DR. GEORGE BERKELEY, the learned and most ingenious Bishop of Cloyne, in Ireland, was born in that kingdom, at Kilcrin, near Thomastown, the 12th of March, 1684 He was the son of William Berkeley, of Thomastown, in the county of Kilkenny; whose father, the family having suffered for their loyalty to Charles I. went over to Ireland after the restoration, and there obtained the collectorship of Belfast. George had the first part of his education at Kilkenny school; was admitted pensioner of Trinity college, Dublin, at the age of fifteen, under Dr. Histon; and chosen fellow of that college June the 9th, 1707, and placed under the tuition of Dr. Hall. The first public proof he gave of his literary abilities was, Arithmetica absque Algebra aut Euclide demonstrata; which, from the preface, he appears to have written before he was twenty years old, though he did not publish it till 1707. It is dedicated to Mr. Palliser, son of the archbishop of Cashel; and is followed by a mathematical miscellany, containing observations and theorems inscribed to his pupil Mr. Samuel Molineux, whose father was the friend and correspondent of Locke.

In 1709, came forth the Theory of Vision, which, of all his works, seeins to do the greatest honour to his sagacity; being, as a certain writer observes, the first attempt that ever was made to distinguish the immediate and natural objects of sight, from the conclusions we have been accustomed from infancy to draw from them. The • Reid's Inquiry into the Mind, chap. vi.

the ideas of sight and touch; and it is shown, that, though habit has so connected these two classes of ideas in our minds, that they are not without a strong effort to be separated from each other, yet originally they have no such connexion, insomuch, that a person born blind, and suddenly made to see, would at first be utterly unable to tell how any object that affected his sight would affect his touch; and particularly would not from sight receive any idea of distance, outness, or external space, but would imagine all objects to be in his eye, or rather in his mind. This was surprisingly confirmed in the case of a young man born blind, and couched at fourteen years of age by Mr. Cheselden, in 1728. A vindication of the Theory of Vision was published by him in 1733.

In 1710 appeared The Principals of Human Knowledge; and, in 1713, Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous: the object of both which pieces is, to prove that the commonly received notion of the existence of matter is false; that sensible material objects, as they are called, are not external to the mind, but exist in it, and are nothing more than impressions made upon it by the immediate act of God, according to certain rules, termed laws of nature, from which, in the ordinary course of his government, he never deviates; and that the steady adherence of the Supreme Spirit to these rules is what constitutes the reality of things to his creatures. These works are declared to have been written in opposition to sceptics and atheists and herein is inquired into the chief cause of error and difficulty in the sciences, with the grounds of scepticism, atheism, and irreligion: which

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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, is led to combat and explode the doctrine maintained by Locke and others, of there being a power in the mind of abstracting general ideas. Mr. Hume, having regard to these writings of the very ingenious author, as he calls him, says, that they "form the best lessons of scepticism which are to be found either among the ancient or modern philosophers, Bayle not excepted." He professes, however, in his title page, and undoubtedly with great truth, to have composed his books against the sceptics, as well as against the atheists and freethinkers: but that all his arguments, though otherwise intended, are, in reality, merely sceptical, appears from this, that they admit of no answer, and produce no conviction. Their only effect is, to cause that momentary amazement and irresolution and confusion which is the result of scepticism. It may just be observed, that Berkeley had not reached his 27th year when he published this singular system.

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 Charlotte, 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 for

mer he wrote several papers in the Guardian, and at his house became acquainted with Pope, with whom he always lived in friendship. 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. Poor 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.

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His hopes of preferment expiring with the fall of queen Anne's ministry, he some time after embraced an offer, made him by Ashe, bishop of Clogher, of accompanying his son in a tour through Europe. In this he 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. Friend,) 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; and what an injury the literary world has sustained by this mischance, may be collected from the specimen of his talents for this sort of work, 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. 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 miscellanecus 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. November this year, he accumulated the degrees of bachelor and doctor of divinity. 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 8000 l. between her two executors, of whom Berkeley was one. May 18, 1724, he was promoted to the deanery of Derry, worth 1100 l. per annum.

