In 1752 he decided to resign his bishopric and seek retirement at Oxford. The unusual proposal excited the curiosity of the King, George II., who declared, when the application was made to him, that Berkeley might live where he pleased but that he should die a bishop! So he was permitted to retire from his see, still retaining his Episcopal rank.
He did not long enjoy the change. He died in Oxford the 14th of January, 1753, and was buried in the university chapel of Christ Church. His widow survived him thirty-three years, dying in her 86th year. A son and a daughter were living at the time of his death. In his will he provided among other items—“that the expense of my funeral do not exceed £20, and that as much more be given to the poor of the parish where I die.” He left a very small estate. The well-known lines of his poem, in which he sought to depict the prospects of his utopian project, may fitly close this sketch of the amiable and benevolent Irish dean and bishop:
Westward, the course of empire takes its way,
The four first acts already past;
A fifth shall close the drama with the day,
Time’s noblest offspring is the last.
THE RENAMING OF WOLHURST.
The following remarks were made by President Taft in renaming “Wolhurst,” the estate of Mr. and Mrs. Thomas F. Walsh, “Clonmel,” on September 22, 1909:
Ladies and Gentlemen: