Three years the peaceful life of Whitehall continued. Two children were born to the Bishop, one of whom died in infancy. The house was a place of meeting for all the missionaries of the island, as well as for the more thoughtful and cultivated of the Newport society. At last, in the winter of 1730, came the crisis of the Bermuda scheme. Land had been purchased, the grant of money half promised by the English Government was due. But the persuasive charm of the founder of the enterprise was no longer at hand to influence those who had the power to make or mar the project; and Sir Robert Walpole, with that sturdy indifference to pledge, or to other
people’s convenience, which distinguished him, intimated with fatal clearness of meaning, that if Dean Berkeley was waiting in Rhode Island for twenty thousand pounds of the public money to be got out of his exchequer, he might as well return to Europe without further loss of time. The bubble was indeed broken, and Berkeley, brave still and resolutely patient under this heavy blow, prepared for departure. His books he left as a gift to the library of Yale College, and his farm of Whitehall was made over to the same institution, to found three scholarships for the encouragement of Greek and Latin study. These bequests arranged, his wife and their one remaining child sailed for Ireland. There, a bishopric, and twenty years of useful and honorable labor, awaited him, and the brief dream of Rhode Island must soon have seemed a dream indeed. Few vestiges remain now of his sojourn,—the shabby farmhouse once his home, the chair in which he sat to write, a few books and papers, the organ presented by him to Trinity Church, a big family portrait by Smibert, and, appealing more strongly to the imagination than these, the memory of his distinguished name as a friend of American letters, still preserved by scholarship or foundation in many institutions of learning—and the little grave in Trinity churchyard, where, on the south side of the Kay Monument, sleeps “Lucia Berkeley, daughter of Dean Berkeley, obiit the fifth of September, 1731.”
The traveller who to-day is desirous of visiting Whitehall may reach it by the delightful way of the beaches. Rounding the long curve of the First Beach, with its dressing-houses and tents, its crowd of carriages and swarms of gayly clad bathers, and climbing the hill at the far end, he will find himself directly above the lonely but far more beautiful Second Beach. Immediately before him, to the left, he will see Bishop Berkeley’s Rock, with its cliff-hung shelf, and beyond, the soft outlines of Sachuest Point, the narrow blue of the East Passage, and a strip of sunlit mainland. The breezy perch where Alciphron was written is on the sea-face of one of the parallel rock-formations which, with their intervening valleys, make up the region known as “Paradise Rocks.” Near by, in the line of low cliffs which bounds the beach to the southward, is the chasm called “Purgatory,” a vertical fissure some fifty feet in depth, into which, under certain conditions of wind and tide, the water rushes with great force and is sucked out with a hollow boom, which is sufficiently frightful to explain the name selected for the spot. The rocks which make up the cliffs are in great part conglomerate, of soft shades of purple and reddish gray. Beyond, the white beach glistens in the sun. And to the left, the road curves on past farmhouses and “cottages of gentility.” Away on the valley slope, the slow sails of a windmill revolve and flash, casting a flying shadow over the grass. A mile farther, and the road, making a turn, is joined to the right by what seems to be a farm-lane shut off by gates. This is the entrance to Whitehall. The house can be dimly made out from the road—a low, square building with a lean-to and a long, steep pitch of roof, fronting on a small garden overgrown with fruit-trees. The present owner holds it from the college under what may truly be called a long lease, as it has still some eight hundred and odd years to run. He has built a house near by, for his own occupation, and, alas! has removed thither the last bit that remained of the decorative art of the old Whitehall, namely, the band of quaint Dutch tiles which once
surrounded the chimney-piece of the parlor. But the parlor remains unchanged, with its low ceiling and uneven floor; the old staircase is there, the old trees, and, in spite of the tooth of time and the worse spoliation of man, enough is left to hint at the days of its early repute and to make the place worth a visit.
One more glimpse through the mist before we come to the new times of this our Isle of Peace. It is just half a century since Berkeley, his baffled scheme heavy at his heart, set sail for Ireland. The fog is unusually thick, and lies like a fleece of wool over the sea. Absolutely nothing can be seen, but strange sounds come, borne on the wind from the direction of Block Island—dull reports as of cannon signals; and the inhabitants of Newport prick up their ears and strain their eyes with a mixture of hope and terror; for the French fleet is looked for; English cruisers have been seen or suspected hovering round the coast, and who knows but a naval engagement is taking place at that very moment. By and by the fog lifts, with that fantastic deliberation which distinguishes its movements, and presently stately shapes whiten the blue, and, gradually nearing, reveal themselves as