In 1725, he published, and it has since been reprinted in his miscellanecus tracts, "A proposal for convert ing 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 it is really surprising to consider how far he carried it. He offered to resign all his preferment, and to dedicate the remainder of his life to instructing the American youth, on a stipend of 100 l. yearly: he prevailed with three junior fellows of Trinity college, Dublin, to give up all their prospects of preferment at home, and to exchange their fellowship for a settlement in the Atlantic Ocean at 40 l. 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 10 l. a year each: he obtained a grant from the commons of a sum, to be determined by the king; and accordingly 10,000 l. was promised by the minister, for the purchase of lands, and erecting the college. 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 Sep

tember following for Rhode-Island, which lay nearest to Bermuda, taking with him his wife, a single lady, and two gentlemen of fortune. Was not this going a great way, and was not here a full prospect of success? 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 returned into another channel.

In 1732, he published The Minute Philosopher, in two volumes 8vo. This masterly work is written in a series of dialogues, on the model of Plato, a philosopher he is said to have been very fond of; and in it he pursues the freethinker through the various characters of atheist, libertine, enthusiast, scorner, critic, metaphysician, fatalist, and sceptic. The same year he printed a sermon, preached before the society for propagating the gospel in foreign parts. In 1733, he was made Bishop of Cloyne, and might have been removed in 1745, by lord Chesterfield, to Clogher, but declined it. He resided constantly at Cloyne, where he faithfully discharged all the offices of a good Bishop, yet continued his studies with unabated attention.

About this time he engaged in a controversy with the mathematicians, which made a good deal of noise in the literary world; and the occasion of it is said to have been this: Mr. Addison had given the Bishop an account of their common friend Dr. Garth's behaviour in his last illness, which was equally unpleasing to both these advocates of revealed religion. For, when Addison went to see the doctor, and began to discourse with him seriously about another world, "Surely, Addison," replied he, "I have good reason not to believe those trifles, since my friend Dr. Halley, who has dealt so much in demonstration, has assured me, that the doctrines of Christianity are incomprehensible, and the religion itself an imposture." The Bishop, therefore, addressed to him, as to an infidel mathematician, a discourse called the

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Analyst; with a view of showing, that mysteries in faith were unjustly objected to by mathematicians, who ad mitted much greater mysteries, and even falsehoods in science, of which he endeavoured to prove, that the doctrine of fluxions furnished a clear example. This attack gave occasion to Maclaurin's treatise, and other smaller works, upon the subject of fluxions; but the direct answers to the Analyst were set forth by a person under the name of Philalethes Cantabrigiensis, but generally supposed to be Dr. Jurin, who published a piece, entituled, Geometry no friend to infidelity, 1734. To this the Bishop replied in A defence of freethinking in mathematics, 1735; which drew a second answer the same year from Philalethes, styled, The minute mathematician, or the freethinker no just thinker. And here the controversy ended.

But the Bishop, ever active and attentive to the public good, was continually sending forth something or other: in 1735, the Querist; in 1736, A discourse addressed to magistrates, occasioned by the enormous licence and irreligion of the times; and many other things afterwards of a smaller kind. In 1744, came forth his celebrated and curious book, entituled, Siris; a chain of philosophical reflections and inquiries concerning the virtues of Tar Water: a work which, he has been heard to declare, cost him more time and pains than any an other he had ever been engaged in. It underwent a second impression, with additions and emendations, in 1747; and was followed by "Farther Thoughts on Tar Water," in 1752. In July, the same year, he removed with his lady and family to Oxford, partly to superintend the education of a son, but chiefly to indulge the passion for learned retirement, which had ever strongly possessed him, and was one of his motives to form the Bermuda project. He would have resigned his bishoprick for a canonry or headship at Oxford; but it was not permitted him.. At Oxford he lived highly respected, and collected and printed the same year all his smaller pieces in octavo; but he did not live long; for, on Sun

day evening, Jan. 14, 1753, as he was in the midst of his family, listening to a sermon which his lady was reading to him, he was seized with what was called a palsey in the heart, and instantly expired. The accident was so sudden, that his body was cold, and his joints stiff, before it was discovered; as he lay upon a couch, and seemed to be asleep, till his daughter, on presenting him with a dish of tea, first perceived his insensibility. His remains were interred at Christ church, Oxford, and there is an elegant marble monument over him, with an inscription by Dr. Markham, then dean.

