much about their actual state and prospects, Berkeley's suggested remedies are out of all relation to the actual need. As the worst features of the national malady, in his exaggerated view of it, were imaginary, so the specifics he proposed are almost wholly ideal. The essay shows, however, the profound impression the great failure made on his mind, and, as we shall see, the impression was not easily effaced. It led indirectly to a project more novel and romantic than the suggestion of the essay in favour of a National Historical Academy of ingenious men, whose office it should be to revive patriotic sentiment amongst the living by periodical orations and panegyrics on the illustrious dead, in imitation of other countries, and especially of the Athenian senate, who appointed orators to commemorate, at stated national solemnities, those who died. in defence of their country.

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This new project, known as the Bermuda Scheme, is the next important event in Berkeley's life. In the spring of 1724, he was appointed by the Duke of Grafton to the Deanery of Derry, worth about 1,100l. a-year; and a few months later, he drew up and issued his celebrated Proposal for the better supplying of Churches in our Foreign Plantations, and for converting the Savage Americans to Christi'anity, by a College to be erected on the Summer Islands, otherwise called the Isles of Bermuda.'. Swift, in an admirable letter commending Berkeley's scheme to Lord Carteret's notice, says, that the proposal had occupied the mind of his friend and fellow-dean for three years. This would take the project back to the time of the South Sea catastrophe, and Professor Fraser naturally imagines there may have been some connexion between them. The facts and probabilities of the case are strongly in favour of this view. Berkeley's wider experience of the world, and more active intercourse with men during his London residence and foreign travels, seem to have turned his mind strongly away from mere speculation towards the practical aspects and duties of his profession. During his prolonged wanderings in Catholic countries, he had not lost the feelings of an Irish Churchman, and many circumstances tended to awaken within him vague plans for the advancement of Protestantism on a grand scale. At Rome he was evidently impressed with the perfect organisation and material splendour of the Catholic Church, her graduated orders, magnificent buildings, rich ceremonial, and absolute rule. His strongest academical and ecclesiastical sympathies would be touched by St. Peter's and the Vatican, and, as we shall presently see, he did not forget the impression. It seems clear, indeed, that

these things quickened his visionary faculty, set him dreaming of a kind of Nova Roma for the Western world, to be planted in virgin soil, with church and library, academic foundation, and sacred college of its own, dedicated, not to St. Peter the patron of the privileged, but to St. Paul the apostle of the heathen. The new seat of ecclesiastical empire was, moreover, to have circuses and colonnades, public buildings, and a new Appian Way to be adorned with monuments and obelisks, and called The Walk of Death.'

Then, again, in his travels, he had met with his ideal of natural scenery in the shape of an enchanting island whose varied beauty combined with the simple life of the inhabitants recalled, and to his roseate fancy almost realised, the Golden Age. He gives a glowing description of this perfect island, that of Inarime, in a long letter to Pope. It is, he tells the poet, an epitome of the whole earth, containing all the elements of lovely, romantic, and sublime scenery; the air in the hottest season constantly refreshed by cool breezes from the sea, the hills covered to the tops with vines, the fields divided by hedgerows of myrtle, fountains and rivulets on every side, and noble landscapes that would demand an imagination as 'warm and numbers as flowing as your own to describe.' The inhabitants of this delicious isle,' he adds, as they are 'without riches and honours, so they are without the vices and follies that attend them; and were they but as much strangers to revenge, as they are to avarice and ambition, they might in fact answer the poetical notions of the Golden Age.'

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These are evidently the ecclesiastical and romantic elements which helped to shape his day-dreams of future life and work, and out of which the Bermuda project eventually arose. They embrace in their combination and consecration Berkeley's ideal of a perfect life, the union of beautiful scenery and simple manners with organised ecclesiastical and academic labour, dedicated to the interests of piety and virtue. During his travels, this exquisite combination may have been merely a delightful vision exchanged, as he approached his native shore, for the soberer prospect of extended professional labour and influence at home. But if so, the widespread social ruin, the terrible domestic panic, that greeted him on his return, would be of all possible events the one most likely to recall the vision and stimulate him to turn it into a reality. In the prospect of coming home to undertake for the first time the active duties of clerical life, he had, no doubt, pictured himself as carrying into effect a vast scheme of local reformation, as the centre of an influential agency for promoting

morality and religion. Such a prospect would be rudely disturbed by the state of affairs on his arrival in England. As we have seen, in the violent reaction of excited feeling, he virtually despaired of the country. Panting to do a great work in the Church, he still felt himself unequal to cope with the chronic, aggravated, and increasing corruption of morals and manners at home. Under these circumstances, he would thankfully recall the vision, and turn with animation and hope to the New World. During the next three years, he was busily, though according to his wont for a time, secretly engaged in elaborating the details of his plan. In the first place, he would sweep the American coast and the Atlantic main for an appropriate site, and this he at length found in the Summer Islands. They realised in rare perfection the very combination of advantages that constituted his ideal of an academic and missionary residence. He then proceeded to perfect the moral and material parts of his scheme. The organisation of the collegiate body followed very much the pattern of Trinity College, the head, however, being designated Principal instead of Provost. With regard to the public buildings of the projected university and city of Bermuda, Berkeley determined to be his own architect, and in the plans he designed we may clearly trace the result of his Roman experiences and impressions. The actual plans have been lost, but Mrs. Berkeley gives a sketch in outline of the town and college according to her husband's design.

