Berkeley

“ His idealism is the purest which the British Isles have produced. Platonic as were Cudworth, Norris, Henry More, in cast of thought less scholastic than Taylor of Norwich,—who was an exotic, rather, transplanted from Alexandrian gardens,—Berkeley's thinking is indigenous, strong in native sense and active manliness. His works are magazines of rare and admirable learning, subtleties of speculation, noble philanthropies. They deserve a place in every scholar's library, were it but to mark the fortunes of thought, and accredit the poet's admiring line:—
"To Berkeley every virtue under heaven." ”

“ The philosophy of Berkeley, to my mind, has not received quite the attention and respect that it deserves—not that I agree with it, but that I think it ingenious and harder to refute than is often supposed. Berkeley, as everyone knows, denied the reality of matter, and maintained that everything is mental. ”

“ Berkeley?’ Berkeley smiled a faint smile of amusement, but said nothing. ‘Others are squires and landed gentry; and I’m sure the landed gentry are very desirable in keeping up the tone of the country districts, and setting a pattern of virtue and refinement to their poorer neighbours. What would the country villages be, for example, if it weren’t for the centres of culture afforded by the rectory and the hall, eh, Miss Oswald.’ Edith thought of quavering old Miss Catherine Luttrell gossiping with the rector’s wife, and held her peace. ”

“ Berkeley,’ said Lady Hilda Tregellis, as she sat on the centre ottoman in Mrs. Campbell Moncrieff’s drawing-room with Arthur Berkeley talking lightly to her about the nothings which constitute polite conversation in the nineteenth century. ‘Just one evening, any day after the next fortnight? We should be so delighted if you could manage to favour us.’
‘No, I’m afraid I can’t, Lady Hilda,’ Arthur answered. ‘My evenings are so dreadfully full just now; and besides, you know, I’m not accustomed to so much society, and it unsettles me for my daily work. ”

“ Without haste, Captain Griswold turned and faced Berkeley. Not only a theorist, but a young theorist. These super-bright young men with their sharp blue eyes. A lot of learning and no knowledge. A lot of wisdom and no common sense. He carefully controlled his voice, concealing his lack of respect for the civilian.
"Well, Mr. Berkeley, we have quartered the globe. We have seen no evidence of civilization."
"You discount the canals, Captain?" Berkeley asked, as if more from curiosity than refutation. ”

“ Berkeley Square was built about 1698 on the site of the gardens of Berkeley House, the residence of Sir John Berkeley, afterwards Lord Berkeley, of Stratton, to whose descendant, Earl Fitzhardinge, the property still belongs. It slopes somewhat steeply to the south, and has a well-wooded garden in the centre, planted about the end of the eighteenth century. ”

“ Berkeley, a town in Gloucestershire, famous for its cattle.
Berkeley, George, bishop of Cloyne, born in Kilkenny; a philanthropic man, who conducted in a self-sacrificing spirit practical schemes for the good of humanity, which failed, but the interest in whom has for long centred, and still centres, in his philosophic teaching, his own interest in which was that it contributed to clear up our idea of God and consolidate our faith in Him, and it is known in philosophy as Idealism ”

“ Being by his mother a nephew of Roger Mortimer, earl of March, the paramour of Queen Isabel, Maurice Berkeley married Elizabeth, daughter of Hugh Despenser, the younger of Edward II.’s favourites and the intruder in Berkeley Castle. With his son and heir Thomas of Berkeley, one of the commissioners of parliament for the deposing of Richard II. and a warden of the Welsh marches who harried Owen of Glendower, the direct male line of Robert fitz Harding failed, and but for the settlement of the estates Berkeley would have passed from the family. ”

“ Berkeley, it’s we ourselves who want to see you; not to show you off as a curiosity to all the rest of London. We have silly people enough in the evenings; but if you’ll come to lunch with us alone one day, we shall have an opportunity of talking to you on our own account.’
Lady Hilda was tall and beautiful, and Lady Hilda spoke, as she always used to speak, with manifest sincerity. Now, it is not in human nature not to feel flattered when a beautiful woman pays one genuine homage; and Arthur Berkeley was quite as human, after all, as most other people. ”

