have been written in opposition to sceptics and atheists; and the author's inquiry is into the chief cause of error and difficulty in the sciences, with the grounds of scepticism, atheism, and irreligion; which cause and grounds are found to be the doctrines of the existence of matter. He seems persuaded that men never could have been deluded into a false opinion of the existence of matter, if they had not fancied themselves invested with a power of abstracting substance from the qualities under which it is perceived; and hence, as the general foundation of his argument, he is led to combat and explode a doctrine maintained by Locke and others, of there being a power in the mind of abstracting general ideas. Mr. Hume says, that these works "form the best lessons of scepticism,. which are to be found either among the ancient or modern philosophers, Bayle not excepted." Dr. Beattie also considers them as having a sceptical tendency. He adds, that if Berkeley's argument be conclusive, it proves that to be false which every man must necessarily believe, every moment of his life, to be true, and that to be true which no man since the foundation of the world was ever capable of believing for a single moment. Berkeley's doctrine attacks the most incontestable dictates of common sense, and pretends to demonstrate that the clearest principles of human conviction, and those which have determined the judgment of men in all ages, and by which the judgment of all reasonable men must be determined, are certainly fallacious. It may just be observed, that Berkeley had not reached his 27th year when he published this singular system. The author of his life in the Biog. Brit. asserts that "the airy visions of romances, to the reading of which he was much addicted, disgust at the books of metaphysics then received in the university, and that inquisitive attention to the operations of the mind which about this time was excited by the writings of Locke and Malebranche, probably gave birth to his disbelief of the existence of matter." What ever influence the other causes here assigned might have had, we have the authority of his relict, Mrs. Berkeley, that he had a very great dislike to romances, and indeed it would be difficult to discover in any of these volumes of absurd fiction the grounds of such a work as Berkeley's. In 1712 he published three sermons in favour of passive obedience and non-resistance, which underwent at least three editions, and afterwards had nearly done him some

injury in his fortune. They caused him to be represented as a Jacobite, and stood in his way with the house of Hanover, till Mr. Molineux, above-mentioned, took off the impression, and first made him known to queen Caroline, whose secretary, when princess, Mr. Molineux had been. Acuteness of parts and beauty of imagination were so conspicuous in his writings, that his reputation was now established, and his company courted even where his opinions did not find admission. Men of opposite parties concurred in recommending him; sir Richard Steele, for instance, and Dr. Swift. For the former he wrote several papers in the Guardian, and at his house became acquainted with Pope, with whom he afterwards lived in friendship. It is said he had a guinea aud a dinner with Steele for every paper he wrote in the Guardian. Swift recommended him to the celebrated earl of Peterborough, who being appointed ambassador to the king of Sicily and the Italian states, took Berkeley with him as chaplain and secretary in November 1713. He returned to England with this nobleman in August 1714, and towards the close of the year had a fever, which gave occasion to Dr. Arbuthnot to indulge a little pleasantry on Berkeley's system. philosopher Berkeley," says he to his friend Swift, "has now the idea of health, which was very hard to produce in him; for he had an idea of a strange fever on him so strong, that it was very hard to destroy it by introducing a contrary one."

"Poor

His hopes of preferment expiring with the fall of queen Anne's ministry, he some time after embraced an offer made him by Dr. St. George Ashe, bishop of Clogher, of accompanying his son in a tour through Europe. When he arrived at Paris, having more leisure than when he first passed through that city, Mr. Berkeley took care to pay his respects to his rival in metaphysical sagacity, the illustrious Pere Malebranche. He found this ingenious father in his 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 our author's system, of which the other had received some knowledge from a translation just published. But the issue of this debate proved tragical to poor Malebranche. In the heat of 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. In this excursion Mr. Berkeley employed four years; and, besides those places which fall within the grand tour, visited some that are less frequented. He travelled over Apulia (from which he wrote an account of the tarantula to Dr. Freind), Calabria, and the whole island of Sicily. This last country engaged his attention so strongly, that he had with great industry collected very considerable materials for a natural history of it, but unfortunately lost them in the passage to Naples. What injury the literary world has sustained by this mischance, may be collected from the specimen of his talents for observation and description, in a letter to Mr. Pope concerning the island of Inarime (now Ischia) dated October 22, 1717; and in another from the same city to Dr. Arbuthnot, giving an account of an eruption of Vesuvius. On his way homeward, he drew up at Lyons a curious tract "De Motu," which was inserted in the memoirs of the royal academy of sciences at Paris, who had proposed the subject. He arrived at London in 1721; and, being much affected with the miseries of the nation, occasioned by the South Sea scheme in 1720, published the same year" An essay towards preventing the ruin of Great Britain;" reprinted in his miscellaneous tracts.

