He sailed from Boston in October or November 1731: at any rate, he re-appeared in London in 1732. "Thus ended the romantic episode of Rhode Island, which warms the heart and touches the imagination more, perhaps, than any event in Berkeley's life. Of all who have ever landed on the American shore, none were animated by a purer and more self-sacrificing spirit. It is for this, more than for his speculative thought, that he is now remembered in New England. The cosmopolitan Berkeley has left curiously few local impressions at any of the places where he lived, perhaps more in Rhode Island than anywhere else. The island still acknowledges that, by his visit, it has been touched with the halo of a great and sacred reputation." At no period of his life did he contribute more copiously to literature than during the two years following his return. The largest of his works, Alciphron, appeared in March 1732, and engaged popular attention sooner than any of its predecessors. For a time he resided in London; his letters to his friend Prior in 1733, evince an inclination towards Dublin—indeed, at one time Prior appears to have engaged a house on Arbour-hill for him. In January 1734 Berkeley was appointed Bishop of Cloyne, and in May he was consecrated in St. Paul's Church, Dublin. Shortly afterwards, with his wife and two infant boys, he set out for the diocese where he was to spend the next eighteen years of his career. His retired life at Cloyne appears to have been, on the whole, sedentary, while he conscientiously discharged the affairs of his diocese, and occasionally occupied his seat in the House of Lords in Dublin. The social condition of Ireland attracted much of his attention, as may be judged from his admirable Querist. "After the lapse of nearly a century and a-half, the student of society and the statesman may here find maxims which legislation has not yet outgrown. It is only now that we are fairly resolving, 'whether a scheme for the welfare of the Irish nation should not take in the whole inhabitants; and whether it be not a vain attempt to project the flourishing of our Protestant gentry, exclusive of the bulk of the natives.'" His benevolence to the poor in the dark days of famine and disease, then so prevalent, was boundless. In 1744 he came prominently forward as an advocate of tar-water as a universal specific. He published a tract on the subject, and set up an apparatus in his palace for its manufacture. "He satisfied himself that tar contained an extraordinary proportion of the vital element of the universe; and that water was the menstruum by which this element might be drawn off, and conveyed into vegetable and animal organisms. … He exulted in the view of a discovery by which the physical maladies of this mortal life might all be mitigated, if not subdued." He even published a poem in praise of his panacea. His efforts to restrain his fellow-countrymen from joining in the Scottish insurrection in 1745, recommended him for further advancement; and through the influence of Lord Chesterfield the primacy, on falling vacant, was offered to him. However, he resolutely declined to accept the office, saying that he had all he desired, and that further emoluments could not bring him increased happiness: "For my part," he says, "I could not see (all things considered) the glory of wearing the name of primate in these days, or of getting so much money; a thing every tradesman in London may get if he pleases. I should not choose to be Primate in pity to my children; and for doing good to the world, imagine I may upon the whole do as much in a lower station." Devotion to the happiness and elevation of his children was, in truth, one of his guiding motives. An Italian music master lived in the house, and the concerts given in the palace during the winters were a delight to the whole neighbourhood. In 1752 he decided to resign his bishopric, and indulge a long-cherished desire of spending his latter years in retirement at Oxford, not alone to enjoy the many social and literary advantages of a university town, but to reside near his son George, who matriculated in Christ Church in June of that year. Accordingly, he wrote to the Secretary-of-State, offering to resign his bishopric absolutely. This singular proposal excited the curiosity of King George II; who, upon learning by whom it was made, declared that Berkeley should die a bishop in spite of himself; but that he might live where he pleased. He removed to Oxford in August 1752, the passage to England being so exhausting that he was obliged to be carried in a horse litter from Bristol. According to tradition his new abode was in Holywell-street, near the cloisters of Magdalen. He did not long enjoy the change. "On the evening of Sunday, the 14th of January 1753," writes his biographer, "Berkeley was resting on a couch, in his house in Holy well-street, surrounded by his family. His wife had been reading aloud to the little family party the lesson in the Burial Service, taken from the 15th chapter of the First Epistle to the Corinthians, and he had been making remarks upon that sublime
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