“ Surely Mr Bailey did not expect that the young man was to perceive visible things to be in his visible body. Surely he does not think that the hands of Berkeley's argument would have been strengthened by any such preposterous revelation. Surely he is not such a crude speculator as to imagine that the mind is in the body, like the brain, the liver, or the lungs; and that to bear out Berkeley's theory, it was necessary that the visible universe, of which the visible body is a part, should be seen to be in this mind internal again in its turn to the visible body. ”

“ Arthur Berkeley looked across at him half angrily. ‘My dear Ernest,’ he said, in a severer voice than he often used, ‘the time has gone by now for this economical puritanism of yours. It won’t do any longer. You have to think of your child and of Mrs. Le Breton. Your first duty is to earn a livelihood for them and yourself; when you’ve done that satisfactorily, you may begin to think of the claims of humanity. Don’t be vexed with me, my dear fellow, if I speak to you very plainly. ”

“ Berkeley remained in America till the autumn of 1731. He bought a farm of ninety-six acres and built a small house, still standing, which he called Whitehall. Here he read and meditated ; a projecting rock near the sea is shown as the place where he wrote much of 'Alciphron,' and a chair in which he sat in the ' natural alcove ' is still preserved. The descriptions of scenery in ' Alciphron ' clearly represent his impressions. Berkeley saw something of the intelligent and educated colonists; he helped to found a philosophical society at Newport ”

“ And he, Berkeley, had actually thought that Destiny intended him to be solely concerned with the affairs of one Hoppleton, whom he had never seen! Oh, there lay the meadow of lush green grass, starred with meadowsweet, and here was he himself; and there in the steamer-chair was proof that the delightful things are the most possible of all. And Berkeley's smile was by no means for the sake of the fading light in the cloud-piled sky.
“How perfect the meadows look!” said Edith Fairmont when the Blue Linen Lady had gone below.
“They are wishing meadows,” offered Berkeley. ”

“ No wonder that Trinity Church services are interrupted, and that preacher and congregation crowd to the wharf to do the strangers honor!
The Berkeley party spent the first few{451} months of their stay in the town of Newport, whence the Dean made short excursions to what Mrs. Berkeley terms “the Continent,” meaning the mainland opposite. Toward the close of their first summer, James, Dalton and Smibert removed to Boston, and the Berkeley family to a farm in the interior of the island, which the Dean had purchased and on which he had built a house. ”

“ Thus in the forty-fourth year of his life, in deep devotion to his Ideal, and full of glowing visions of a Fifth Empire in the West, Berkeley sailed for Rhode Island in a "hired ship of two hundred and fifty tons."
The New England Courier of that time gives this picture of his disembarkation at Newport: "Yesterday there arrived here Dean Berkeley, of Londonderry. He is a gentleman of middle stature, of an agreeable, pleasant, and erect aspect. He [Pg 31] was ushered into the town with a great number of gentlemen, to whom he behaved himself after a very complaisant manner." ”

“ Anyone can find them in a good history of philosophy, or better still, in Berkeley's own books, which are excellent reading and by no means difficult. And those who desire really to feel the discovery of Berkeley in all its ecstatic completeness, should read by preference the obscure and hurried notes of the Commonplace Book, in which, amid ingenuous remarks and ill-expressed revelations of the pride of discovery, one can witness the unfolding, or rather the explosion, of the theory of immaterialism. It is not a treatise fairly adorned and skillfully arranged, like a French garden ”

“ In a letter from London to his lifelong friend and patron, Lord Percival, then at Bath, we find Berkeley, under date of March, 1723, writing thus of the enterprise which had gradually fired his imagination: "It is now about ten months since I have determined to spend the residue of my days in Bermuda, where I trust in Providence I may be the mean [Pg 14] instrument of doing great good to mankind. The reformation of manners among the English in our western plantations, and the propagation of the gospel among the American savages, are two points of high moment. ”

“ When acquainted by his friend Percival with this frank statement, Berkeley accepted the blow as a philosopher should. Brave and resolutely patient, he prepared for departure. His books he left as a gift to the library of Yale College, and his farm of Whitehall was made over to the same institution, to found three scholar [Pg 34] ships for the encouragement of Greek and Latin study. ”

