campania Felice, being to the sea, a large plain on the other side bounded by mountains. North-west — Monte Massici (as I suppose), Mola, Caieta, a small isle, &c, as far as Tour in Italy. 583 the promontory of Retium. West — Ponsa, and two smaller isles more. South-west — the sea. In the fortress of Ischia, entrance cut through a rock; false stairs; garrison 110; nunnery; pretty cathedral, clean; ornaments in stucco, paintings so so; bishop's palace; prisoners obliged to buy the masserise of the banditti, and pay besides 5 or 6 crowns a head. Dates and walnuts in the island of Ischia. Vivaro hath some vines, a world of pheasants a mile and \ round. Procita 7 miles round; eight or ten thousand souls; 8000 butts of wine the worst year, sometimes 15000 or more; yields the Marquis del Vasto 4000 ducats per annum, besides free gifts of 3 or 4000 ducats now and then ; the latter sum was given by the University- fas they term it) on his returning from making a great expense at Vienna. 200 feluccas or small boats ; 50 tartans 20 . What they make in all of wine, fruits, and fish, amounts to about 160,000 ducats per annum. Clergy 160, secular, whereof 120 parish priests; like- wise a Dominican convent; subject all to the Archbishop of Naples. Palace of the Marquis on the east or north-east point, rising, large, regular, handsome, unfurnished ; not lived in by the Marquis since Philip got possession of Naples; he, being of the other party, then left the kingdom, and since lived at Vasto ; little garden of myrtles and jessamines belonging to it. Fine view, the whole one vineyard ; masseriae enclosed with stone walls ; houses thick like a suburb to a town. Heights at two ends, east and west ; on the latter a ruin, on the former the castle, and within that the palace. Harbour between Monte di Procita and Miseno. At the end of Pausilypo Nisita, where M. Brutus, about a mile round, hath a castle and 2 or 3 houses ; is thick planted with olives. Grottoes in the side of Pausilypo. Virgil's school an ancient brick ruin; divers other fragments of brick ruin. (N.B. The first remarks belong to the further end of Pausilypo.) Palaces along the side or foot of Pausilypo ; the hill all along crowned with villas, villages, vines, and fruit trees. Pausilypo, Baise, &c. all crack and broken in the surface, as if shaken to pieces. Since I came to Naples, a person formerly a waterman who tugged at the oar bought a dukedom ; he is now Duca di Lungano. This [Tartane, a kind of ship.] 5§4 Joitrnal of a I had as certain from the English Consul. Valetta and the other reckon but 2 millions in the kingdom of Naples, and not above five millions in Italy, a 4th in the city flying thither from the op- pression of the barons who rule the country. The ashes on an altar in the south of Italy which no wind could stir. Livy. The Hebrew and Saint in Genoa. The holy water fright in Leghorn. After all it may be said that the greater part of the ceremonies and customs borrowed from the heathens are harmless. I agree, indeed, that the innovations of their own making are more mis- chievous than the adopted ones Their vestals were not enough to thin a country j their colleges of augurs, 6cc. did not swarm as modern friars; they had no order to parallel with the Jesuits. Modern Rome hath inventions of her own worse than the old, and withal hath encheri upon the old. Solfatara pays 700 crowns per annum to the Annunciata, and 60 to the Bishop of Pozzuolo. Pontanus (1. 6) will have it that lschia was torn by an earthquake from the continent, the land being like the Campania Felice in fertility. Nat. Comes, in Fabula de Ty phone, saith that lschia is most abundant and fertile, and rich in mines of gold; the same saith Jasolino himself. Partenope (now called Venlotiene) on the west of lschia, sea on the south and south-west, Caprea south-east, Surrento east, Procita and Naples, &c. north-east, Campagna Felice north. Contiene (lschia) promontorii, valli, piani, fonti, flumi, laghi y .penisole, isthmi, monti, bellissimi giardini e copia di suavi e deli- cati frutti, vini perfetti di piu sorti, gran copia di cedri, aranci e limoni, e miniere d'oro come ambe dire Strabonep]. Giovianus Pontanus had a villa near the ruins of the confla- gration, as Jasolino saith, but I could hear nothing of it now. Between the Cremate and Casamici mounts covered with myrtle and other shrubs. Near theSudatorio di Castiglione a vale in Jasolino's time, called Negroponte. Alum in the island of lschia. Monte and Castello di S. Angelo in una penisola. Tour in Italy. 585 Fonte di Nitroli. The aqueduct that conveys the water of Buceto 5 miles, from near the top of Epomeus to Ischia town. Jasolino first printed in 1 588. V. Plinium, L 3. c. 6; and 1. 5. c. 31 ; and 1. 31. c. 2. 