Berkeley at Newport.
Yet he has faith; and for nearly three years lingers there at his farm of Whitehall (the old house still standing), within sound of the surf that breaks upon the ribbed and glistening sands of Newport beaches. The winter is not so mild as in England, but he "has seen colder ones in Italy." Possibly it may be well to set up the college in Newport rather than the Summer Islands—when the grant comes: but the grant does not come. He makes friends of the farmers about him—of the Quakers, the Methodists; sometimes he preaches at Trinity Church (still there), and his sermons are unctuous with the broadest and most liberal Churchism: "Sad," he says in one, "that Religion, which requires us to love, should become the cause of our hating one another." He corresponds with Samuel Johnson, of Stratford, Ct.;[[4]] also, possibly, with Mr. Jonathan Edwards, not as yet driven away into the wilds of Western Massachusetts, by theologic contumacies, from his pleasant Northampton home. In the hearing of the pleasant lapse of the waters upon the beaches—while he waits—the Dean sets himself to that pleasant, curious writing of The Minute Philosopher in which he adroitly parries thrusts with the whole tribe of Free Thinkers, and sublimates anew his old and cherished theory—that the spiritual apprehension of material things is the only condition (or cause) of their being.
Children are born to him—and death winnows his small flock—while he waits. John Smibert, who was fellow-voyager with him, painted that little family of the Dean, and the picture is now in possession of Yale College. At last, in despair of receiving the royal grant, he goes back with his family to England (1731). Many of his books,[[5]] and eventually his Whitehall farm, were bestowed upon Yale; and in that lively institution year after year, there be earnest students who contend still for Berkeley scholarships and Berkeley prizes; while the name of the good Dean is still further kept in American remembrance, by that noble site of a Great Pacific University, which on the Californian shores, looks through a Golden Gate to a pathway still bearing "Westward."
We may well believe that the Dean was disheartened by the breaking down—through no fault of his own—of the great scheme and hope of his life. But he found friendly hands and hearts upon his return to England. Through the influences of Queen Caroline (consort of George II.) he was given the bishopric of Cloyne—seated among the heathery hills which lie northward of the harbor of Queenstown. All the poor people of that region loved him: and who did not?
He was never so profound a thinker, as he was ingenious, subtle, and acute. Though his philosophies all were over-topped by his sweet humanities,[[6]] yet American students may well cherish his memory, and keep his Alciphron—if not his Hylas and Philonous—upon their book-rolls.
A Scholar.
Richard Bentley
It is certain that in your forays into the literature of these times—if made with any earnestness—you will come upon the name of Dr. Bentley;[[7]] if nowhere else, then attached to critical footnotes at the bottom of books.
His demolition of the claims, long maintained by an older generation of scholars, respecting certain Epistles of Phalaris, commanded attention at an early stage of his career, and showed ability to cross swords, in a scholastic and bitter way, with such men as Atterbury and Boyle; and—if need were—with such others as Sir William Temple and Dr. Swift.