Sect. III.] United Stales of America. 209 



theological and metaphysical writer, and Dr. Ben- 

 jamin Franklin. Though the genius, talents, and 

 general character of no two persons could be 

 more different, yet each in his way gained high 

 and extensive celebrity, and for the first time con- 

 vinced the literati of foreign countries, thut Ame- 

 rica had given birth to philosophers who were 

 capable of instructing them. 



The arrival in America of the rev. Mr. George 

 Berkeley, then dean of Derry, afterward bishop 

 of Cloyne, deserves to be noticed in 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 

 Ilhode Island and Connecticut. This great man, 

 in 1729, nineteen years after the publication of 

 the celebrated work in which he denied the ex- 

 istence of the material world, came to America 

 with a particular view to the establishment of 

 an episcopal college, to aid in the missionary 

 cause *. He landed at Newport, in Rhode Island, 



have in gatlioring up handfuls of silver or gold from a newly 

 discovered mine." The fruits of this early initiation into me- 

 taphysical science were afterwards laid before the public in his 

 Inquiry into the Freedom of the Will, S^c, a work which has been 

 pronounced " one of the greatest efforts of the human mind," 

 which was received with high approbation in Europe ; and 

 which has been, ever since its publication, quoted as a great 

 standard work on the subject of which it treats. 



* Dr. Berkeley was born in Ireland in the year 1684-, and re- 

 ceived his education at Trinity college, Dublin. About the 

 year 172t he was made dean of Derry; and in 1725 published 

 A plan, which he pursued with great zeal, of establishing a col- 

 lege in one of the Bermudas, or Summer Islands, the principal 

 objects of which were, the obtaining a better supply of mission- 

 aries for the coloaies, and the conversion of the American Indi- 



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