As to his person, he was handsome, with a countenance full of meaning and kindness, remarkable for great strength of limbs; and, till his sedentary life impaired it, of a very robust constitution. He was, however, often troubled with the hypochondria, and latterly with a nervous colic, from which however he was greatly relieved by the virtues of tar-water. At Cloyne he constantly rose between three and four o'clock in the morning, and summoned his family to a lesson on the base viol, from an Italian master he kept in the house for the instruction of his children; though he himself had no ear for music. He spent the rest of the morning, and often a great part of the day, in study; and Plato, from whom many of his notions were borrowed, was his favourite author. The excellence of his moral character is conspicuous in his writings: he was certainly a very amiable as well as very great man; and Pope is scarcely thought to have said too much, when he ascribes

To Berkeley every virtue under heaven.

General Introduction to the FAMILY BIBLE now publishing in this city by T. & J. Swords.

(Continued from p. 275, and concluded.) The passages in brackets are added to this edition.

In the conference held at Hampton Court, in 1603, before King James the First, between the Episcopalians and Puritans, Dr. Reynolds, the speaker of the Puritans, requested his Majesty that a new translation of the

Bible might be made, alleging that those which had been allowed in former reigns were incorrect. AccordingJy, his Majesty formed the resolution of causing a new and more faithful translation to be made, and commissioned for that purpose fifty-four of the most learned men in the Universities and other places. At the same time, he required the bishops to inform themselves of all learned men within their several diocesses, who had acquired especial skill in the Hebrew and Greek tongues, and had taken pains in their private studies of the Scriptures, for the clearing up of obscurities either in the Hebrew or the Greek, or for the correction of any mistakes in the former English translations, and to charge them to communicate their observations to the persons employed, that so the intended translation might have the help and furtherance of all the principal learned men in the kingdom.

Before the work was begun, seven of the persons nominated for it either were dead or declined to engage in the task. The remaining forty-seven were ranged under six divisions, and several parcels of the Bible were assigned to them, according to the several places where they were to meet, confer, and consult together. Every one of the company was to translate the whole parcel; then they were each to compare their translations together, and when any company had finished their part, they were to communicate it to the other companies, that so nothing might pass without general consent. If any company, upon the review of the book so sent, doubted or differed upon any place, they were to note the place, and send back the reasons for their disagreement. If they happened to differ about the amendments, the difference was to be referred to a general committee, consisting of the chief persons of each company, at the end of the work. When any passage was found remarkably obscure, letters were to be directed by authority to any learned persons in the land for their judgment thereupon.

The names of the persons, and

places where they met, together with the portions of Scripture assigned to each company, were as follows:

1st. Dr. Lancelot Andrewes, first Fellow, then Master of Pembroke Hall, in Cambridge, at this time Dean of Westminster, afterwards Bishop of Ely, then of Winchester. 2d. Dr. John Overall, Fellow of Trinity College, Master of Catharine Hall, in Cambridge, at this time Dean of St. Paul's, afterwards Bishop, first of Coventry and Litchfield, then of Norwich. 3d. Dr. Adrian Saravia, a native of Artois, who cast himself upon the protection of the Church of England, and was preferred to Prebends of Canterbury and Westminster. 4th. Dr. Layfield, Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, Rector of St. Clement's Danes; as he was skilled in architecture, his judgment was much relied upon for the fabric of the tabernacle and temple. 5th. Dr. Clark, Fellow of Christ College, in Cambridge, Preacher in Canterbury. 6th. Dr. Leigh, Archdeacon of Middlesex, Rector of Allhallows, Barking. 7th. Dr. Burgley. 8th. Mr. King. 9th. Mr. Thomson 10th. Mr. Bedwell, sometime Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge, and Vicar of Tottenham. These ten met at Westminster, and to them were assigned the Pentateuch, and the history from Joshua to the first book of Chronicles exclusively.

2d. To meet at Cambridge, were chosen eight; namely, 1st. Mr. Lively, the King's Hebrew Reader in Cambridge. 2d. Mr. John Richardson, Fellow of Emanuel College, afterwards Doctor in Divinity, Master, first of Peterhouse, then of Trinity College. 3d. Mr. Chadderton, afterwards Doctor in Divinity, first Fellow of Christ College, then Master of Emanuel College. 4th. Mr. Dillingham, Fellow of Christ College. 5th. Mr Andrews, afterwards Doctor of Divinity, and Master of Jesus College. 6th. Mr. Harrison, Vice-master of Trinity College. 7th. Mr. Spalding, Fellow of St. John's, and Hebrew Reader in that College. 8th. Mr. Bing, Fellow of Peterhouse, and Hebrew Reader therein. To these were