affable manners and high conversational powers, that ill-used lady, when she renounced the idea of making Swift her heir, resolved to divide her property equally between Judge Marshall and Dr Berkeley. By this arrangement, Berkeley, to his great surprise, acquired the sum of £4000.

Before the resignation of his fellowship for the deanery of Derry, Dr Berkeley had for some time meditated upon a scheme for Christianizing the wild Americans. Of this scheme, the erection of a college in the Bermudas formed a principal part; and with such zeal and success did he follow up his designs, that he obtained a parliamentary grant of £20,000 for the latter purpose, to which were added several large private subscriptions. The queen, with whom he was a great favourite, tried to dissuade him from his project, and offered him an early bishopric if he would remain in the country; but Berkeley replied, that he should prefer the headship of St Paul's college at Bermudas to the primacy of all England. From that headship he was to enjoy a revenue of only £100 per annum, and was bound by his charter to resign his newly acquired deanery, worth £1100 per annum. Three junior fellows of Trinity college agreed to share his fate and fortunes, and relinquished flattering hopes of preferment at home for a settlement in the islands of the Atlantic ocean of £40 a year. Sir Robert Walpole, though personally disinclined to the affair, at the command of the king, introduced the necessary bill, which passed with only one dissentient voice. charter was accordingly granted for the erection of a college, to consist of a president and nine fellows, who were under the obligation to maintain and educate Indian scholars at the rate of £10 per annum for each. Every thing now presaged the complete success of our author's fondest hopes, and, in the fulness of his heart, he poured forth the following effusion:

The muse, disgusted at an age and clime
Barren of every glorious theme,

In distant lands now waits a better time,
Producing subjects worthy fame.

In happy climes, where from the genial sun
And virgin earth such scenes ensue,
The force of art by nature seems outdone,
And fancied beauties by the true,-

In happy climes, 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,—

There shall be sung another golden age,
The rise of empire and of arts,
The good and great inspiring epic rage,
The wisest heads and noblest hearts,

Not such as Europe breeds in her decay,
Such as she bred when fresh and young,
When heavenly flame did animate her clay,
By future poets shall be sung.

Westward the course of empire takes its way,
The four first acts already past,

A fifth shall close the drama with the day:
Time's noblest offspring is the last.

A

In August, 1728, he entered into marriage with Anne, the eldest daughter of Mr Forster, speaker of the Irish house of commons, and immediately thereafter he embarked for the western continent. Having reached Rhode island, he took up his abode there until the arrangements for his college should be completed; but the minister entirely failed in his promises, the grant was never placed in Berkeley's hands, and, after lingering for a few years in the vain expectation of ultimately obtaining the promised assistance of the British government, he was compelled reluctantly to abandon his design and return home. At his departure, he presented a farm of one hundred acres, which he had purchased, to Yale and Harvard colleges, and this benefaction has since become, from the rise in the value of the property, one of the most valuable endowments possessed by these leading American seminaries.

In February, 1732, he preached before the society for the propagation of the gospel in foreign parts. During the same year he published his Minute Philosopher,' the result of his leisure hours in America. It is an elegant and learned defence of religion against the systems of the atheist, fatalist, and sceptic. It is written in the form of a dialogue, on the model of Plato,-a philosopher of whom he is said to have been very fond, and betwixt whom and Berkeley the reader may perhaps be able to trace not a few points of resemblance. Dr Sherlock presented this work to Queen Caroline, who was highly delighted with it, and procured for him the bishopric of Cloyne, to which he was consecrated in May, 1734. On this see, with the exception of one winter, during which he attended parliament in Dublin, he resided constantly for eighteen years, until the declining state of his health compelled him to resign his episcopal functions. He was offered, by the earl of Chesterfield, the see of Clogher, which was double the value of that of Cloyne, and wherein, he was told, he might immediately receive fines to the amount of £10,000, but declined the offer, and respectfully intimated that he was resolved never to accept of a translation.

