Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 01.djvu/303

 BERKELEY.

BERKELEY.

BERKELEY, George, pliilosopher and divine, was born near Thomastown, Kilkenny, Ireland, March 13, 1684. He was a precocious child, and at the age of eleven was placed in the second form of a school which has been called the Eton of Ire- land. He was further educated at Trinity, Dub- lin, and in 1707 was made a fellow of that college. He took holy orders in the established church, and in 1713 accompanied the Earl of Peterborough on an embassy to the King of Sicily and the Italian states. In 1734 he was made dean of Derry. He now began to concern hiniself in a plan to provide for the supplying of the church in America, and to that end hoped to establish a college at the Bermudas, for the advancement of religion and learning in the new world. Sir Robert Walpole, then prime minister of England, opposed the scheme as chimerical, but the logic and force of Dean Berkeley were such that he persuaded the English government to promise a grant of twenty thousand pounds for the purpose specified in his pamphlet, " A Proposal for the Better Supply of the Churches in our Foreign Plantations, and the Conversion of the Savage Americans to Christ, by a College to be Erected in the Summer Isles. " In 1738 he set sail, hoping at once to begin the erection of "St. Paul's CoUege," and to become its president on its com- pletion. He landed at Newport, R. I., Jan. 23, 1739, thinking to arrange for the deportation of stores to his settlement in Bermuda. He had brought his wife with him, and the various mem- bers of his household, and he bought a small farm, giving it the name of " Whitehall," where he settled down with the equanimity of a pliilos- opher and waited for the promised endowment, occupying liimself meanwhile with writing and studying. Here he produced "Alciphron; or, the Minute Philosopher," and here his eldest son was born, and a daughter, Lucia, who died an in- fant and was buried in Trinity churchyard at Newport. He was visited by many of the leaders in Amer- K <m thought, and from Sam- jj^-<-^ uel Johnson he '^^^ acquired a

knowledge of the early strug- gles of Yale college, which continued to interest him to the time of his death. He wished for the transference of the site of the proposed college from the Bermudas to the mainland, but was warned by Walpole that the mention of such a change would frustrate his plans. He had long wearied of waiting for the promised support, and at length, becoming convinced that he should

never receive it, he returned to England in Sep- tember, 1731. He divided between Yale and Harvard colleges the books of his private library, and in the year following his return home he transferred his title in his Whitehall farm to Yale coUege, to be applied to the maintenance of three scholarships and various prizes for those who should excel in Latin composition The Berkeley prizes have been awarded with unfailing regularity at Yale since 1733. In 1763 the White- hall farm was leased by the f oimdation for a period of 999 years. Dean Berkeley also enriched Yale, which he hoped would become an Episcopal college, with a collection of valuable books, con- sisting largely of the writings of the great classi- cists in the original tongues, but including also modern English literature, the literature of the sciences, and great historical works. He also sent some valuable books to Harvard coUege, and recommended that an Episcopal college be foimded in New York. Yale preserves two of his autograph letters in her archives, and several from his widow and son. In 1734 he was con- secrated bishop of Cloyne, and some years later was offered, and declined, the bishopric of Clogher. A chronicler says of him his works should be particularly interesting to Americans on account of his " relation to America, and of the adoption of two distinctive parts of his philosophy by two American contemporaries- Samuel Johnson and Jonathan Edwards." His works have by some writers been divided into three groups: 1. Pure philosophy: "A New Theory of Vision" (1709); "The Principles of Human Knowledge" (1710); "The Three Dialogues " (1713) ; " Theory of Vision; or. Visual Language" (1733); 2. Applied philosophy: " Alciphron; or, the Minute Philosopher, " " Siris; a Chain of Philosophical Reflections " (1740) ; 3. Miscellaneous: " Arithmetica " (1707, written before his twentieth year); "Miscellanea Math- ematica" (1707); " De Motu " (1721); "Passive Obedience " (1712) ; Essays (contributed to Guardian, 1713) ; " Essays towards Preventing Ruin of Great Britain" (1720); " A Proposal for the Better Supply, etc." (1735); "Verses on Prospect of Arts and Learning in America." "The Analyst" (1734); "A Defence of Free Thinking " (1735) ; " A Discourse to Magistrates and Men in Authority " (1736) ; " A Letter to Roman Catholics of Cloyne" (1745); " A Word to the Wise" (1749). In the BatteU chapel at New Haven a memorial window has been placed to his memory ; the Berkeley divinity school at Middletown, Conn., testifies to the esteem in which he was held by its founder. Bishop Wil- liams, and the site of the State university of Cali- fornia is called Berkeley in his honor. At New- port he was instrumental in the founding of the