chest, for every body to see, with his flag standing up by him; and Sir George Ayscue is carried up and down the Hague, for the people to see.”—Vol. i. p. 110. In the same work is brought to light a letter from the duke of Albemarle, addressed to Sir William Coventry, deprecating the conduct of many of his captains in this "desperate fight" with the Dutch. The letter is dated Royal Charles, Gun Fleet, June 6th, 1666.—“The captain of the Sovereign gave up his ship without a shot. The Essex fell foul of the Bull, who was foul on (of) a prize which we had taken. I presume the Bull and prize both sunk; but the Essex, they (the Dutch) carried away. If Sir William Berkeley be well, which I have not heard of since the first beginning, they have no more. Captains Bacon, Tearne, Wood, Moothan, and Whitty are slain. I assure you I never fought with worse officers than now in my life." Again,-"Sir William Clarke had his leg shot off, and died within two days. The Loyal George, Seven Oaks, and Sir William Berkeley, are still missing, which three never engaged with us. Captain Coppin is dead of his wounds. This is all at present." When we consider the number of captains killed and wounded in the English fleet, the noble duke's expression of never having fought with worse officers, would savour as something like an ill excuse for his own rash and unjustifiable proceeding in dividing his fleet and attacking that of the enemy with an inferior force. De Witte, however, who was no flatterer of the English, appears to entertain an opinion perfectly opposed to that expressed by the British chief. "If the English," says the Hollander, "were beaten, their defeat did them more honour than all their former victories. .. All the Dutch had discovered was, that Englishmen might be killed, and English ships burnt; but that the English courage was invincible." (Wicquefort, Histoire des Provinces Unies, liv. xv.)

BERKELEY, (John, Lord Berkeley, of Stratton,) a British admiral. He was the second son of John Berkeley, the constant and loyal adherent of Charles I., and no less "faithful follower of Charles II. when in exile." On the death of his elder brother, Charles, who had attained the rank of captain in the royal navy, the title descended to John, the subject of our present sketch.

According to Charnock, he commanded the Edgar in 1688; and, though he had never manifested aught of disloyalty or

disaffection towards king James while he continued his legal sovereign, yet, so high was the opinion entertained of his integrity and zeal for the well-being of the nation, that, at that time of general distrust and confusion which immediately preceded the settlement of government after the landing of the prince of Orange, he was appointed to act as rear-admiral of the fleet, then under the command of the lord Dartmouth.

In 1694 he commanded the unsuccessful and "rashly undertaken" attack on Brest. Russel was then chief of the channel fleet; but the execution of this daring and desperate service was entirely committed to lord Berkeley. The force, however, of the enemy, the strength of their fortifications, and, as Charnock asserts, evidently alluding to the future duke of Marlborough, "the treachery of some persons at home," rendered abortive the utmost efforts of gallantry on the part of the English; and by giving the French timely notice of the point where the meditated blow was to be struck, afforded them every opportunity of providing for their defence. No part, however, of that general discontent which ill success, particularly in an expedition of such magnitude, never fails to excite, fell on lord Berkeley. The voice of the populace, sometimes unable to distinguish between criminality and misfortune, on this occasion became compassionate, and divided its sorrows between the fate of the brave general, who fell a victim to the contest, and the disappointment of the no less gallant admiral who saw, but could not prevent it.

After this " misfortune," the fleet re turned into port to refit, and again sailed on an expedition similar to the former, against Dieppe and Havre de Grace. Very considerable mischief was done to the enemy, who took all possible pains to represent his loss as trivial, insignificant, and by no means equal to the expense incurred by the English in making the attack.

It being determined to pursue a similar system of attacking the enemy's ports in the channel, lord Berkeley had now to proceed to London in order that the authorities might consult the admiral upon the immediate execution of their favourite project. Dunkirk was first mentioned, but was afterwards postponed in deference to the engineers and pilots, who thought the season too far advanced. An attempt on Calais was next proposed; and lord Berkeley repaired to the fleet about the

middle of August to carry it into execution. He sailed on the 19th; but the wind being contrary, and increasing almost to a tempest, he was obliged to return to the Downs on the same evening. At a subsequent council of war, in which the pilots who were to conduct the ships in, and the engineers who were to direct the attack, were consulted, it was agreed to be impracticable at the advanced season of the year; so that the admiral seeing no prospect of any further enterprise during the remainder of that season, repaired to London on the 27th of the same month, resigning the command to Sir Cloudesly Shovel.