1 1 fountains of fresh and 35 of hot medicinal waters are reck- oned in Ischia. A foolish custom of taking the baths and stufe an odd number of times. The baths of Ischia not so useful in the bissextile years. This Jasolino affirms from his own observation, quoting, like Savonarola, Baccio &c. for the same opinion. It is usual to purge before the baths -or stufe, to stay half an hour in the bath, and sweat half an hour after in the bed. Baths make one thirsty, and are apt to give the headache to those who are ever subject to it. During the baths beware of cold, use meats that are nourishing and easy of digestion, abstain from sleep by day, water your wine well, go to stool before you take the bath, be merry; in certain baths 'tis good to wash wounds. A piece of a sword, two fingers broad and a span long, passed between the 1st rib and the jugular bone through the cavity of the thorax and the point between the 8th and 9th rib behind. This piece (thought to have been lost in the sand or sea) remained a year and 17 days in the body of a Napolitan gentleman, whence it was extracted (after many terrible symptoms) by Jasolino, and the party re-established by the baths of Gurgitello and Fontana. The same baths probably enabled him to live so long with that iron in his body, the wound having been made in Ischia and the baths applied. B. di Fornello good for the ague, spleen (or rather disorders in the spleen) ; good for obstinate, deep, and sinuous ulcers, dropsy, headache ; breaks the stone, draws away sand, opens the bladder, helps in the gout, takes away nauseating of stomach. B. di Fontana heals wounds, draws out iron, good for lungs and liver, cures the mange or psora, makes the hair fair and long, restores wasted persons, draws out fragments of bones. B. di Gurgitello cures barrenness, repairs the consumed, strength- ens the stomach, breaks the stone, good for the liver, cleans the psora, incites an appetite, draws out iron. 586 Journal of a B. degli denti et degli occhi vicine di Gurgitello. B. d' Ulmitello is good for the arthritis, tenesmus, gravel, cholic^ ophthalmia, asthma, palpitation, ague, itch, leprosy, deafness, folks disordered in lungs or spleen. B. di Succellano, now called B. della Regna, is good for scab, lengthens the hair, clears women's complexion, is profitable to the bladder, eases tenesmus and ague. B. di piazzia Romana takes away itching of the eyes, stops, the running of tears, strengthens the eyes, purges bile, stops a cough, fastens hair, preventing its falling, cures broken legs. Sud. di Castiglione good for the arthritis, colic, mal del fianco, hysterical fits, gout, dropsy, palsy, weakness of limbs; lightens the body, cures disorders of the liver, as when redness in the cheeks ; cures scab, itch, morphea, &c. ; comforts the heart, gives an appe- tite, helps digestion, is good for the vertigo, sores in palate, jaws, and gums, and nostrils. S. di S. Laurenzo at Casamici good for arthritis, dropsy, &c. S. di Testonio, a hole in the ground, about 4 foot deep and 3 wide, sending forth a vapour sulphureous with some tincture of nitre, calcanthus, and bitumen. This found on examining it by a glass bell by Jasolino. This milder than other sudatives, which frequently cause faint- ings; good for softening le parti indurite, for evacuating the whole body by sweat ; lightens the body, dries internal wounds ; good for the doglia del fianco, for hysterical fits and the dropsy, taken in the beginning; good for palsies and convulsions, &o, &c. Rainerio Solenandro parlando di Testanio cive del sudatorio. Cujus inter distorta crura vel quosvis alios statu deformis depra- vatos artus impositos cuniculo dirigit et reformat : quemadmodum a lignariis fabris videmus contorta ligna flammis dirigi et restitui. Lib. i°. de Can. Cal. Font. Med. cap. 8. L' arenatione di S. Restituta mille passi lontana da Gurgitello. The terreno sulphureous, aluminous, ferrugineous; most excellent for the dropsy, dissolves swellings from the gout, cures hysteric affections ; perfect cure for the palsy and contractions of the nerves. Heats and dries, taken in beginning of summer or in autumn. Hole must not be more than 3 foot deep, otherwise hot water betrays itself. This water shows much salt beside the above quali- Tour in Italy. 