BERKELEY, George, the celebrated bishop of Cloyne, was the eldest son of William Berkeley, Esq. of Thomas-town, in the county of Kilkenny, a cadet of the family of Earl Berkeley of Berkeley Castle. At eight years of age he was sent to the school of the Ormond foundation at Kilkenny, from which Swift had a few years before been removed to the university. Before Berkeley had attained his fourteenth year he was admitted a pensioner in Trinity College, Dublin, in which, whilst bachelor of arts, he obtained a fellowship. Some of his first essays as a writer were published in the Spectator and Guardian, which entertaining works he adorned with many pieces in favour of virtue and religion. His learning and his virtues, his wit and agreeable conversation, made his friendship sought and his acquaintance cultivated by many great and learned men; and amongst others by the Earl of Peterborough, Dr Swift, Dr Arbuthnot, Mr Pope, and Mr Addison. The earl took him as chaplain and secretary of legation into Italy; and during his absence on that occasion he became senior fellow of his college, and was in 1717 created D. D. by diploma.

Upon his return, his acquaintance among the great was considerably extended; and Lord Burlington, who at Rome had conceived a high esteem for him on account of his skill in architecture, obtained for him, through the Duke of Grafton, then (1721) lord-lieutenant of Ireland, the king’s grant of the deanery of Down, worth L.2000 per annum. Such, however, was the narrow system of politics at that time prevalent in the Irish cabinet, that though his majesty had actually signed the grant, the lords justices recommended bach for this preferment Swift’s Dean Daniel, celebrated for having in a state sermon styled Pompey an unfortunate gentleman ;” and such was Dr Berkeley s humility and mildness of temper, that he could not be prevailed upon to dispute the matter, or even to expostulate on. the subject. His patron Lord Burlington procured for him afterwards (1724) the deanery of Derry, the next best in Ireland to that of Down; and upon this preferment the doctor resigned his fellowship.

In the year 1722 his fortune received a considerable increase from an event by him very unexpected. Upon his first going to London (1717), he sent one morning a note to Swift, desiring that they might dine together that day at a tavern. The dean of St Patrick’s returned for answer, that they might enjoy each other’s company at their ease where he was himself engaged to dine, with the family of Mrs Esther Vanhomrigh, the celebrated Vanessa"· and thither accordingly he took Mr Berkeley. Some years before her death this lady removed to Ireland, and fixed her residence at Cell-bridge, a pleasant village in the neighbourhood of Dublin, most probably with the view of frequently enjoying the company of a man for whom she had conceived a very singular attachment. But finding herself totally disappointed in that expectation, she altered her intention of making the dean of St Patrick’s her heir, and left the whole of her fortune, about L.8000, to be divided equally between her near relation Judge Marshal of the Common Pleas in Ireland, and Dr Berkeley, whom she had never seen but once in her life, and that at the distance of nine years.

In the interval between Dr Berkeley’s return from abroad and his preferment to the deanery of Derry, his mind had been employed in conceiving a noble and benevolent plan for the better supplying of the churches in our foreign plantations, and for converting the savage Americans to Christianity, by erecting a college in the Bermudas. To this proposal the address and abilities of its author procured, after a tedious attendance on the great, an apparently successful reception; for he obtained a charter for its foundation, together with a parliamentary grant of L.20,000 for carrying it into execution, to which were added several large subscriptions from individuals, to be paid as soon as the public bounty should be received. Upon the faith of this our philosopher embarked for America; where he became so generally and so justly venerated by all descriptions of men, that they vied with one another who should most honour him. The queen, with whom he was a favourite, had endeavoured to dissuade him from this enterprise, by offering him her interest for an English bishopric; but he 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 L.100 per annum, and was bound by his charter to resign his deanery, then worth L.1100 per annum, within a year and a half after the L.20,000 should be paid by government. But that sum was never paid; and after two years’ residence on Rhode Island and its neighbouring continent, during which time every interest of piety and virtue was near his heart and cultivated by his labours, the dean was obliged to return to Europe, and abandon one of the noblest designs that had ever entered into the human heart to form.

In August 1728, immediately before his departure for America, he entered into marriage with Anne, the eldest daughter of the Right Honourable John Forster, speaker of the Irish house of commons; this lady died in 1785. In May 1734 he was consecrated bishop of Cloyne, and vacated his deanery. On that occasion he said to his few intimates, “I will never accept of a translation.” At Cloyne he distinguished himself by pastoral vigilance, prelatical hospitality, and constant residence. Throughout the whole of his clerical life he was, while his health permitted, a constant and an extemporaneous preacher; nor is it known that he ever reduced a single sermon to writing, except one preached before the society for propagating the gospeI in foreign parts, which at their request was published. He endeared himself to the people of his diocese by promoting at once their temporal and their spiritual happiness. He endeavoured by all means to raise a spirit of industry, and to encourage the improvement[7:4:585] of agriculture in that neglected country; and it may be truly said, that never man laboured more earnestly to amass a fortune or to aggrandize a family, than he did to promote the best interests of mankind, considered either as citizens of earth or as candidates for heaven.

