His Theory of Vision was published in 1709, and the Principles of Human Knowledge appeared the year after. The airy visions of romances, to the reading of which he was much addicted, disgust at the books of metaphysics then received in the university, and that inquisitive attention to the operations of the mind which about this time was excited by the writings of Mr. Locke and Father Malebranche, probably gave birth to his disbelief of the existence of matter.*

• When the Principles of Human Knowledge were first published, the ingenious author sent copies of the work to Dr. Clarke and Mr. Whiston. What effect it produced upon the latter, the reader may possibly be entertained with learning from his own words: Memoirs of Dr. Clarke, page 79-81.

"And perhaps it will not be here improper, by way of caution, to take notice of the pernicious consequence such metaphysical subtilties have sometimes bad, even against common sense and common experience, as in the cases of those three famous men, Mons. Leibnitz, Mr. Locke, and Mr. Berkeley. [The first in his pre-established Harmony: the second in the dispute with Limborch about Human Liberty.]—And as to the third named, Mr. Berkeley, he published, A. D. 1710, at Dublin, this metaphysic notion, that matter was not a real thing; nay, that the common opinion of its reality was groundless, if not ridiculous. He was pleased to send Dr. Clarke and myself, each of us, a book. After we had both perused it, I went to Dr. Clarke, and discoursed with him about it to this effect; that I, being not a metaphysician, was not able to answer Mr. Berkeley's subtile premises, though I did not at all believe his absurd conclusion. I therefore desired that he, who was deep in such subtilties, but did not appear to believe Mr. Berkeley's conclusions, would answer him: which task he declined. I speak not these things with intention to reproach either Mr. Locke or Dean Berkeley.—I own the latter's great abilities in other parts of learning; and to his noble design of settling a college in or near the West Indies, for the instruction of the natives in civil arts, and in the principles of Christianity, I heartily wish all possible success. It is the pretended metaphysic science itself, derived from the sceptical disputes of the Greek philosophers, not those particular great men who have been unhappily imposed on by it, that I complain of. Accordingly when the famous Milton had a mind to represent the vain reasonings of wicked spirits in Hades, he described it by their endless train of metaphysics, thus:

"Others apart sat on a hill retired,' &c.”

Par. Lost, ii. 557-561.

Many years after this, at Mr. Addison's instance, there was a meeting of Drs. Clarke and Berkeley to discuss this speculative point; and great hopes were entertained from the conference. The parties, however, separated without being able to come to any agreement. Dr. B. declared himse ot well satisfied with the conduct of his antagonist on the occasion, no, though he could not answer, had not candour enough to own

In 1712, the principles inculcated in Mr. Locke's Two Treatises of Government seem to have turned his attention to the doctrine of passive obedience; in support of which he printed the substance of three Common-places delivered by him that year in the college chapel, a work which afterwards had nearly done him some injury in his fortune. For, being presented by Mr. Molyneaux abovementioned to their late Majesties, then Prince and Princess of Wales (whose secretary Mr. Molyneaux had been at Hanover), he was by them recommended to Lord Galway for some preferment in the church of Ireland. But Lord Galway, having heard of those sermons, represented him as a Jacobite; an impression which Mr. Molyneaux, as soon as he was apprised of it, took care to remove from the minds of their Highnesses by producing the work in question, and shewing that it contained nothing but principles of loyalty to the present happy establishment. This was the first occasion of our Author's being known to Queen Caroline.

In February 1713, he crossed the water, and published in London a further defence of his celebrated system of immaterialism, in Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous. Acuteness of parts and a beautiful imagination were so conspicuous in his writings, that his reputation was now established, and his company was courted, even where his opinions did not find admission. Two gentlemen of opposite principles concurred in introducing him to the acquaintance of the learned and the great; Sir Richard Steele and Dr. Swift. He wrote several papers in the Guardian for the former, and at his house became acquainted with Mr. Pope, with whom he continued to live in strict friendship during his life. Dean Swift, besides Lord Berkeley of Stratton (to whom our author dedicated his last published dialogues between Hylas and Philonous), and other valuable acquaintance, recommended him to the celebrated Earl of Peterborough, who being appointed embassador to the King of Sicily and to the other Italian states, took Mr. Berkeley with him in quality of chaplain and secretary, in November 1713.

At Leghorn, his Lordship's well known activity induced him to disencumber himself of his chaplain and the greatest part of his retinue, whom he left in that town for upwards of three months,

himself convinced. But the complaints of disputants against each other, especially on subjects of this abstruse nature, should be heard with suspicion.

while he discharged the business of his embassy in Sicily, as our author informs his friend Pope in the conclusion of a complimentary letter addressed to that poet on the Rape of the Lock, dated Leghorn, May 1, 1714. It may not be amiss to record a little incident that befel Mr. Berkeley in this city, with the relation of which he used sometimes to make himself merry among his friends. Basil Kennett, the author of the Roman Antiquities, was then chaplain to the English factory at Leghorn, the only place in Italy where the English service is tolerated by the government, which favour had lately been obtained from the Grand Duke at the particular instance of Queen Anne. This gentlemau requested Mr. Berkeley to preach for him one Sunday. The day following, as Berkeley was sitting in his chamber, a procession of priests in surplices, and with all other formalities, entered the room, and without taking the least notice of the wondering inhabitant, marched quite round it, muttering certain prayers. His fears immediately suggested to him, that this could be no other than a visit from the Inquisition, who had heard of his officiating before heretics without licence the day before. As soon as they were gone, he ventured with much caution to inquire into the cause of this extraordinary appearance, and was happy to be informed, that this was the season appointed by the Romish calendar for solemnly blessing the houses of all good catholics from rats and other vermin; a piece of intelligence which changed his terror into mirth.