On the 12th of June, 1695, lord Berkeley hoisted his flag on board the Shrewsbury, at Portsmouth. The Dutch ships, under lieutenant - admiral Allemonde, together with the bomb-ketches and small vessels, joined him at Spithead on the 16th, and on the 29th, the whole fleet stood over to the coast of France, to renew the depredations of the former year. St. Maloes and Granville being the first objects of attack, he arrived before these ports on the 4th of July, and after "having completely executed his commission," he returned to Spithead on the 12th.

On the 18th he sailed for the Downs, being directed to make a second attempt against Dunkirk. Contrary winds and unfavourable weather prevented its being made till the beginning of August, when the same ill-success befel it that had attended the former. Foiled at Dunkirk, the vengeance of the English was next directed to Calais, where the mischief done to the enemy was much greater, and that sustained by the English and Dutch much lighter, than in the former attempt. The season being thought too far advanced to warrant an attack on any other of the enemy's ports, the flect returned into the Downs on the 20th of August. Lord Berkeley struck his flag and went on shore at Dover on the 18th, leaving the command with Sir Cloudesly Shovel.

The French government having projected the invasion of England, made every preparation for carrying it into execution early in the spring. Twenty thousand soldiers were marched with the utmost secrecy from the nearest garrisons to the sea coast. At Dunkirk, Calais, and the adjacent ports, 500 transport vessels were collected to convey them, with their necessary stores and equipage, and a strong squadron of seventeen large ships of war, to be commanded by the marquis of Nesmond, and the celebrated

Jean Bart had rendezvoused at Dunkirk to escort them. To counteract this "menaced ruin," a fleet of fifty ships of the line, English and Dutch, collected with the utmost expedition, under the command of admiral Russel, lord Berkeley, Sir Cloudesly Shovel, and vice-admiral Aylmer, put to sea the latter end of February, and extended itself in a line from Dunkirk to Boulogne, completely blocking up the intended armament, and totally frustrating the mighty preparations and threats of the French.

In May, 1695, Sir George Rook, on taking his seat at the Board of Admiralty, proposed the destruction of a considerable number (some say seventy) French ships of war, then moored in Camaret Bay. But this was opposed by the ministry; and, ultimately, by a council of war pronounced impracticable. At a subsequent debate as to the manner in which the fleet could be rendered most serviceable, it was agreed, in case intelligence was not received that the French were disarming their ships, to stretch over to the coast of France, and cruise for fourteen or fifteen days, because, though the combined fleet should even not be able to destroy them, yet the demonstration might create much alarm, and draw such detachments from the army in Flanders, as would give the allied troops a decided superiority.

In consequence of this resolution, lord Berkeley put to sea in the middle of June; and after one or two attempts to turn down channel against a strong adverse gale, succeeded in reaching Camaret Bay on the 30th of the month. On the following day, the marquis of Nesmond, with a squadron of five ships, was then standing out to sea with a fleet of merchant vessels under his immediate escort; but on the approach of the combined fleet, he returned with the utmost haste into port. On the 3d and 6th, two detachments were sent from the fleet, the first of which was ordered to attack the Island of Gronais, one of the Cardinals; the other to bombard St. Martins, in the Isle of Rhe. Both these little enterprises were successful; but want of provisions, added to a diminution of force occasioned by the return of eight Dutch ships of the line to Holland, in consequence of positive orders from king William, "rendered the fleet incapable of attempting any thing farther." The larger ships of the line were now ordered into port for the winter, and before the time of their reengagement returned, a pleurisy and fever

terminated the mortal career of this brave and noble seaman. He died on the 27th of July, 1696-7.

We have scarcely an instance in the annals of naval history of an officer attaining so high a rank at so early an age. At the time of his decease, he was not more than thirty-four years of age, during eight of which he had filled the office of admiral. The services in which he was chiefly employed were of a particular nature, new almost in practice, and, previous to this time, little understood. The first in which he was engaged was the most unfortunate; yet the ill-success damped not his ardour, nor made him diffident of future victories. (Charnock, Campbell, Hervey, and others.)

