Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 04.djvu/355

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Berkeley
351
Berkeley

reply so confounded them that they all rose exclaiming 'Let us set out with him immediately !' Berkeley was introduced to the king hy a distinguished Venetian, the Abbé Gualtieri (Stock), and obtained a charter for the proposed college, the patent for which ; passed the seals in June 1725. Berkeley was named as the first president, and three junior fellows of Trinity (William Rogers, Jonathan Thompson, and James King) were to be fellows of the new body, ultimately to consist of a president and nine fellows. They were to hold their preferments till eighteen months after their arrival at Bermuda. Berkeley obtained promises of subscript ions to the amount of 5,000l., including 200l. from Sir R. Walpole. He discovered that certain lands in the island of St. Christopher, ceded to England by the treaty of Utrecht, might be sold at an enhanced price, and asked for a grant of 20,000l. from this sum towards his college. A vote was obtained from the House of Commons, after an active canvass by Berkeley, recommending this grant to the King. Only two members, or, according to Mrs. Berkeley (Biog, Brit.) only one, Admiral Vernon, disented. This success, however, was only the prelude to long and tiresome delays. The death of George I in 1727 threw him back, but a new warrant for his grant was signed by George II. Queen Caroline showed her favour by inviting him twice a week to her parties, where he endured useless debates, as he felt them to be, with Hoadly, Clarke, and Sherlock, for the sake of his college (Mrs. Berkeley and Monck Berkeley's Literary Relics). The general esteem for his character did not lead to the payment of the promised grant ; and at last, feeling himself to be in a false position, and fearing lest the seriousness of his design would be doubted, he resolved to sail for America (Fraser, Berkeley, p. 123). On 1 Aug. 1728 he married Anne, daughter of John Forster, who had been chief justice of the common pleas in Ireland. She was a woman of congenial disposition and disposed to the mysticism of Mme. Guyon and Fénelon. She had a fortune of about 1,500l. He sailed from Greenwich on 4 Sept. 1728, and landed at Newport, R.I., in the following January. Berkeley remained in America till the autumn of 1731. He bought a farm of ninety-six acres and built a small house, still standing, which he called Whitehall. Here he read and meditated ; a projecting rock near the sea is shown as the place where he wrote much of 'Alciphron,' and a chair in which he sat in the ' natural alcove ' is still preserved. The descriptions of scenery in ' Alciphron ' clearly represent his impressions. Berkeley saw something of the intelligent and educated colonists; he helped to found a philosophical society at Newport ; meetings of episcopal clergy were held at his house ; he made some short excursions to the mainland ; he preached sermons, which were attended by men of all persuasions, and enforced the duty of general toleration upon his brethren. His first son, Henry, was born here, and christened 1 Sept. 1729 ; and an infant daughter died 5 Sept. 1731. He formed a close friendship with Samuel Johnson, episcopal missionary at Hertford, Connecticut, afterwards president of King's College, New York. Johnson accepted Berkeley's teaching, and letters from Berkeley to him contain some interesting expressions of the teacher's views. It does not appear that he had any personal intercourse with Jonathan Edwards, whose earlv writings contain doctrines similar to his own (Chandler's and Beardssley's Lives of Johnson). Berkeley, it may be remarked, held slaves (Works, iv. 187). Slaves, he says, in his 'Proposal,' would only become better slaves by becoming christian; though he, of course, considered it a duty to make them christian.

Letters from home showed that there was little hope of his ever obtaining the money granted to him. Already in June 1729 his mend. Bishop Benson, tells him there is little chance of it. At last, in 1731, Walpole told Bishop Gibson that if consulted as a minister he should reply that the money should most undoubtedly be paid, as soon as it suited public convenience ; but that, if consulted as a friend, he advised Berkeley by all means not to wait in hopes of his 20,000l. Berkeley hereupon sailed from Boston in the end of 1731, and reached London in February 1732. He showed his continued interest in America bv making over his farm at Whitehall to found scholarships at Yale ; and he made to the same college a present of nearly 1,000 volumes. He also gave books to Harvard, and presented an organ to Trinity church, Newport.

Berkeley stayed in London from his return until the sprint of 1734. His ' Alciphron ' was published in March 1732 ; it became speedily popular, and reached a second edition that year; it was translated into French in 1734, and provoked replies from Mandeville, author of the 'Fable of the Bees,' and from Lord Hervey, in a so-called 'Letter from a Country Clergyman,' besides a more serious attack from Peter Browne, bishop of Cork [q. v.] The 'Analyst,' publish in 1734, led to another controversy with the mathematicians. Stock tells us that Sherlock showed 'Alciphron' to Queen Caroline in