His way was open now into the very first company. Mr. Pope introduced him to lord Burlington, and lord Burlington recommended him to the duke of Grafton; who, being lord-lieutenant of Ireland, took him over as one of his chaplains in 1721, and November this year he is said to have accumulated the degrees of bachelor and doctor in divinity; but a writer in the Gent. Mag. 1776 asserts that he never went to Ireland as chaplain to any lieutenant, and that he was created D. D. by his college in 1717, when he was in Italy. The year following he had a very unexpected increase of fortune from Mrs. Vanhomrigh, the celebrated Vanessa, to whom he had been introduced by Swift this lady had intended Swift for her heir, but, perceiving herself to be slighted by him, she left near 80001. between her two executors, of whom Berkeley was one In his life in the Biog. Brit. it is said that Swift had often taken him to dine at this lady's house, but Mrs. Berkeley, his widow, asserts that he never dined there but once, and that by chance. Dr. Berkeley, as executor, destroyed as much of Vanessa's correspondence as he could find. Mr.

Marshal, the other executor, published the "Cadenus and Vanessa," which, according to Dr. Delany, proved fatal to Stella. May 18, 1724, he was promoted to the deanery of Derry, worth 1100l. per annum, and resigned his fellowship.

In 1725 he published, and it has since been re-printed in his miscellaneous tracts, "A proposal for converting the savage Americans to Christianity, by a college to be erected in the Summer Islands, otherwise called the Isles of Bermuda :" a scheme which had employed his thoughts for three or four years past; and for which he was disposed to make many personal sacrifices. As what he deemed necessary steps he offered to resign all his preferment, and to dedicate the remainder of his life to instructing the American youth, on a stipend of 100l. yearly; he pre`vailed with three junior fellows of Trinity college, Dublin, to give up all their prospects at home, and to exchange their fellowships for a settlement in the Atlantic ocean at 40l. a year; he procured his plan to be laid before George I. who commanded sir Robert Walpole to lay it before the commons; and further granted him a charter for erecting a college in Bermuda, to consist of a president and nine fellows, who were obliged to maintain and educate Indian scholars at 10l. a year each; he obtained a grant from the commons of a sum, to be determined by the king; and accordingly20,000l. was promised by the minister, for the purchase of lands, and erecting the college. Trusting to these promising appearances, he married the daughter of John Forster, esq. speaker of the Irish house of commons, the 1st of August 1728; and actually set sail in September following for Rhode Island, which lay nearest to Bermuda, taking with him his wife, a single lady, and two gentlemen of fortune. Yet the scheme entirely failed, and Berkeley was obliged to return, after residing near two years at Newport. The reason given is, that the minister never heartily embraced the project, and the money was turned into another channel. During his residence in America, when he was not employed as an itinerant preacher, which business could not be discharged in the winter, he preached every Sunday at Newport, where was the nearest episcopal church, and to that church he gave an organ. When the season and his health permitted, he visited the continent, not only in its outward skirts, but penetrated far into its recesses. The same generous desire of advancing the best interests

of mankind which induced him to cross the Atlantic, uniformly actuated him whilst America was the scene of his ministry. The missionaries from the English society, who resided within about a hundred miles of Rhode Island, agreed among themselves to hold a sort of synod at Dr. Berkeley's house there, twice in a year, in order to enjoy the advantages of his advice and exhortations. Four of these meetings were accordingly held. One of the principal points which the doctor then pressed upon his fellowlabourers, was the absolute necessity of conciliating, by all innocent means, the affection of their bearers, and also of their dissenting neighbours. His own example, indeed, very eminently enforced his precepts upon this head; for it is scarcely possible to conceive a conduct more uniformly kind, tender, beneficent, and liberal than his was. He seemed to have only one wish in his heart, which was to alleviate misery, and to diffuse happiness. Finding, at length, that the fear of offending the dissenters at home, and of inclining the colonies to assert independency, had determined the minister to make any use, rather than the best use, of the money destined for, and promised to St. Paul's college, the dean of Derry took a reluctant leave of a country, where the name of Berkeley was long and justly revered more than that of any European whatever. At his departure, he gave a farm of a hundred acres, which lay round his house, and his house itself, as a benefaction to Yale and Harvard colleges: and the value of that land, then not insignificant because cultivated, became afterwards very considerable. He gave, of his own property, to one of these colleges, and to several missionaries, books to the amount of five hundred pounds. To the other college he made a large donation of books purchased by others, and trusted to his disposal.

In 1732, he published "The Minute Philosopher," in 2 vols. 8vo. This masterly work is written in a series of dialogues on the model of Plato, a philosopher of whom he is said to have been very fond; and in it he pursues the freethinker through the various characters of atheist, libertine, enthusiast, scorner, critic, metaphysician, fatalist, and sceptic.

We have already related by what means, and upon what occasion, Dr. Berkeley had first the honour of being known to queen Caroline. This princess delighted much in attending to philosophical conversations between learned