587 ties. The arenation is good against leprosy, abortions, orthritis 5 and dead palsy especially. Arena di S. Angelo, on the sea shore, above a hundred paces long and about 9 broad; in some places hotter than in others; smokes and burns in some ; hath a bath or fountain of water near. Nitre predominant, with iron, bitumen, and sulphur. Good for sciatica, gout, dropsy, abortions, palsy ; in a word, for everything that the former is, and in greater perfection. The foregoing accounts partly from the Ischiots viva voce, but much the greater part out of Giulio Jasolino and Joannes Elysius, Napolitan physicians. Seely told me that he has drunk ten young vipers taken out of the womb, all living, as big as large pins, in one glass of wine. Takes powder of vipers dried in the shade, a drachm a day during the months of May and September. Sweetens the blood above all things. Manna in Ischia. Five dukes beside marquises, barons, &c, now living who bought their estates and titles from having been common merchants : one had been a waterman, now Duke di Castiglione ; another a porter, now Duke di San Levissino. Borellus will have it that the cavities of Etna are small tubes and receptacles near the surface, running along the sides of the mountain like syphons, which, incurvated, explain the ascent or eruption of the liquefied matter through an orifice lower than the fountain head. He thinks this the way rather than boiling over like a pot, which is contrary, says he, to the gravity of that matter, as well as to its density, which hinder it from ascending or frothing. c Et hoc,' saith he, c historiae yEtneorum incendiorum satis persuadere videntur nam nunquam observatum est ex altis- simo iEtnae cratere fluorem vitreum eructatum fuisse, sed tantum- modo exiisse fumos et flammas quae magno impetu ejecerint are- nas et saxea fragmenta, fluorem vero vitreum semper ex novis voraginibus apertis in diversis locis lateralibus montis exiisse.' Jo. Alphonsi Borelli de Incendiis iEtnas, cap. 13. Borellus's slits in the side of iEtna explain those on Monte Epomeo. Borelli in the right that the mountain is large enough to supply the matter flowing down the sides ; that the mountain subsides or 588 Journal of a decreases in height, while 'tis enlarged in circumference ; that the rivers are made not so much of sulphur, bitumen, &c., as molten stones and sand. The formation of Monte-Novo in one night, and the covering of Inarime many foot deep (at least where I had an opportunity of observing), seem to contradict Borelli, where he thinks there are no such vast caverns, dec. Borelli saith all the liquefied matter is generated near the surface in the sides of the mountain, and that there is not only no deep vorago reaching to the level of the sea, but not any vast cavity (the bulk of the mountain internally solid stone, otherwise not able to support so vast a weight), and the uppermost vorago, ac- cording to him, not reckoning above 100 paces deep. This to be contradicted: earthquakes and workings in the sea prove large caverns. c Et magis Inarime, magis ut mugitor anhelat, Vesbius, attonitas acer cum suscitat urbes.' Valerius Flaccus, Argon, lib. 3. c Hsec ego Chalcidicis ad te, Marcelle, sonabam Litoribus fractas, ubi Vesbius egerit iras iEmula Trinacriis volvens incendia flammis.' Stat. Sylv. lib. 4 ad Marcellum. Diodorus Siculus will have the Cumsean field to be called Phleg- rean from Vesuvius ; I should rather think it was from the Solfa- tara. Diod. 1. 4 de Hercule. Vid. Epistolam Plinii ad Taciturn. [Here follows in the Bishop's Memorandum Book a long extract in Latin from Xiphilini Epistola Dionis in Tito.'] The head and face of Vesuvius changed by the eruptions often. In Strabo's time it seems to have been neither biceps, nor to have a hollow, being described a sandy plain a-top. Observable that the eruptions have been mostly, if not alto- gether, on the south sides ; the north been free. Virgil, in Georg. 2, enumerating the choice wines, omits that of Vesuvius, as also do other ancient authors ; whereas it is now found to excel all others. This owing to the great quantity of nitre from the eruptions since the age of Classics. Anciently the soil was Tour in Italy. 589 famous for fruitfulness in corn, which it hath now lost, but is better much in wine. Justin (Hist. 1. 4. c. 1) thinks the eruptions are supplied from the sea; and I have heard Napolitans of good sense maintain that it was probably the sea water sucked in at the bottom of the mountain which flowed out at the top. Much nitre in Vesuvius ; not so at Solfatara. Iron, silver, brass, or the like metals, vainly or poetically (as in the inscription) pre- tended to be in Vesuvius. Vesuvius reckoned 32 mile in circuit, and above two mile per- pendicular height. It is pretended that in 31 [?] hot waters were spewed out of the crater, and that the sea was dried in great measure, which is brought to confirm Justin's thought. Islands formed in the sea, and motion without winds observed in the ocean, shew there are such portentous caverns as Borelli laughs at. Borelli saith ^Etna's top may be discerned by mariners at 200 miles distance, whence some have concluded it 6 mile perpen- dicular height; but from evident reasons he perceives it not possible it should be above 3 mile high; wherefore solves it being seen at that distance by supposing its top above the atmo- sphere. Qu. whether