BERKELEY, (George,) an Irish prelate, of distinguished learning and abilities, but still more conspicuous for the solid excellences of a character truly christian. He was born at Kilerin, in the county of Kilkenny; his father, whose name was William, being son of an Englishman whose family had suffered for its loyalty to Charles I., and who personally was rewarded, after the restoration, by the collectorship of Belfast. George's birth was on the 12th of March, 1684, and his earlier education was received at Kilkenny school. At fifteen he was admitted of Trinity college, Dublin, and he became fellow of that noble establishment in 1707, after an examination of great strictness, in which he acquitted himself admirably. That very year made him known to the world by the publication of his Arithmetica absque Algebra, aut Euclide demonstrata; a little work, actually written, as appears from the preface, before the author was twenty, and showing the powerful hold which Locke and Newton had already gained over the young author's mind. In 1709, Berkeley made a secure advance towards reputation by publishing the Theory of Vision, a treatise which rendered his depth of discernment unquestionable, it being the first attempt ever brought forward to distinguish perceptions drawn from sight only, from those in which that sense is aided by other senses. Inquiring minds were taught by this work to remark, that ideas for which men seem indebted to the eye alone, really need the touch, or other faculties, and that a person who reached some considerable age in blindness, would for a time be unable to judge how far he could trust his eyes as to the properties of objects placed before them. Berkeley's sagacity in conducting these arguments

was strikingly confirmed in 1728, by the case of a boy, born blind, couched at fourteen, by the celebrated surgeon Cheselden. In 1733, he published a vindication of his Theory.

In 1710, Berkeley deserted the region of fact for that of theory, in his Principles of Human Knowledge; and in 1713, appeared his Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous. Ever since the Restoration, English society had been infected in its upper portions by a poisonous infusion of irreligious and immoral conceit, maintaining its delusions with considerable subtlety, and parading them under the seductive name of philosophy. Hence the divines of those days, together with such clerical scholars as directed public opinion during much of the eighteenth century, were injuriously diverted from attention to questions purely religious or ecclesiastical, into investigations of a philosophical character. Berkeley felt a call for his talents in this direction, but he had not his usual felicity in answering it. The two pieces intended for the purpose, attack received notions as to the existence of matter, arguing that it is not without the mind, but within it, being really an impression divinely made upon it, by means of certain rules, invariably observed, known as the laws of nature; the steady adherence to which by the Deity is the true ground of human apprehensions as to material objects. These principles are developed in the shape of an inquiry into the chief causes of such error and difficulty in the sciences, as freethinkers and infidels may find useful for the exercise of their own perverted ingenuity. The object of these treatises, accordingly, was to detect and expose the fallacies of enemies to revelation, by such argumentative weapons as they all professed to respect, and as might really act beneficially upon the more ingenuous and less corrupt members of their party. But such nice and thorny speculations are seldom conducted without affording advantages to acute opponents. Hence Berkeley, by these two works, has been considered as a forger of arms more useful to the enemies of revelation than its friends. Hume represented them as the very best lessons in scepticism to be found in any author, whether ancient or modern; and although the anxiety of such a man to make the best of an advantage given by one who eventually became a bishop, may have pushed his language rather too far, yet Beattie considers these treatises of Berkeley's to have a sceptical tendency.

It may be a sufficient excuse for them, as it certainly is for denying them any authority, that their author was under twenty-seven years of age when his unguarded theory first made its appearance. It is no illiberal disparagement of any man to consider his opportunities of reading, thought, observation, and reflection, as insufficient for the safe conduct of new and abstruse theories, involving important practical consequences, at such a time of life.

