Johnston — Supposed Autogvapli Letter of Bkhop Berkeley. 277 



some claim on those in high positions, by a man who was a decided 

 snob. He does not wish to be classed with common clergymen. He 

 feels hurt at being seated at the lower end of the table. He takes it 

 as an indignity that he should be compelled lo sup with the steward. 

 But to all he submits in the hopes of " a good deanery." How alien 

 all this to the notoriously pure and noble character of Bishop Berkeley !' 

 He was the very antipodes of a snob. With his humble birth and his 

 inner dignity, we never find him ascribing to social rank a higher 

 value than that which traly belongs to it, that value which depends 

 on the character of him who holds the rank. At one time, indeed 

 Berkeley was a place-hunter, but while the author of these letters 

 sought preferment merely for the sake of ease and dignity. Bishop 

 Berkeley rose far above such vulgar motives. At the very time at 

 which these letters were written, if Prof. Eraser's theory be true, i. e. 

 in 1721, Berkeley was seeking the deaneries of Dromore and Derry. 

 He threw his whole energy into the contest. He was a place-hunter. 

 But the underlying purpose was one of the noblest. It was at this 

 time that his enthusiasm for missionary work was at its maximum. 

 Just as in his later years at Cloyne, we find tar-water and its virtues 

 percolating through every page of his writings, so for the years about 

 1720, the Bermudas loomed large in all his acts and words. His 

 dominant idea was the spread of civilization. (It is worth noting, in 

 passing, that Berkeley's missionary zeal was not of that kind which is- 

 rooted in religious bigotry — with him it was education, civilization, 

 fii'st^ — then religion would follow, as of course.) So the deanery he 

 sought and won was but a stepping-stone towards the realization of 

 this great pui'pose. As to the purity of Berkeley's motives, no more 

 trustworthy testimony can be obtained than that of the cynical Dean 

 of St. Patrick's. In his " giving of characters " Jonathan Swift was 

 but too prone to exhibit the seamy side of even his best friends, yet in 

 1724 he writes thus of Berkeley : " He is an absolute philosopher with 

 regard to money, titles, and power. . . . He showed me a little tract 

 . . . his whole scheme of a life, academico-philosophical, of a college 

 founded for Indian scholars and missionaries, where he most exorbi- 

 tantly proposes a whole hundred pounds a-year for himself." The 

 value of this testimony is enhanced in this way, that it was written 

 shortly after the death of the unhappy Esther van Homrigh. She, by 

 an alteration in her will just before death, left to Berkeley all that 

 part of her wealth that had been originally intended for Dean Swift. 

 We are forced into the conclusion that these two letters arc incon- 

 sistent with the character of Bishop Berkeley. 