it may not more truly be solved by the refractive curve in an atmosphere of different density. The perimeter of ^Etna's base made by Borellus to be 133 mile, and 3 miles its height. Seneca in Ep. 79 : c Ignem in inferna aliqua valle conceptum exaestuare et alibi pasci non in ipso monte alimentum sed viam habere.' Last eruption of Vesuvius to the south-east. The great torrent in the widest part 3 miles broad esteemed. Altera Japoniorum classis eorum est qui nefaria gentis illius procurant sacra, capite ac mento prorsus abraso, inter quotidiana et occulta flagitia et stupra, ccelibem nihilominus ac sobriam pro- fessi vitam, atque ad mortales decipiendos conciliandse pecuniae causa, in omne argumentum sanctimonix gravitatisque compositi : iidem nobilium ac divitum exsequias ducunt, et alternantibus in odaeo choris, carmina suo more decantant, et dicendi copia et facultate praestantes concionibus populum arbitratu suo circum- 590 yournal of a agunt. Variae ac multae numerantur eorum sectse : nec desunt qui ad quandam Rhodiorum equitum speciem bellicas una cum re- ligione res tractent : sed communi omnes appellations Bonzii vocitantur, honesto loco nati plerique : nam proceres multitudine liberorum et angustia rei familiaris urgente ex iis aliquos ad Bonzi- orum instituta ac familias aggregant, Multa insuper variis habent locis gymnasia quas Academias dicimus copiosis instructa vecti- galibus. Atque ob eas res prsecipuum, ante hanc hominum setatem, toto Japone obtinebant honoris ac dignitatis locum ; sed post illa- tas in ea loca faces Evangelii, fraudesque vulgo nudari et coargui cceptas, multum videlicet universo generi de auctoritate atque existimatione decessit. A man makes a fine entertainment of music and refreshments, or he discharges a vast quantity of powder in mortalletti, or he makes an expensive firework, and this they call devotion, and the author devout. In the sudatory adjoining, Gregory the Great {Lib. Dial. 4) says the Bishop of Capua saw the soul of a holy man doing penance. This he relates as a thing told and believed in his time 21 . N.B. The various dresses, aspects, and complexions of the Madonna. [The following notice occurs on the opposite page : — c The plebs ( Valetta tells me) are in the interest of the Germans ; most of the middling people, or gente civile, in that of the Spaniards. More lawyers among the Neapolitans than in all Italy besides. Several Spanish families settled and mixed with the Neapolitan, and now become one with the people. He tells me that these eleven years that the Germans have been here they have not made one friend- ship, any of them, with the natives/] Seely's story of the piece of tongue stuck in the wall of a church, I heard told by him in presence of a marchese and a law- yer, who yet persisted in the belief of that absurd miracle, saying his unbelief hindered the operation. At Bari the thigh-bone of the saint was seen in an open stone chest on the side of the fountain, which had four lighted lamps round it ; this the German tells me, who saith the water most cer- 21 [This treatise, to say the least, is of probably very much interpolated. See Cave, very doubtful authorship, and, in any case, Hist. Lit. H.J.R.] Tour in Italy. 59* tainly did not run out of the bone, as he evidently saw. Yet at Naples men of quality and learning stedfastly believe this. One Saturday morning, a pewterer, our next neighbour, had a Madonna, being a painted, gay dressed baby, brought from the Spirito Sancto to his shop, which was hung with gaudy pieces of silk for her reception. She came in a chair, the porters bare- headed. Upon her arrival, mortalletti were fired at the door of the pewterer ; the porters handing her out made a profound reve- rence; the windows opposite and adjoining were hung with silk and tapestry. That night she was entertained with firework, as she had been in the day with music playing in the street to wel- come her. The next morning music again in the street, and fire- work at night. The Monday likewise music, and tapestry hung out as before. She was that day after dinner sent away in a chair, with salutations of the porters bareheaded, and with firing of mor- talletti. S. Gregory (lib. 4 Dialogorum) relates that S. Germanus, Bishop of Capua, being advised to sweat in the sudatory by the Lago Agnano, there saw the soul of Cardinal Paschasius doing penance. N.B. The Lago d } Agnano hath no fish, but abounds with frogs and serpents. Monday, April 11, 1 718. Set out from Naples after dinner ; reached Capua that evening. Germans busied in fortifying the town against the approach of the Spaniards. 12. First post through delicious green fields, plain and spacious, adorned with fruit trees and oaks, so scattered and disposed as to make a delightful landscape ; much corn and fruit. 