'Dean Berkeley,' she tells us, ' was an excellent architect, and he had completed elegant plans of his projected town, as well as of his seminary. The last edifice was to have occupied the centre of a large circus; and this circus was to have consisted of the houses of the Fellows, to each of which, in front, a spacious garden was allotted. Beyond this academical circus was another composed of houses for gentlemen, many of which houses had been actually bespoken, and the Dean had been requested to superintend the building of them. Beyond this circus was one more, which was calculated for the reception of shops and artificers. Dr. Berkeley disliked burying in churches, for which reason a cypress walk, called "The Walk of Death," was to be solemnly appropriated to the sole purpose of interment. There monumental urns or obelisks might be erected.'

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Having matured his plan, he started for London in the autumn of 1724 with the Proposal' in his pocket. The Pro'posal,' urging the various motives in favour of the scheme, is well drawn up and forcibly written. As an Irish Protestant, Berkeley does not forget to appeal to the powerful argument of Protestant ascendency. He thinks that by the prompt and effectual execution of his plan, Romanism, having as yet but

a feeble hold upon it, may be soon driven from the New World. A number of other advantages, political and commercial, to be derived from the scheme are ingeniously and eloquently expounded. In London he pushed his plan with extraordinary zeal and enthusiasm, and, strange to say, with extraordinary success. He at once called into requisition the good offices of his friends, and employed to the utmost his personal influence, diplomatic skill, and rare powers of persuasion, until at length, having gained the ear of the King, and a favourable vote in the House of Commons, the scheme, to the surprise of everybody, was fairly afloat, and its author, with his newly-married wife and a few chosen companions, started on the strange academico-philosophical mission.

We have no space to follow in detail the history and fortunes of the Bermuda Scheme. Nor is this necessary, the enterprise being amongst the most romantic, and therefore the best known incidents of Berkeley's life. It is probably fortunate for his fame that the project failed, as it did, before he reached the Bermudas. Though minutely planned with ali Berkeley's care about theoretical details, it was never fitted to succeed. Nor was Berkeley himself gifted with the executive genius, the indomitable endurance and persistency, the power of grappling with practical difficulties and overcoming them which are absolutely essential to the success of such an enterprise. Had he actually reached the Bermudas, and attempted to carry his elaborate scheme of the city and college into execution, the collapse would have been still more disastrous, and he would certainly have incurred a far heavier amount of responsibility. Nor is there any evidence to show that Berkeley himself was at all dissatisfied at the result. the contrary, it seems clear from his letters, that after his four years' experience of Rhode Island, he was sincerely glad to return home again. Nor did he suffer any material loss during his temporary exile, having enjoyed the income from his rich deanery during the whole period. On leaving Rhode Island, indeed, he was not only in easy circumstances, but wealthy enough to make magnificent presents of land and books to Yale and Harvard Colleges.

On

The truth seems to be that the Bermuda project did not, after all, fail to realise some at least of the purposes for which it was projected. From the first Berkeley had two main objects in view-the establishment of a missionary college for the Americans, and an ample provision in the way of academical leisure and study for himself. All along a scheme of reading and literary labour of his own occupied his mind, and

VOL. CXXXVI. NO. CCLXXVII.

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had, perhaps almost unconsciously to himself, a prominent place in his conception of the great design. And this part of the original plan was fully realised. In the retirement of Rhode Island, he wrote under favourable circumstances of domestic ease, freedom, and enjoyment by far the largest as well as the most popular and readable of his works, ' Alciphron; 'or, the Minute Philosopher.' The seven dialogues of which the work consists may probably include some of the thoughts and arguments he had intended to employ in the second part of the Principles. But, however this may be, they would probably never have seen the light but for the painful shock which Berkeley experienced during his first visit to London, through his personal contact with freethinkers and freethinking sentiments. The form and substance of the Minute Philosopher are determined by his deep and almost passionate antipathy to the whole freethinking school. This antipathy seems to have been directed with concentrated bitterness against Collins, who had published, just before Berkeley's visit to London, a discourse in defence of freethinking. Collins' work would probably be regarded now as a mild plea on behalf of independent criticism, of the right to examine evidence and judge impartially of its relevancy and value in every department of inquiry and speculation. But, as it indirectly criticised existing institutions, it was in Berkeley's view a criminal assault on the foundations of society; and he accordingly attacked the author with singular violence and injustice in some papers he contributed to the Guardian.' The keynote of the Minute Philo'sopher' is, indeed, struck in these short papers against Collins and the freethinkers. They betray, however, at the outset a strong professional animus, and are in spirit and language altogether unworthy of the author. Early in the first paper he says it is a special characteristic of a dissolute and ungoverned mind to speak disrespectfully of the clergy; and at the close he asserts, with emphatic truculence, that if ever man deserved to be denied the common benefits of air and 'water, it is the author of "A Discourse of Freethinking." He not only rails at Collins, who was a man of high character and pure life, but reproaches him for his virtues, suggesting that it would be far better if he were a man of dissolute manners and profligate habits. The ground of this intense and unreasonable feeling against Collins appears to have been a story he had somewhere heard to the effect that the apologist of freethinking had discovered a demonstration against the being of a God. There is no trustworthy evidence in support of this story, and it is probably untrue. But it is a singular

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