6

Shortly after his arrival at Cloyne, he produced his Analyst,' in which he endeavours to show that Sir Isaac Newton's doctrine of fluxions is more incomprehensible than any mystery in the Christian religion. This controversy, which made a great noise at the time, originated in the following circumstances. Addison, many years before, had given Berkeley an account of Dr Garth's behaviour on his deathbed, and had told him, that amongst other things which the dying man said to him when he visited him, and wished to enter upon religious conversation with him, he had exclaimed, " Surely, Addison, I have good reason not to believe these trifles, since my friend Halley, who has dealt so much in demonstration, assures me that the doctrines of Christianity are incomprehensible, and religion itself an imposture." The principal answer to the Analyst' was supposed to have been written by Dr Jurin, under the title, Philalethes Cantabrigiensis.' To this the bishop replied in A Defence of Free-thinking in Mathematics,' which excited a second answer from Philalethes, under the title, The Minute Mathematician.'

In 1735 the bishop published his 'Querist,' in which he discusses a number of points connected with the welfare of the Irish community. It was the great object of this, and of most of the other political tracts of its admirable author, to persuade the people of Ireland that they had vast

internal resources of wealth and comfort, of which they might avail themselves by their own exertions, and that sloth was the only formidable evil with which they had to contend. At this time, Ireland was placed under many restrictions as to foreign trade, while the advantages of that branch of industry, over every other, were greatly exaggerated. According to the theory which then prevailed, foreign trade was reckoned the only means of bringing money into the country; and money was par excellence riches. Without money, it was thought there could be no circulation; and without circulation, no industry; therefore Ireland was doomed to helpless slothfulness. Berkeley aimed at convincing his countrymen of this truth, that money is not riches; that riches consist in valuable commodities; the possession of such things as minister to the comforts and the necessaries of society; that money is only useful as facilitating the exchange of these commodities for one another; and that, if exchanges could be made without it, money might be dispensed with altogether.

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In 1744 he produced a singular book. Having received, as he thought, much benefit, while suffering under a nervous colic, from the use of tar-water, his benevolence incited him to make its virtues known to the whole world; and, with this view, he published his Siris, a chain of Philosophical Reflections and Enquiries concerning the virtues of Tar-water.' It underwent a second impression, with additions and amendments, in 1747; and was followed by Farther Thoughts on Tar-water,' in 1752. This treatise, he has been heard to declare, cost im more labour than any other single production of his pen; and no wonder, for it is in fact a dissertation de omni scibile,—curious for the multifarious erudition it embraces, and for the marvellous ingenuity with which the good bishop, while disserting on the virtues of his simple medicament, contrives to introduce the most profound speculations on philosophical and religious subjects. "Many a vulgar critic has sneered at Berkeley's Siris," says Dr Warton, "for beginning at tar and ending with the Trinity; incapable of observing the great art with which the transitions in that book are finely made, where each paragraph depends upon and arises out of the preceding, and gradually and imperceptibly leads on the reader from common objects to more remote,-from matter to spirit,-from earth to heaven."

The infirm state of the bishop's health, his love of lettered retirement, and a wish to superintend the education of his son, recently admitted a student of Christ church, Oxford, led him to apply for leave to resign his bishopric in 1751, or exchange it for a canonry at Oxford. His wish was not complied with; the king declaring that Dr Berkeley "should die a bishop in spite of himself;" but permission was granted to him to reside wherever he might think proper. He accordingly removed to Oxford; but before he left Cloyne, he let the lands of his demesne at the rent of £200, which sum he directed to be annually distributed among the poor until his return. Only a few months, however, elapsed after his arrival at Oxford, ere this great and good man was called to another world. On Sunday evening, the 14th of January, 1753, as he was sitting in the midst of his family, and had just concluded an extemporaneous comment on the 15th chapter of 1st Corinthians, he was in an instant deprived of existence by a paralytic affection of the heart.

Bishop Berkeley, in early life, was tall and robustly formed; but his intense application to study prematurely wore down his personal graces and strength. His countenance was highly expressive and benign. Pope has summed up his moral character in one line, in which he ascribes "to Berkeley every virtue under heaven." His intellectual powers were very great; but he had, perhaps, too large a proportion of enthusiasm and imagination in him for the strictly philosophical temperament.

Simon Browne.

BORN A. D. 1680.-DIED A. D. 1753.