2d post, good part of it like the foregoing; then pass through a wood of oaks, cupi [cypress ?], &c; after that came into a country less plain; hills, and great part of the road cut through rocks; after which a village, Cassano, where we first meet the Appian Way. Mountains sometimes before, mostly on our left, since we left Naples. Then through a country thick set with wine, oil, Sec, to S. Agata, having hills on left and right. Sessa, fine town within less than a mile of S. Agata. 592 Journal of a 3rd post 10 miles from S. Agata, thick planted with olives and vines; save a good part in the beginning, a perfect wood of olives; chain of mountains on our left; country somewhat un- equal, with pleasant risings ; after this, open, large, flat, pleasant meadows along the Liris, which flowed on our right. Cross the Liris or Garigliano at ten miles from S. Agata, which is a post- house and little else. Here the Germans had made a bridge of boats, which we drove over 22 . Having changed horses at Garig- liano (a house or two so called), we passed onward between an old aqueduct on the right and certain large ruins on the left. Treeto on a hill on the other side the aqueduct, and in the last post we passed by Castelforte on the hills, also on the right. Fine corn, &cc. country, till within about 4 miles of Mola, when it grew stony, and unequal, and shrubby; near the town a large grove of olives. This post we had the mountains near us on the right, and sea on the left. Mola a sea-port ; poor town 23 . Divers ruins, seeming as of sepulchres, &c, this post on the road side. Greatest part of this post passed on the Appian Way, whereof fragments appear entire, and ending abruptly, as if part had been cut off or taken away. Liris larger than the Vulturnus. 5th post from Mola to Itri. After a little way this post all enclosed between hills on right and left ; many olives ; almost all on the Appian Way. Itri a town poor and dirty, but pretty large. 6th post from Itri to Fondi. First 3 miles pr 4 6 ° 5 4 6 i, 462, 465, 472, 473? 475> 479> 480, 487, 491, 494, 498. Locke and Malebranche, 74. Xdyof, the, or inward light, 274 n. Loyola, 521. Lyons, 67. M. Maclaurin, Colin, engaged in the Analyst controversy, 240. M c Sparran, Rev. Dr., 161, cf. n., 162. Madden, Dr. Samuel, 21, 150, cf. n. ; edits the Querist, 242 ; founds the Dublin Society, 243, cf. n. Magnitude, 476. Magrath, the Irish giant, 335 n. Malebranche, Berkeley proposes to visit, 67; story of death of, 73; referred to, 30, 176 n., 324 «., 363, 384, 421, 435, 459, 461, 467, 484, 486, 488, 490. Malebranche and Berkeley, 74. Mansel, Dean, 383. Markham, Archbishop, 338, cf. n. Martin, Dr., 2 n. Martin, Murdoch, explored Western Islands, 66, cf. n., 506. Masham, Lady, 55. Massy, M., 86. Mathematical necessity, 397 n. Mathematical studies of Berkeley, 36, 210. Mathematicians, Berkeley's attack upon the, 224; an argumentum ad hominem, 225. Matter, unperceivable and unperceiv- ing, 364, 365. Maury, M. Alfred, 86. Mead, Dr., 82 n. Midleton, 230. Mill, Mr. J. S., 388 n. Mind, bodies exist independently of our, 428 ; a congeries of percep- tions, 438; always thinks, 444; neither volition nor idea, 464. Minima visibilia and tangibilia, 395. Minimum visibile, 471, 483. Miscellany, Berkeley's, 342, cf. n. Mola, 546. Molyneux, Samuel, 56 ; Berkeley's pupil, 52 ; presents Berkeley to the Princess of Wales, 72. Molyneux, William, 19, 416 »., 469. Monastic life, 276. Monte Sarki, 537. 668 INDEX. Moon, problem of the horizontal, 476, 492. Morality, two great principles of, 430. Morality, demonstration in, 449. More, Dr., 491. Morgan, Thomas, M.D., 265 n. Motion, not distinct from the thing movable, 424; visible and tangible, 469. Motu, De, an essay on Power and Causation, 85; an application of the Principle to sensible changes and causation, ib. ; prepared at Lyons, 86 ; may have been pre- sented to the Royal Academy of Paris, ib. Mountnay, Baron, 304, cf. n. N. Naples, Berkeley at, 81, 82, 84, 535 n. ; Rome to, 568; its customs, 571- 574. Narragansett, 155, 159, 161, 162; Ser- mons preached in, 629. Natura naturans, is God, 180. Necessity, mathematical, 397 ». Nelson, Robert, Berkeley addresses a letter to, 93, cf. n. Newhaven College, 179. Newport, Berkeley lands at, 154 ; de- scribed, 155; religious equality in, 157; Berkeley's house at, 165; scenery described in Alciphron, 168; philosophical society of, 169; sermons preached at, 629. Newton, Sir Isaac, referred to, 20, 226, 420, 441, 469, 497, 498; doc- trine of space, 177 ; method in natural philosophy, 179; theory of aether, 295 n. Noetica, by Dr. S. Johnson, 175 n. Nore, river, 4. Norris, John, the Malebranchian, 20. Norris, Sir John, 291. Number, 476. O. Objectivity, what, 395; based on causality, 491. Oglethorpe, General, 67, cf. 186 «. Oxford, the scene of an ideal life, 277 