276 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Aca(le)ny. 



further, at no time of his life is such a designation appropriate. Only 

 dm-ing those later years spent in Cloyne was he living in the countiy, 

 and then it was not as a mere " country pastor," but as a bishop of the 

 €huixh. 



Both the Carlow and the Academy letters are the composition 

 of one who was a stranger in Dublin. The reference in the Carlow 

 letter to the drinking of usquebaugh is evidently that of a tourist 

 reporting to a friend at home and coiTecting an impression generally 

 prevalent as to the excessive fondness of the good people of Dublin for 

 the "wine of the country." The writer is in fact in a position very 

 similar to that of an American who recently visited Dublin. My friend 

 from the other side expressed his surprise that notwithstanding all he 

 had read in the papers about the disturbed state of Ireland and the 

 daily outrages throughout the country, he nevertheless found Dublin 

 as safe for the unarmed stranger as his native San Francisco. That 

 Oeorge Berkeley the philosopher, after thirteen years' residence in 

 Dublin, after the varied convivial experiences of a College under- 

 graduate, after becoming a local celebrity through his books, and after 

 mingling in the best of Dublin Society through the introduction of his 

 friends, St. George Ash, Perceval, and the Molyneux family, that this 

 George Berkeley should have penned the sentence about usquebaugh 

 passes the bounds of credibility. Then, too, in the Academy letter 

 consider the allusion to the Archbishop of Dublin : " He often invited me 

 to dinner in consideration of y^ rank that I sustaine as Chaplaine of the 

 Great Lord Lieutenant. ' ' If this letter were written in 1 7 2 1 , the Arch- 

 bishop was the great William King, who throughout his life was in the 

 closest possible contact with the life of Trinity College. Berkeley, if for 

 no other reason than that he was a F.T.C.D., must have been well known 

 to King. Besides, there was another notable bond of union between 

 the two men. In 1707 there was a revival of the Dublin Society. The 

 Society f oimdedby "William Molyneux in 1 683 ceased to exist at the death 

 of its founder in 1698. King, an active member of the original Society 

 and a frequent contributor to its proceedings, took with Berkeley a 

 prominent part in the revival. King was one of the chief officers of the 

 new Society, while Berkeley was the most active member in the ranks. 

 So it would be absurd to imagine William King extending hospitality 

 to Berkeley on the ground that the latter was a member of the Vice- 

 regal household. 



The personality of the author of these two letters is not that 

 of the George Berkeley with whom we are familiar. The letters were 

 wi'itten by a place-hunting parson, by one who considered that he had 