The earl of Chesterfield, who had never seen him but once, and that when they were both young men, on being made lord-lieutenant of Ireland, sent to him a most respectful offer of the then vacant see of Clogher, which was more than double the value of that of Cloyne; promising at the same time his recommendation to any other richer see that might be vacated during his administration. But the good bishop declined the generous offer, requesting the lordlieutenant not to think of him on any other vacancy, as he was resolved never to quit his first bishopric for any other. In 1751, finding the infirmities of age come upon him, and wishing to retire from the care of his diocese to superintend the education of his son, then nominated a student of Christ Church, that the revenues of the church might not be misapplied, nor the interests of religion suffer by the absence of the pastor from his flock, fie made great interest for leave to resign his bishopric, of which the income was then not less than L.1700 per annum. Failing of success in this application, he let the lands of his demesne at Cloyne on very easy terms, at the rent of L.200, which he directed to be distributed annually among the poor house-keepers of Cloyne, Youghall, and Aghadda, until his return.

At Oxford he lived highly respected by the learned members of that great university, till the hand of Providence unexpectedly deprived them of the pleasure and advantage derived from his residence among them. On Sunday evening, the 14th January 1753, as he was sitting in the midst of his family, and just after he had concluded an extemporaneous comment on the 15th chapter of first Corinthians, he was instantly translated, without a groan, from earth to heaven. A polypus in the heart was the cause of his dissolution. About a minute before his death he had seated himself on a couch and turned his face towards the wall; and had he not ceased speaking in the middle of a sentence, his lady and his son would not immediately have discovered their loss. His remains were with much funeral solemnity interred at Christ Church, his friend Bishop Conybeare, then dean of that cathedral, performing the last service. An elegant marble monument, with a spirited inscription by the archbishop of York, marks the spot where his ashes rest. As to his person, he was of the tall middle size; his countenance was very handsome, and full of meaning and benignity; and his bodily strength was uncommonly great, even to the last year of his life; but he was subject to grievous nervous colics, in which he thought tar-water gave him more efficacious relief than any other medicine. Mr Pope sums up his character in one line. After mentioning some particular virtues which characterized other prelates then liv-mg, he ascribes “to Berkeley every virtue under heaven.” The following anecdote will serve to convey an impression both of his talents and character. Bishop Atterbury, having heard much of Mr Berkeley, wished to see him. Accordingly he was one day introduced to that prelate by the Earl of Berkeley. After some time, Mr Berkeley quitted the room; on which Lord Berkeley said to the bishop, “Does my cousin answer your lordship’s expectations?” The bishop, lifting up his hands in astonishment, r θplied, “So much understanding, so much knowledge, so much innocence, and such humility, I did not think bad been the portion of any but angels, till I saw this gentle- n 1 * an ∙ . His knowledge is said to have extended even to the minutest objects, and included the arts and business 0 c °mmon life. Thus Dr Blackwell, in his Memoirs of the Court of Augustus, having made an observation, “that the ingenious mechanics, the workers in stone and metal, and improvers in trade, agriculture, and navigation, ought to be searched out and conversed with no less than the professors of speculative science,” adds the following eulogium on our prelate: “In this respect I would with pleasure do justice to the memory of a very great though singular sort of a man, Dr Berkeley, better known as a philosopher and intended founder of an university in the Bermudas or Summer Islands, than as bishop of Cloyne in Ireland. 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 grudged neither pains nor expense for the means of information. He travelled through a great part of Sicily on foot; clambered over the mountains and crept into the caverns, to investigate its natural history, and discover the cause of its volcanoes: and I have known him sit for hours in forgeries and founderies to inspect their successive operations. I enter not into his peculiarities, either religious or personal; but admire the extensive genius of the man, and think it a loss to the western world that his noble and exalted plan of an American university was not carried into execution. Many such spirits in our country would quickly make learning wear another face.”

He published many ingenious works, particularly An Essay towards a new Theory of Vision; The Principles of Human Knowledge, the singular notions in ½+ich gave rise to much controversy; Alciphron, or the Minute Philosopher, one of the most elegant and learned defences of that religion which he was born to vindicate both by his virtues and his ingenuity; The 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; The Querist, in which the true interests of Ireland are pointed out in a very striking light; and Siris, or a Treatise on Tar-Water, which, under his sanction, became for a while a very popular medicine. In the Gentleman’s Magazine for January 1777, it is said that the Adventures of Signior Gaudentio di Lucca have been generally attributed to Bishop Berkeley; but it is now understood that they were not the offspring of his pen. The bishop never saw the work till it was put into his hands by his son; and when he read it, he expressed no small contempt for the style of a writer who describes his hero as a “tall, clean-made gentleman ;” though he owned his fancy to be often brilliant. The adventures of Gaudentio di Lucca are believed to have been written by a Romish priest, for his amusement, when a prisoner in the Tower of London.

Of Berkeley’s metaphysical notions, or of that idealism which he propounded with the view of rooting out infidelity, and which Mr Hume afterwards employed to destroy all belief, it is unnecessary to say thing in this place, as the subject has been treated with surpassing ability, eloquence, and ingenuity, in the first Dissertation prefixed to this work, to which, accordingly, the reader is referred.

Berkeley, a market-town of the hundred of Berkeley, in the county of Gloucester, 113 miles from London, on the river Little Avon, in one of the richest dairy districts of England. It gives title to the ancient family of this name, whose magnificent castle here has been long celebrated in English history. The inhabitants amounted in 1801 to 658, in 1811 to 716, and in 1821 to 836.