n. Oxford Commemoration, 207. Oxford scheme, Berkeley's, 311, 334. P. Palliser, William, 21. Paradise Lost, translation by the Abbe Salvini, 71 n. Paris, Abbe, 275. Parnell, the poet, 56, 60. Parr, Dr., 231. Particulars, knowledge is not of, merely, 446. Pascal, his Deus absconditus, 199, 416. Pasquilino, retained to teach Ber- keley's children music, 310 n. Passive Obedience, Discourse on, pub- lished, 48 ; occasioned by Locke's treatises on government, ib. ; advo- cates high Tory principles, ib. ; con- tains Berkeley's moral philosophy, 49 ; gave rise to the report that Berkeley was a Jacobite, ib. ; hin- ders his advancement, 50. Pembroke, Earl of, 91, cf. n. Perception, 396 ; Berkeley's imme- diate, of extended sensible reality, 383 ; immediate, is adequate, 483. Perception and volition, 444. Person, not an idea, 432. Personality, 371-373. Persons only exist, 469. Peterborough, Lord, Berkeley intro- duced to, 63; appointed ambassa- dor to the King of Sicily, 64 ; makes Berkeley his chaplain and secretary, ib. ; commemorated by Pope, 64 n. ; referred to by Berkeley, 69 ; re- called, 71. Petitio principii, in the common theory of matter, 370. Phenomena, how used in Siris, 296. Platner, observations on the born blind, 404. Plato, 176 366 376; proposed edition of, by Foulis of Glasgow, 327 n. Pliny, on earthquakes, 319. Plotinus, 276, cf. n. Pococke, Bishop, 288 n. Pomfret, Earl of, 141. Pooley, Bishop, 230. Pope, 55 ; a friend of Berkeley, 59, 89 ; on Lords Bathurst and Bur- lington, 91; on the Bermuda scheme, 119 ; publishes Essay on Man, 208 ; mentioned in a letter from Seeker to Berkeley, 236 ; his enthusiam for Berkeley, 349 n. Positivism, 362, 368, 411. INDEX, 669 Power, De Motu an essay on, 85. Power and volition, 450 Practical aim, early, of Berkeley's speculations, 34. Principle, Berkeley's new, 29, 30, 31. Principles of Human Knowledge, Treatise concerning the, an assault on scholastic abstractions, 40 ; de- velopes the theory latent in the Essay on Vision, ib. : only first part published, 42 ; anticipates the Co- pernican point of view of Kant, 43-44 ; theory of physical causality, 43 ; a challenge to the philosophical world, 45 ; copies sent to Clarke and Whiston, ib. Prior, Matthew, 67, cf. 89. Prior, Thomas, at school with Ber- keley, 11 ; founder of Dublin Society, 11 n., 242; college com- panion of Berkeley, 2 1 ; helps Ber- keley in business difficulties, 109 ; his List of Absentees, 183 in Dublin when Berkeley was conse- crated Bishop of Gloyne, 228; ex- periments with tar-water, 293 ; his Authentic Narrative of the success of tar- water, 309 ; death, 329; monu- ment to, 330, 331 n. ; epitaph by Berkeley, 331 n. ; bust of, ib. Protagoras, 376. Qualities of matter, primary, 434. Querist, 242 ; edited by Dr. Madden, ib. ; Mackintosh on the, 243 n. ; third part published, 247 ; advises a national bank, 249. R. Rabbe, the Abbe, 86. Ramsay, the Chevalier, 324 n. Rankenian Club, 224 n. Raphson, Ralph, 177, 462, cf. w., 491. Rawdon, Sir John, 67, 265. Real things and chimeras, 427, 449. Reality, its meaning, 365, 492. Reid, Dr. Thomas, 343, cf. n., 388 ; immediate perception, 383 ; his relation to Berkeley, 385, cf. n. Resistance and colour, 394. Rhode Island, Berkeley meant to go to, on his way to Bermuda, 155 ; its society, 158; Berkeley wishes to found his college at, 163 ; pic- tures of its scenery in Alciphron, 168. Roman Catholic clergy and Berkeley, 321. Roman Catholic theology, Berkeley's views upon, 269 sqq. Roman Catholics of Cloyne, Letter to the, 301. Roman College, visited, 534. Roman literature, modern, 518. Rome, its environs visited, 530 sqq. ; the theatre visited, 535. Rome to Naples, 568. Rose, Archdeacon, memoir of Dr. George Berkeley, Prebendary of Canterbury, 356 ; on Berkeley's sermons, 595. Rosin, used in epidemics, 263 ; adver- tised in Faulkner's Dublin Journal, 264. Rostellan, 230. Rugge, Henry, 214. Ruin of Great Britain, Essay towards preventing the, 88. Rundle, Bishop of Derry, 235 n. S. Salaries in Trinity College, 53 n. Salvini, Abbe, translates Milton's Paradise Lost, 71. Scaliger, 498. Scepticism, refuted by Berkeley's principle, 31. Scott, Sir Walter, on the correspond- ence between Swift and Mrs. Van- homrigh, 99. Scriblerus Club, 57. Scriblerus Club and the Bermuda scheme, 106. Seeker, Archbishop of Canterbury, friendship for Berkeley, 90 ; college friend of Bishop Butler, ib. ; at Durham, 171 ; made D.D., 207 n. ; rector of St. James's, Westminster, 208 ; Bishop of Bristol, 235 ; made Bishop of Oxford, 250, cf. n. ; at Cuddesden when Berkeley at O xford, 33 8 -339; hissister married to Bishop Benson, 339 n. ; sympathy with Ber- keley's family, 352; translated to Lambeth, 352 n. See, what it is to, 399. Sensations, what are, 370, 371 ; mere, impossible, 371 ; actual, intermittent, 373 ; different