“ Between 1652 and 1655 Berkeley served under Turenne in the campaigns against Condé and the Spaniards in Flanders, accompanying the Duke of York as a volunteer, and when the duke placed his sword at the disposal of Spain, and crossed over into the Netherlands early in 1656, he was still accompanied by Berkeley. ”

“ And Berkeley was not inconstant—for surely it was not inconstancy to forget a Blue Linen Lady whom he had never seen.
She said: “These fields are very confusing. I was certain that I had the right one, quarter of a mile away.”
And he answered, with a half-belief in his own words: “These are very remarkable fields. I believe that if people walk here and make a wish, the wish comes true.” ”

“ Berkeley only uttered one of his quiet, almost noiseless, laughs, and, without being in the least put out of countenance, made a species of pirouette on the brass heels of his glazed boots, which brought him face to face with the Countess, who at that moment came into the conservatory after her daughter, whom she rarely permitted to go far beyond the range of her eyeglass. ”

“ The King probably called Berkeley his enemy because he was a member of the Opposition. Berkeley died a few years after his marriage with Lady Suffolk, but she survived him for more than twenty years. She lived, in dignified retirement, at her villa at Marble Hill, and retained, until the end of her life, the charm of manner and amiability, which had won her many friends. Horace Walpole used to visit her in her old age, and gleaned from her much material for his famous Memoirs. She died in 1767, in her eightieth year, having survived George the Second seven years. ”

“ Berkeley, afterward bishop of Cloyne in Ireland, owed his fortune wholly to him, as he placed him in the road which led to his promotion. In his Journal of April 7, 1713, he says, "I went to court to day, on purpose to present Mr. Berkeley, one of your fellows of Dublin college, to lord Berkeley of Stratton. That Mr. Berkeley is a very ingenious man, and a great philosopher; and I have mentioned him to all the ministers, and have given them some of his writings, and I will favour him as much as I can. ”

“ He proposed to exchange Cloyne for some Oxford headship or canonry. He then proposed to resign his bishopric absolutely. Such a precedent was not to be set. The king declared that Berkeley might live where he pleased, but that he should die a bishop.
Berkeley resolved to retire. He made arrangements about his revenues, including a distribution of 200l. a year, the rent of his demesne lands, amongst poor householders, and at last sailed for England in August 1752. His son George was already matriculated at Christ Church, and the desire to be near him was doubtless one inducement to the change. ”

“ BERKELEY, GEORGE (1601–1658) , eighth Baron Berkeley (since the writ of 1421) , and thirteenth baron (since the writ of 1295) [see Berkeley, Family of] , son of Sir Thomas Berkeley, by Elizabeth Cary, daughter of George, Lord Hunsdon, was born at Lowlayton on 7 Oct. 1601, and succeeded to the honours of Berkeley, Mowbray, Segrave and Bruce, on 26 Nov. 1613, by the death of his grandfather, Henry. He married, 13 April 1616, Elizabeth, daughter and heir of Sir Michael Stanhope of Sudborn, Suffolk. ”

“ Berkeley, in a moment of candour, inadvertently confesses what is very damaging to the reputation of his own pursuits: ‘Upon the whole, I am inclined to think that the far greater part, if not all, of those difficulties which have hitherto amused philosophers, and blocked up the way to knowledge, are entirely owing to ourselves. ”

“ It was governed by a mayor and twelve aldermen, but by 1864 their privileges had become merely nominal, and the corporation was dissolved in 1885 under the Municipal Corporations Act. Berkeley was formerly noted for the manufacture of clothing, but the trade had decreased by the 16th century, for Leland, writing about 1520, says “the town of Berkeley is no great thing. ”

“ Berkeley said this with a bearing cooler even than mine; but I was aware that the fellow was scanning me closely through his confounded eyeglass.
"His fortune is, I believe, handsome?"
"Magnificent! Sixty thousand a year, at least—haw! His father was a reckless fellow in the days of the Regency, going double-quick to the dogs; but luckily died in time to let the estates go to nurse during the present man's minority. ”