Nations lately become Literary. 349 



Berkeley, then dean of Deny, afterwards bishop 

 of Cloyne, deserves to be noticed \n the literary 

 history of America, not only as a remarkable event, 

 but also as one which had some influence on the 

 progress of literature, particularly in Rhode-Island 

 and Connecticut. This great man, in 1729, nine- 

 teen years after the publication of the celebrated 

 work in which he denied the existence of the 

 material world, came to America with a particu- 

 lar view to the establishment of an Episcopal col- 

 lege, to aid in the missionary cause/ He landed 

 at Newport, in Rhode-Island, and purchased a 

 country seat and farm in the neighbourhood of that 

 town, where he resided about two years and an 

 half. And though various circumstances discou- 

 raged him from prosecuting his original design, 

 and induced him to return to Europe without ef- 

 fecting it; yet his visit was by no means without 

 its utility. The presence and conversation of a 



j Dr. Berkeley was bom in Ireland in the year 1684, and received 

 his education at Trinity college, Dublin. About the year 1724, he was 

 made dean of Derry; and in 1725, published a plan, which he pur- 

 sued with great zeal, of establishing a College in one of the Bermudas, 

 or Summer Islands, the principal objects of which were, the obtaining a 

 better supply of missionaries for the colonies, and the conversion of the 

 American Indians to Christianity. The plan was favourablv received not 

 only by his friends, but also by the government. He obtained a charter 

 for the proposed college, in which he was named as the first President ; and 

 also a parliamentary grant of £. 20,000 sterling for its support. In the 

 month of February, in the year 1729, he came to America for the purpose 

 of putting his plan into execution, and brought with him his lady, whom 

 he had married but a few months before. Soon after his arrival he be- 

 came convinced that the plan of establishing the proposed College in 

 the Bermuda isles was by no means an eligible one ; he therefore wrote 

 to his friends in England, requesting them to obtain an alteration in 

 the charter, fixing the institution on some part of the American con- 

 tinent (which would probably have been New-York), and soliciting the 

 immediate payment of the sum which had been granted for its esta- 

 blishment. Finding, however, after a delay of two years and an half, 

 that there was no probability of the money being paid, and considering 

 his plan as impracticable, he embarked at Boston, in September, 1731, and 

 returned to England. In 1733 he was promoted to the Bishoprick of 

 Cloyne, and in January, 1753, he died in the city of Oxford, universally 

 i-espected and lamented. While he resided at Rhode-Island, he composed 

 bis Aleipbrott, or Minute Philosopher. 