from sensible things, ib. ; signs of other sensations, 374; 670 INDEX. substantiality in material world is co-existence of, 375. Sensations, invariableness of, developes space, 407. Sensations and ideas, 498. Sense ideas, are real things, 32. Sense-realism of Berkeley, 386. Senses, not to be despised, 434. Sensibles, common, 396 n. Sergeant, John, 463, cf. n. Sermons, preached in Trinity College Chapel, 598 ; preached at Leghorn, 605 ; skeletons of, preached at Newport and in the Narragansett country, 629. Shakespeare, quoted, 105. Sherlock, Dr., Bishop of Bangor, 89, 109; shows Alciphron to Queen Caroline, 208. Sibbald, Sir Robert, 506, cf. n. Sicily, Berkeley in, 84. Simon, James, 309, cf. 315. Simon, T. Collyns, 409 n. Siris, 293 ; popularity, 294 ; to be compared with earlier works, ib. ; Berkeley's philosophy developed in, 296; was Berkeley's last word in speculation, 297 ; French transla- tion of, 330. Skelton, Rev. Philip, criticises Alci- phron, 199 n. Smalridge, Bishop, 62, 102. Smibert, Mr., the artist, 132, cf. 142; accompanies Berkeley to America, 151, 153; settled in America, 189, cf. n. ; his portrait of Berkeley in Yale College, 189. Smith, Adam, 340, cf. n. Space, 177 ; derived from universalized sense impressions, 401 ; developed from invariableness of sensations, 407 ; material, what, 422 ; imagined by the born blind, 424 ; eternity and infinity of, 449 ; Kant's doctrine of, 488 n.- Hodgson's doctrine of, ib. Speech, is metaphorical, 479. Spenser, quoted, 4. Spinoza, 324 363, 462, 464. Society, a college, founded by Berke- ley, 23. Society of Edinburgh, Royal, 224 n. Society in Edinburgh, a metaphysical, discusses Berkeley's principles, 224. Solidity, 472, 475. Sommers, Sir George, 105. Soul, is passive as well as active, 177 ; complex, 477. South Sea scheme, made Berkeley turn his attention to social economy, 87 ; eifects of on the morality of the people, ib. ; undertook the respon- sibility of the national debt, 87 ; referred to, 242. St. Canice, cathedral of, 506 n. St. Colman, cathedral of, 230. St. Peter's, visited, 519, 525. Stearne, Dr. John, 329, cf. n. Steele, Sir Richard, edits the Guar- dian, 57, 208. Stevenson, Prof., of Edinburgh, 224. Stewart, Dugald, on Baxter, 222 ; on the early influence of Berkeley in Scotland, 224. Stillingfleet, Bishop, 431 449, 450. Stirling, Dr. Hutchison, 388 n., 408 n. Stock, Bishop, Berkeley's biographer, 4, 14 «.j 59? 72 99, cf. 150, 208, 224, 228, 262 337 338, 344 »., 347 n. Stopford, Bishop, at Cloyne, 252 n. Substance, not removed by Berkeley's principles, 31, 431; physical, what is? 431 Locke on, 440, cf. n. ; discussed, 450. Substantiality in material world, co- existence of sensations, or pheno- mena, 375. Succession, 468, 471. Swift, introduces Berkeley to Lord Berkeley of Stratton, 6, 54 ; at Kilkenny school, i3,cf.«.; at Trinity College, 1 7 ; introduces Berkeley at Queen Anne's court, 54 ; made Dean of St. Patrick's, 55 ; extracts from diary to Stella, ib. ; introduces Berkeley to Lord Peterborough, 6 3 ; writes to Lord Carteret about Berkeley, 77 ; verses on South Sea scheme, 88 w. ; friend of Lord Pembroke, 91 ; writes to Gay about Berkeley, 95; his connection with Mrs. Vanhomrigh, 96 ; writes to Lord Carteret about Berkeley's Bermuda scheme, 102 ; letter from Bolingbroke, 118; Gulliver's Tra- vels, 119; revisits England, ib. ; letter from Gay to, 202 ; quits Eng- land for ever, 208 ; at St. Patrick's when Berkeley consecrated, 229 ; his patriotism, 243 ; intercourse with Berkeley at Cloyne, 243 n. ; death, 304/7.; on Berkeley's theory of matter, 368 n. Sydenham, Dr., 303. IN DE X . Synge, Dr. Edward, Bishop of Cloyne, &c, 21, 146, 147, 209, 212, 214, 215, 219, 220, 227. T. Talbot, Charles, Lord Chancellor, 138, cf. n., 217, cf. n., 250, cf. n. Talbot, Miss, 359, cf. n. Tarantula spider and dance, 82, 513 541, 544, 545, 552-553, 555, 556, 560. Tar-water, used in the epidemic of 1739, 262; Berkeley had seen it used in America, ib. ; experiments with, 263, 293; Dean Gervais advised to drink, 282 ; Berkeley thinks it a panacea, 292 ; interest it excited, 294, cf. n., 309, cf. n. ; verses on drinking, 297, 299 ; Prior's tract upon, 309, 322; Berke- ley's correspondence about, 323. Tarentum, 554, 555, cf. n. ; environs visited, 556-558. Terracina to Rome, 592. Thing, meaning of the term, 449. Tighe, Mr., History of Kilkenny, 3, 4. Time, a succession of ideas consti- tute, 177; measured by flow of ideas, 439 ; referred to, 468. Toland, criticised by Bishop Browne, 199. Townshend, Lord, 108. Trani, 542. Tribunal of the Eletti, 573. Trinity College, 1, 2, 16; salaries in, 53 n. ; Archbishop King's Lecture- ship, 94 n. ; Hebrew Lectureship, 95 n. ; three junior fellows of, induced to accompany Berkeley to America, 104; Berkeley proposes to throw it open to Roman Catholics, 