the Bishop of Cloyne, would have been disinterested enough to adopt; he wrote to the Secretary of State, requesting leave to resign his bishopric, worth at least 14007. per annum. The King, not willing to lose so great an ornament to the church, refused to comply with this extraordinary petition, and, after declaring that Dr. Berkeley should die a bishop in spite of himself, granted him permission to reside wherever he might think proper.

His lordship accordingly removed to Oxford with his lady and family in July, 1752; but, so delusive, so fragile, are the schemes of human comfort, that only a few months elapsed ere this great, this excellent man was summoned to another world. He expired on Sunday evening, January 14th, 1753, in the 79th year of his age, and while Mrs. Berkeley was reading to him the fifteenth chapter of St. Paul's first epistle to the Corinthians. On this sublime and awful lesson he wa commenting, with his usual energy and ability, when he was, in an instant, deprived of existence by a paralytic affection of the heart.

It may be said of Berkeley without exaggeration, that, in point of virtue and benevolence, no one of the sons of men has exceeded him. Whether we consider his public or his private life, we pause in admiration of efforts uncommonly

exalted, disinterested, and pure. He was alike an object of enthusiastic love and admiration to extensive societies, and to familiar friends; and in the relations of domestic life his manners were uniformly mild, sweet, and engaging, and in a pre-eminent degree calculated to ensure the most durable and affectionate attachment. Such, indeed, was the energy and impressive beauty of his character, that it was impossible to be many hours in his company without acknowledging its fascination and superiority; and it is recorded of Bishop Atterbury, that after an introduction to him through the medium of Lord Berkeley, lifting up his hands in astonishment, as Mr. Berkeley quitted the room, he exclaimed to his lordship, "So much understanding, so much knowledge, so much innocence, and such humility, I did not think had been the portion of any but Angels, till I saw this gentleman*." In short, after the most rigorous survey of the motives and actions of the Bishop of Cloyne, we are tempted to assign, in the language of Mr. Pope, and with no suspicion of hyperbolical praise,

To Berkeley every virtue under heaven †.

Of the intellectual powers of the Bishop, it may be observed, that, though strong and acute in no * Vide Duncombe's Letters, p. 106, 107, note. + Warton's Pope, vol. iv. p. 327, line 2.

common degree, they were frequently mingled with too much enthusiasm and imagination for the purposes of strict philosophical ratiocination. His knowledge, however, was of great compass, and extended to all the useful arts and occupations of life; of which, it has been said, that there was scarcely one, liberal or mechanic, of which he knew not more than the ordinary practitioners *.

Of the papers which Berkeley contributed to the Guardian, by far the greater portion is employed in defending christianity against the attacks of the free-thinkers, and especially against Collins's "Discourse on Free-thinking;" a production which, though in a high degree superficial and abusive, had, from its novelty and effrontery, a considerable circulation. The Bishop's first essay on the subject commences as early as N° 3, in which he very pointedly exposes the folly and impiety of Collins and his disciples. He prosecutes his design of exposing this mischievous sect, and of elucidating the great truths of religion, in N° 27, on the expectations of a future state; in No 39, which very humorously records his Observations on the Pineal Gland of a Free-thinker; in N° 55, on the Importance of Christianity to Virtue; in N° 62, on the utility of

*Blackwell's Memoirs of the Court of Augustus, vol. ii. p. 227.

public schools; in Nos. 70, 77, and 83, on the narrowness and shortsightedness of Freethinkers; in N° 88, on the superior excellence of the scriptural conception of the Deity; in N° 89, on the nature of a future state as delineated in the New Testament; and in N° 126, on the endearments of friendship and benevolence.

These eleven Essays place before the reader, in a very popular and pleasing manner, and in a style of great perspicuity, many of the evidences and arguments for the authenticity and rationality of revelation; and refute, by a chain of reasoning of easy comprehension, the absurd dogmata and inferences of those who very improperly called themselves Freethinkers; an appellation which from their adoption and abuse of the term has since nearly become synonymous with the bigotry of scepticism.

On topics of a more miscellaneous nature, Dr. Berkeley has written but three numbers in the Guardian; N° 35, on the discovery of the Pineal Gland by Descartes, and on the author's imaginary residence in the glands of philosophers, poets, beaux, mathematicians, ladies, and statesmen; a paper of a humorous and satirical tendency. N° 49 is an essay of considerable merit on Pleasures natural and fantastical, a subject of the first importance; as a taste for unsophisticated,

for cheap, and easily procurable pleasures, forms one of the chief ingredients in the cup of human happiness. The Bishop has presented us on this head with some just observations on the misery attendant upon excessive and artificial desires, and has painted in forcible language the permanent gratification resulting from the confinement of our wishes and enjoyments within the range of such rational and simple pleasures as we have the prospect of usually attaining. No author, however, has on this theme surpassed Dr. Aikin; in whose letters to his son are some admirable remarks on the utility, and absolute necessity indeed, to human comfort, of cultivating and cherishing an attachment for cheap pleasures. Of these he very properly arranges domestic enjoyments in the first rank, books in the second, conversation in the third, the study of nature in the fourth, and a taste for the beautiful and sublime in the fifth and last. I cannot forbear indulging myself with a transcription of his eulogium on the resources to be derived from a library. "At the head of all the pleasures," he ob"which offer themselves to the man of liberal education, may confidently be placed that derived from books. In variety, durability, and facility of attainment, no other can stand in competition with it, and even in intensity it is inferior

serves,