her desire named to it, and the King's letter was actually transmitted to Ireland for his appointment. But Lord Burlington having neglected to notify the royal intention in proper time to the Duke of Dorset (then Lord Lieutenant), his Excellency was so highly offended at the disposal of the richest deanery in Ireland without his concurrence, that it was not thought proper to press the matter any farther. Her Majesty upon this declared, that since they would not suffer Dr. Berkeley to be a Dean in Ireland, he should be a Bishop:' and accordingly, in 1734, he was promoted to the see of Cloyne. His Lordship repaired immediately to his palace, where he constantly resided (with the exception of one winter's attendance on parliament in Dublin) and vigorously applied himself to the faithful discharge of all episcopal duties, reviving in his diocese the useful office of rural dean; visiting often parochially, and confirming occasionally in the several parts of his see.* He continued his studies, however, with unabated attention; and about this time engaged in a controversy with the mathematicians of Great Britain and Ireland, which made a considerable noise in the literary world. Dr. Halley, it appears, had asserted, that the doctrines of Christianity were incomprehensible, * In a letter dated March 20, 1734, he inquires after the character of a clergyman of the name of Cox; "whether he be a good man, one of parts and learning, and how he is provided for."-" No one (he adds) 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 preferable to all recommendation," and the religion itself an imposture.' The Bishop, therefore, took arms against this redoubtable dealer in demonstration; and addressed 'The Analyst' to him, with a view of showing, that mysteries in faith were unjustly objected to by mathematicians, who admitted much greater mysteries, and even falsehoods, in science;' of which he endeavoured to prove, that the doctrine of Fluxions furnished an eminent example. Such an attack upon what had hitherto been deemed impregnable, produced a number of warm answers, to which the Bishop in one or two instances replied.* 6 From this controversy he turned his thoughts to subjects of more apparent utility; and his Queries' proposed for the good of Ireland (first printed in 1735), his Discourse addressed to Magistrates,'† which came Beside Colson, in his Commentary upon Newton's Fluxions, a direct answer was given to this Tract by Philalethes Cantabrigiensis (supposed to be Dr. Jurin), and by Robins in his 'Discourse concerning the Nature and Certainty of Sir Isaac Newton's Method of Fluxions, and of Prime and Ultimate Ratios;' in which, without expressly noticing the Analyst,' he vindicates the principles objected to. To the letter of Philalethes, entitled Geometry no friend to Infidelity,' the Bishop replied in his 'Defence of Free-thinking in Mathematics;' and his opponent by a rejoinder in 1735, under the title of The Minute Mathematician, or the Free-thinker no just Thinker,' closed the controversy. Whatever might be the mistake of Berkeley in his view of the grounds of the subject in dispute, the scientific world was not a little obliged to him for the debate itself; as having not only produced the works abovementioned, with Maclaurin's masterly treatise of Fluxions, but also occasioned the introduction of a strict logical process in the superior departments of Mathe matics. + Occasioned by an impious society called Blasters,' which this pamphlet put down. He expressed his sentiments, upon the same occasion, in the House of Lords (the only time he ever spoke there) in a speech received with great applause. out the year following, and his Maxims concerning Patriotism,' published in 1750, are equally monuments of his knowledge of mankind and of his zeal for the service of true religion and his country. In 1745, during the Scottish rebellion, his Lordship addressed A Letter to the Roman Catholics' of his diocese; and in 1749, another to the Clergy of that persuasion in Ireland, under the title of A Word to the Wise,' written with so much candor and moderation, that those gentlemen highly to their honour returned "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 of their power." They add, that “in every page it contains a proof of the Author's extensive charity: his views are only toward 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." This character was, indeed, so entirely his Lordship's due, that in 1745 that strenuous friend of Ireland, Lord Chesterfield, as soon as he was advanced to the government, of his own motion wrote to inform him; that the see of Clogher, in value double of that which he then possessed, was at his service.' This offer however, with many expressions of thankfulness, he declined.* He had enough, al * This verified what he had said in a letter dated March 2, 1734, upon being told of the probability of a vacancy at Derry. "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, ready, to satisfy all his wishes; and, agreeably 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 for the express purpose of seeing a place, which his friend had portrayed to him with all the brilliancy of colouring; and which yet, to common eyes, presents nothing eminently worthy of attention. and money on the faith of public charters." Again, in 1747, he writes, on the subject of the Irish primacy, at that time vacant; "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 upon 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." He had declared, indeed, to Mrs. Berkeley, soon after he was advanced to the prelacy, his resolution never to change his see;' because (as he subsequently confessed to his two zealous friends, the Archbishop of Tuam and the Earl of Shannon, on their pressing him to think of a translation) he had very early in life got the world under his feet, and he hoped to trample on it to his latest moment.' He thought that episcopal translations, in fact, were sometimes hurtful to individuals; and that they often gave, though unjustly, a handle to suspect of mean views an order, to which that holy and humble man was himself an honour, and to which (it may be said without adulation) that he would have been an honour in any age of the Church. He was solicitous to add one more to the list of churchmen, evidently dead to ambition and avarice. Just before his embarkation for America, it is said, Queen Caroline endeavoured to stagger his resolution by the offer of an English mitre; but, in reply, he assured her Majesty, that 'he chose rather to be President of St. Paul's College, than Primate of all England.' The close of a life, thus devoted to the good of mankind, was answerable to it's beginning; his last years being employed in scrutinising the virtues of a medicine, of which he had himself experienced the good effects in the relief of a nervous cholic, brought on by his sedentary course of living, and at last (to use his own words) "rendering life a burthen to him; the more so, as his pains were exasperated by exercise." This medicine was the celebrated Tarwater; his thoughts upon which subject he first communicated to the world in 1744, in a treatise entitled 'Siris, a Chain of Philosophical Reflexions and Inquiries concerning the Virtues of Tar-water,'* a * The subjoined Ode, To the Author of Siris,' by Bishop readers: Hayter, may be new to many O! qui caduca sollicitus times Corporibusque animisque pestes; Musis amicus lenitèr audias Vocem Camœnæ, quæ sibi reddita Non fabulosis prosiliens jugis, Provocat ad numeros volentem. Sed lympha morbos eluere efficax; Conscia mens modulatur ultrò Carmen. Veternum triste fugit retrò, |