243 ; . Berkeley gave medals for Greek and Latin to, 329, 330 n. Trinity College Chapel, sermon preached in, 598. Truth, three kinds of, 446. Tuam, wardenship of, 214. Turin, 67. U. Ueberweg, charges Berkeley with a petitio principii, 370 n. Uhlius, Sylloge, 202 n. vXtj, 366 n. Unity not a simple idea, 435, 472. Updike, Colonel, an intimate friend of Berkeley, 159 n. ; member of the Philosophical Society of Newport, 169. Updike, Ludovick, heard Berkeley preach, 159. Updike, Wilkins, his History of the Episcopal Church in Narragansett, 154 ; description of Berkeley's arrival at Newport, ib. ; account of Berkeley in Trinity Church, 159; account of Rhode Island society, ib. n. ; Berkeley's farm, 164 ». ; on Berkeley's verses on America, 168 245 n. Ursini, Cardinal, his library, 538. Utilitarianism, theological, Berkeley's, 49. V. Vanhomrigh, Mrs., 57 ; Berkeley and Swift dine with, 60, 96 ; died in 1723, 96; her connection with Swift, 96, 97 n. ; bequeathed her property to Bishop Berkeley and Dr. Marshall, 97 ; her will, ib. ; her correspondence with Swift, 99 ; her legacy occasion of business troubles to Berkeley, 110, 111, 112, 113-118, 119, 120, 121, 126, 129, 130-131, 133, 135, 136, 141. Vatican, Berkeley examines the MSS. in the, 78. Vatican gallery, visited, 512. Venosa, 561. Verses on America, Berkeley's, 103. Verses on drinking tar- water, 297, 299. Vesuvius, eruptions of, described, 78, 588. Vesuvius and iEtna, 589. Vindication of Theory of Vision, 203. Vision, Essay towards a New Theory of, 36 ; applies the Berkeleian prin- ciple to sight, not to touch, 37 ; has been misinterpreted, ib. ; its chief qusetion, ib. ; its theory of the uni- versal and divine language of the senses, 38 ; second edition in year of publication, 40. Visitation Charge, 650. Visual language, 393. Volition, comes gradually into the mind, 442. Volition and perception, 444. Volition and power, 450. Voltaire, on Berkeley, 368 n. Vulgar, Berkeley on the side of, 420. 672 INDEX. W. Wainwright, Baron, 210, 214, 215, 218, 228, 237. Wallace, Rev. Dr., 224. Waller, Battle of the Summer Islands, 105 n. Wallis, Dr., 428, 463. Walpole, Sir Robert, promises an endowment for the Bermuda Col- lege, 108 ; occasions failure of the Bermuda scheme, 186 ; referred to, 119, 139, 284, cf. n. Walton, engaged in the Analyst con- troversy, 240. Warburton, Dr., 202 ; on Baxter, 222. Ward, Rev. Dr., of Derry, 123, 129, 134. Warton, quoted, 106. Wetherby, Dr., 210. Whiston, on Berkeley, 45. Whitcombe, Archbishop, 341, cf. n. Whitehall, Berkeley's farm and house, 164, 165, cf. 166. Wilkes, John, 327 n. Will, is it acted on by uneasiness, 421 ; the soul is, 428 ; is not desire, 440, 441 ; is power, 442 ; no idea of, 445 ; is purus actus, 462. Wise, Dr. Thomas, 283 n. Wolfe, Mr., 266. Wolfe, General, 336, 337 on Ber- keley's death, 337 n. Woodward, Dr., on stalactites, 511, cf. n. Worcester, Bishop of, 440 n. Word to the Wise, A, 320. Y. Yale College, Johnson graduated at, 174; possesses portrait of Berkeley by Smibert, 189 ; scholarships in, founded by Berkeley, 192, 194 «. ; deed of conveyance, 193 n. ; dona- tion of books to, 194, cf. 207, 221; referred to, 163, 176, 192, 245, 323, 324, cf. 326, 327, cf. n. ERRATA AND ADDENDA. Page 4, line 32, for 'Spencer' read 1 Spenser.' Page 62, I. 5, for ' Smallridge ' read 1 Smalridge.' Page 107, in list of subscriptions for Bermuda, for ' Hutchinson ' read 'Hutcheson;' also on p. 138, 1. 31, and note 39, 1. 2; p. 139, 1. 6. [Archibald Hutcheson was of the Middle Temple, London, and M.P. for Hastings. He published in 1720 and 172 1 various treatises relating to the South Sea scheme ; also, previously, tracts relating to the National Debt.] Page 1 59, note 7, 1. i,for ' Upside ' read 1 Updike.' Page 202, note 12, 1. 5, for e Uhlii Sylloge nova Epist.' read 1 Uhlii Sylloge nova Epistolarum varii argumenti? [This is a rare work, in 4 vols. 8vo., printed at Nuremberg in 1760-64. The writer speaks slightingly of Berkeley's New Theory of Vision, as well as of Alciphron, both of which had been recommended to him.] Page 333, note 3, 1. 5, for ' Tyndal ' read ' Tindal.' Berkeley 's Life and Letters. 672 INDEX. W. Wain wright, Baron, 210, 214, 215, 218, 228, 237. Wallace, Rev. Dr., 224. Waller, Battle of the Summer Islands, 105 n. Wallis, Dr., 428, 463. Walpole, Sir Robert, promises an endowment for the Bermuda Col- lege, 108 ; occasions failure of the Bermuda scheme, 186; referred to, 119, 139, 284, cf. n. Wilkes, John, 327 «. Will, is it acted on by uneasiness, 42 1 the soul is, 428 ; is not desire, 440 441 ; is power, 442 ; no idea of, 445 is purus actus, 462. Wise, Dr. Thomas, 283 ». Wolfe, Mr., 266. Wolfe, General, 336, 337 ».; on Ber- keley's death, 337 n. Woodward, Dr., on stalactites, 511 cf. n. Worcester, Bishop of, 440 n. Word to the Wise, A, 320.