He returned to England with Lord Peterborough in August 1714; and his hopes of preferment through this channel expiring with the fall of Queen Anne's ministry, he some time after embraced an advantageous offer made him by Dr. St. George Ashe, bishop of Clogher, and late provost of Trinity-college, Dublin, of accompanying his son, Mr. Ashe (who was heir to à very considerable property), in a tour through Europe.

At Paris, having now more leisure than when he first passed through that city, Mr. Berkeley took care to pay his respects

* In August, 1714.] Towards the close of this year he had a fever, in describing the event of which to his friend Swift, Dr. Arbuthnot cannot forbear indulging a little of that pleasantry on Berkeley's system, with which it has frequently since been treated by such as could not, or would. not, be at the pains to acquire a thorough knowledge of it. "October 19, 1714. Poor philosopher Berkeley 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."

to his rival in metaphysical sagacity, the illustrious Pere Malebranche. He found this ingenious father in his cell, cooking in a small pipkiu a medicine for a disorder with which he was then troubled, an inflammation on the lungs. The conversation naturally turned on our author's system, of which the other had received some knowledge from a translation just published. But the issue of this debate proved tragical to poor Malebranche. In the heat of disputation he raised his voice so high, and gave way so freely to the natural impetuosity of a man of parts and a Frenchman, that he brought on himself a violent increase of his disorder, which carried him off a few days after*.

In this second excursion abroad Mr. Berkeley employed upwards of four years; and besides all those places which are usually visited by travellers in what is called the grand tour, his curiosity carried him to some that are less frequented. In particular he travelled over Apulia (from which he wrote an accurate and entertaining account of the tarantula to Dr. Freind), Calabria, and the whole island of Sicily. This last country engaged his attention so strongly, that he had with great industry compiled very considerable materials for a natural history of the island: but, by an unfortunate accident, these, together with a journal of his transactions there, were lost in the passage to Naples; nor could he be prevailed upon afterwards to recollect and commit those curious particulars again to paper. What an injury the literary world has sustained by this mischance, may in part be collected from the specimen he has left of his talent for lively description, in his letter to Mr. Pope concerning the island of Inarime (now Ischia, in the bay of Naples), dated Naples, October 22, 1717; and in another from the same city to Dr. Arbuthnot, giving an account of an eruption of Mount Vesuvius, which he had the good fortune to have more than one opportunity of examining very minutely.

On his way homeward, he drew up at Lyons a curious tract De Motu, which he sent to the Royal Academy of Sciences at Paris, the subject being proposed by that assembly, aud committed it to the press shortly after his arrival in London in 1721. But from these abstruse speculations he was drawn away for a while by the humanity of his temper and concern for the public welfare. It is well known what miseries the nation was plunged into by the fatal South-sea scheme in 1720. Mr. Berkeley felt

* He died October 13, 1715. Dict. hist. portatif. d'Advocat,

for his country and British neighbours groaning under these calamitous distresses, and in that spirit employed his talents in writing An Essay towards preventing the Ruin of Great Britain, printed London 1721.

His travels had now so far improved his natural politeness, and added such charms to his conversation, that he found a ready admission into the best company in London. Among the rest, Mr. Pope introduced him to Lord Burlington, who conceived a high esteem for him on account of his great taste and skill in architecture, an art of which his Lordship was an excellent judge and patron, and which Mr. Berkeley had made his particular study while in Italy. By this nobleman he was recommended to the Duke of Grafton, lord-lieutenant of Ireland, who took him over to Ireland as one of his chaplains in 1721, after he had been absent from his native country more than six years. He had been elected a senior fellow of his college in July 1717, and now took the degrees of bachelor and doctor in divinity, November 14, 1721.

The year following, his fortune received a considerable increase from a very unexpected event. On his first going to London in the year 1713, Dean Swift introduced him to the family of Mrs. Esther Vanhomrigh (the celebrated Vanessa), and took him often to dine at her house. Some years before her death, this lady removed to Ireland, and fixed her residence at Cellbridge, a pleasant village in the neighbourhood of Dublin, most probably with a view of often enjoying the company of a man for whom she seems to have entertained a very singular attachment. But finding herself totally disappointed in this expectation, and discovering the Dean's connexion with Stella, she was so enraged at his infidelity, that she altered her intention of making him her heir, and left the whole of her fortune, amounting to near 8000l. to be divided equally between two gentlemen whom she named her executors, Mr. Marshal, a lawyer, afterwards Mr. Justice Marshal, and Dr. Berkeley, S. F.T.C. D. The Doctor received the news of this bequest from Mr. Marshal with great surprise, as he had never once seen the lady who had honoured him with such a proof of her esteem, from the time of his return to Ireland to her death.

In the discharge, however, of his trust as executor, he had an opportunity of shewing he by no means adopted the sentiments of his benefactress with regard to Swift. Several letters that had passed between Cadenus and Vanessa falling into his hands,