I know not where to direct to him, but thought you might hear of him once a week. Your friend Ford keeps still in Ireland, and passes the summer at his country house with two sober ladies of his and my acquaintance. If there be time after my being at Clonfert, I will call at Loughgall; though I wish you would come to the bishop's, if Mrs. Cope will give you leave. It seems they are resolved to find out plots here when the parliament meets, in imitation of England; and the chief justice and postmaster are gone on purpose to bring them over, and they will raise fifty thousand pounds on the papists here. The bishop of Meath[1] says, "The bishop of Rochester was always a silly fellow."
I wish you many merry meetings with Tisdell. The graziers will be ruined this year. Praised be God for all things! Bermudas[2] goes low. The
- ↑ Dr. John Evans; whose urbanity may be estimated from his conduct to Dr. Swift in 1721.
- ↑ Alluding to Dr. Berkeley's project of founding a university at Bermudas. This excellent divine, by Dr. Swift's recommendation, went to Sicily with lord Peterborow, as secretary and chaplain. His letters to Mr. Pope from Leghorn and Naples (see that poet's works) make us regret that there are only three of them. One letter to him from Mr. Pope is in Mr. Duncombe's collection. — During Dr. Berkeley's absence, Trinity College, Dublin, of which he was then one of the senior fellows, created him, in 1717, D. D. by diploma. He returned to Ireland in 1718, and in 1721 was advanced to the deanery of Derry; where he was no sooner settled than he formed the benevolent plan which he published, in 1725, under the title of, "A Proposal for the better supplying of Churches in our Foreign Plantations, and for converting the Savage Americans to Christianity, by a College to be erected in the Summer Islands, otherwise called the Isles of Bermuda." Having obtained a royal charter, dean Berkeley set sail for Rhode Island in September 1728. But, not finding himself supported in