THIS learned protestant dissenter was born at Shepton Mallet in Somersetshire. While yet a very young man he became minister to a considerable congregation at Portsmouth. In 1716 he accepted a call from the congregation assembling in the Old Jewry, London. Here he laboured for seven years with great acceptance, but at length became incapacitated for office by a most extraordinary mental hallucination, brought on by grief for the loss of his wife. He imagined that God, by a singular exertion of Divine power, had, in a gradual manner, annihilated in him the thinking principle, and utterly divested him of consciousness; and that thus, though he retained the human shape and the faculty of speech, in a manner even that appeared to others rational, he was, nevertheless, utterly unconscious of a single idea. Though fully possessed by this singular fancy, he saw no inconsistency in applying himself diligently to study, and even preparing some works for the press. A friend once called upon him, and found him engaged compiling a Greek and Latin dictionary. He expressed his satisfaction at perceiv ing his friend so fully employed; but Browne replied, "I am doing nothing that requires a reasonable soul; I am only making a dictionary. But you know, Sir," added he, "thanks are due to God for every thing, and we should even praise him for dictionary-makers."

Browne's publications are pretty numerous, and some of them display a great variety of knowledge and considerable argumentative powers. To his Defence of the Religion of Nature and the Christian Revelation,' he prefixed a singular preface to Queen Caroline, which was suppressed by his friends, but first printed by Dr Hawkesworth in the Adventurer,' No. 88. It is as follows:

"MADAM,—Of all the extraordinary things that have been tendered to your royal hand since your first happy arrival in Britain, it may be boldly said, what now bespeaks your majesty's acceptance is the chief. Not in itself indeed; it is a trifle unworthy your exalted rank, and what will hardly prove an entertaining amusement to one of your majesty's deep penetration, exact judgment, and fine taste. But on account of the author, who is the first being of the kind, and yet without a name. He was once a man, and of some little name, but of no worth, as his present unparalleled case makes but too manifest; for by the immediate hand of an avenging God, his very thinking substance has for more than seven years been continually wasting away, till it is wholly perished out of him, if it be not utterly come to nothing.

None, no not the least remembrance of its very ruins, remains; not the shadow of an idea is left, nor any sense that, so much as one single one, perfect or imperfect, whole or diminished, ever did appear to a mind within him, or was perceived by it. Such a present from such a thing, however worthless in itself, may not be wholly unacceptable to your majesty, the author being such as history cannot parallel; and if the fact, which is real and no fiction, nor wrong conceit, obtains credit, it must be recorded as the most memorable, and indeed astonishing event in the reign of George the Second, that a tract composed by such a thing was presented to the illustrious Caroline; his royal consort need not be added; fame, if I am not misinformed, will tell that with pleasure to all succeeding times. He has been informed that your majesty's piety is as genuine and eminent as your excellent qualities are great and conspicuous. This can, indeed, be truly known to the great searcher of hearts only. He alone, who can look into them, can discern if they are sincere, and the main intention corresponds with the appearance; and your majesty cannot take it amiss, if such an author hints that His secret approbation is of infinitely greater value than the commendation of men, who may be easily mistaken, and are too apt to flatter their superiors. But if he has been told the truth, such a case as his will certainly strike your majesty with astonishment, and may raise that commiseration in your royal breast, which he has in vain endeavoured to excite in those of his friends; who, by the most unreasonable and ill-founded conceit in the world, have imagined that a thinking being could, for seven years together, live a stranger to its own powers, exercises, operations, and state, and what the Great God has been doing in it and to it. If your majesty, in your most retired address to the King of kings, should think of so singular a case, you may, perhaps, make it your devout request, that the reign of your beloved sovereign and consort may be renowned to all posterity by the recovery of a soul now in the utmost ruin, the restoration of one utterly lost at present amongst And should this case affect your royal breast, you will recommend it to the piety and prayers of all the truly devout, who have the honour to be known to your majesty; many such doubtless there are; though courts are not usually the places where the devout resort, or where devotion reigns. And it is not improbable, that multitudes of the pious throughout the land may take a case to heart, that under your majesty's patronage comes thus recommended. Could such a fa

men.

vour as this restoration be obtained from heaven by the prayers of your majesty, with what a transport of gratitude would the recovered being throw himself at your majesty's feet, and, adoring the Divine power and grace, profess himself,-Madam, your majesty's most obliged and dutiful servant."

Bishop Wilson.

BORN A. D. 1663.-DIED A. D. 1755.

THIS excellent prelate was born at Burton in Cheshire, in 1663. He received his first education at a private school in the city of Chester. He then went to Dublin and entered Trinity college, where he took his