Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 04.djvu/363

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Berkeley
359
Berkeley

orders, that the conflict between the Leopard and Chesapeake took place, 22 June 1807, on account of some deserters from the English service, who had been received on board the American frigate (Marshall, iv. (vol. ii. pt. ii.) 892-7). The case led to a long diplomatic correspondence, and was one of the first causes of the war which broke out five years later; but Berkeley's conduct in the affair seems to have been strictly in accordance with rule and precedent, though at variance with the more modern phase of international law. In December 1808 he was appointed to the chief command on the coast of Portugal and in the Tagus, which he held till May 1812. On 31 July 1810 he was advanced to the rank of admiral, and in acknowledgment of his services to Portugal he was nominated lord high admiral of that kingdom. After his return to England in 1812 he retired altogether from active, and indeed from public life; for up to that time from 1781 he had represented the city of Gloucester in parliament, and had been a warm and persistent supporter of Pitt, and an uncompromising opponent of the Addington ministry. He was made a G.C.B. in 1814, and died 25 Feb. 1818. He married, in 1784, Emily Charlotte, daughter of Lord George Lennox, and sister of the Duke of Richmond, by whom he left five children.

[Naval Chronicle, xii. 89 (with a portrait); Gent. Mag. (1818), lxxxviii. i. 370.]

J. K. L.


BERKELEY, GEORGE MONCK (1763–1793), miscellaneous writer, son of the Rev. George Berkeley, prebendary of Canterbury, and grandson of Bishop Berkeley, was born on 8 Feb. 1763 at Bray in Berkshire. After receiving some elementary instruction at the King's School, Canterbury, he was sent, at the age of twelve, to Eton. His mother [see Berkeley, Eliza], who, in 1797, after his death, published his 'Poems' for private circulation, tells us that he was exceedingly self-willed. He was endowed with a singularly unselfish disposition, and his precocity was such that he began to publish before he had left Eton. At the age of sixteen his father took him from Eton, and was his tutor for two years, after which he sent him to the university of St. Andrews, where he remained for three years and a half. He was elected at the age of nineteen a corresponding member of the Edinburgh Society of Antiquaries.

On leaving St. Andrews he became a fellow-commoner of Magdalen Hall, Oxford, and afterwards he was admitted a student of the Inner Temple. In 1787 he published 'Nina' (a comedy in two acts), which his mother declares that he translated from the French in six hours. His next dramatic attempt, 'Love and Nature,' a musical piece in one act, performed at Dublin theatre in 1789, and published in 1797, was founded on Prior's 'Emma and Henry' (a modernisation of the 'Nut Brown Maid'); it is written in stiff blank verse. In 1789 appeared his 'Literary Relics,' a book of considerable interest and value, containing much original matter. The contents are: (1) An Inquiry into the Life of Dean Swift; (2) Original Letters of Charles II, James II, and the Queen of Bohemia; (3) Correspondence of Swift; (4) Eighty-six Letters of Bishop Berkeley, chiefly addressed to Thomas Prior; (5) Letters of Congreve, Addison, and Steele. Southey, in 'Omniana' (i. 251), says that George Monck Berkeley, had he lived, would have published the manuscript journal of his grandfather's Travels in Italy.' In 1789 Berkeley visited Ireland, and was made LL.B. of Dublin University. While he was staying in Dublin he sought out Richard Brenan (the servant who attended Swift in his last moments), and settled on him a small pension. Falling into weak health he went for the benefit of the sea breezes to Dover. Afterwards he removed to Cheltenham, where he died on 26 Jan. 1793. His mother tells us that he had intended to write a work in defence of the Christian religion. The poems edited by his mother are of very slight interest.

[Poems, with a preface by his mother, 1797; Biographia Dramatica, ed. 1812, i. 35; Gent. Mag. lxvii. 403; Nichols's Literary Illustrations, vi. 698; Bishop Berkeley's Works, ed. Fraser, iv. 356, 359.]

A. H. B.


BERKELEY, GILBERT (1501–1581), bishop of Bath and Wells, is said to have been a member of the noble family of Berkeley, whose armorial bearings he used (Wood, Athenae Oxon. ii. 806; Britton, Hist. Wells Cath. p. 113). No certain information, however, exists as to his genealogy (Cassan, ii. 1). Wood and Strype (Parker, i. 128) say that he was a Lincolnshire man by birth; Fuller, probably incorrectly, that he belonged to Norfolk (Worthies, ii. 126). He appears to have taken the degree of B.D. at Oxford about 1539 (Wood). He accepted the doctrines of the Reformation, and during the reign of Mary was in exile at Frankfort. No notice exists of his having held any ecclesiastical preferment before his consecration. After the deprivation of Bourne, bishop of Bath and Wells, license of election was granted 11 Jan. 1560. Berkeley was elected to the see 29 Jan., the royal assent was given 20 March, he was consecrated at Lambeth 24 March, and received the temporalities 10 July (Le Neve; Rymer, Foedera,