Berkeley's next appearance before the world was also such as to injure his memory. The overthrow of monarchical and ecclesiastical institutions in the middle of the seventeenth century, and the revolution of 1688, being followed by a selfishness that rendered the triumphant parties odious, those who felt themselves aggrieved by this exclusive spirit were tempted into injudicious measures of opposition to the men actuated by it. Hence the prevalence and popularity of unsound and pernicious endeavours to fill the public mind with principles of passive obedience and non-resistance. Berkeley was carried away by this ill-directed stream. In 1712, he published three sermons in favour of those political principles which the Stuarts were so desirous of seeing inculcated as religious duties. At first, he had reason to be satisfied with this employment of his time, his pulpit-advocacy of passive obedience and non-resistance reaching at least a third edition. But queen Anne's early death sent all such doctrines out of fashion, and any who had been conspicuous in embracing them were not unfairly treated as Jacobites, of whom the house of Hanover must be suspicious in justice to itself. Berkeley soon found himself labouring under this disadvantage, and it was not until after a lapse of several years, that a kind friend took off the impression by recommending him to queen Caroline, a princess eminent for the sense to value the society and support of literary men. In the meanwhile, however, Berkeley went abroad as travelling tutor to the son of St. George Aste, bishop of Clogher, and in his way through Paris, he paid a visit to his brother metaphysician, Father Malebranche. He found him preparing over the fire a medicine for an attack upon the lungs, under which he was then suffering. There was no want of topics for conversation, Malebranche having recently read a French version of Berkeley's system. So energetic, however, were his comments upon it, that an augmentation

of his disorder followed, which carried him off in a few days. After this unfortunate exercise of his metaphysical powers, Berkeley went onwards with his pupil, and remained four years abroad, visiting all the usual points of attraction in France and Italy, together with some places which ordinary tourists overlooked. To Sicily he paid so much attention that he collected materials for its natural history, but they were unfortunately lost in his passage to Naples. He arrived in London, in 1721, at a time when nearly all classes were suffering from the gambling cupidity which had recently decoyed them into the South Sea scheme. Such general distress took full possession of his feeling mind, and he lost no time in suggesting a remedy, in An Essay towards Preventing the Ruin of Great Britain.

He was now favourably received in every quarter, but his only independence appears to have been his fellowship of Trinity college, Dublin, until Mrs. Vanhomrigh, the lady who obtained celebrity as Swift's Vanessa, made him one of her two executors, a trust requited by a legacy of 4,000l. In the course of his duties under this lady's will, he destroyed as much of her correspondence as he could find. In 1724, his position in society was farther improved by promotion to the rich deanery of Derry, which caused him to resign his fellowship. He now thought, however, of any thing rather than a life of dignified and luxurious repose. He could not remember the vast and important acquisitions which England had made in North America, without placing her gains and responsibilities by the side of each other, with a sorrowful conviction, too, that the latter had been inexcusably overlooked. Being now, therefore, in a situation to command attention even from persons in authority, he published, in 1725, A Proposal for Converting the Savage Americans to Christianity, by a College to be erected in the Summer Islands, otherwise called the Isles of Bermuda. As plans of this kind can rarely be executed without considerable personal sacrifices, Berkeley's truly christian spirit would not allow him to do no more than point out arduous duties. He was anxious to take the lead in a personal devotion to them. He made, accordingly, overtures for the resignation of his valuable preferment, and his settlement for the rest of life as principal instructor of young American Indians in the proposed Bermuda college, upon a stipend of 1007. a-year. As coadjutors in this generous

undertaking, he persuaded three junior fellows of Trinity college, Dublin, to accompany him, upon stipends of 40l. a year each. The plan being approved by George I. and the ministry, a grant of 10,000l. was promised, under parliamentary sanction, and Berkeley set sail for America in 1728. His destination was Rhode Island, as the point most convenient for the Bermudas, and at Newport, in that settlement, he resided about two years and a half. The time was spent in a manner most useful and exemplary, securing to Berkeley the sincere love and respect of all within his reach; but every endeavour to realize the object which took him across the Atlantic utterly failed. Walpole, then minister, had, indeed, acceded to the proposed assistance from the public purse, but he never made a move towards a remittance of the money, and privately discouraged the plan altogether. Berkeley, therefore, found himself at length driven to return; but his departure, which took place at Boston, in September 1731, was preceded by demonstrations of his usual liberality. He gave his house, called Whitehall, with a hundred acres of cultivated land around it, to Yale and Harvard colleges; and he gave books, out of his own property, worth five hundred pounds, between one of those establishments and the clergy of Rhode Island. To the other college he transmitted a large number of books, entrusted by others to his disposal.

Having arrived in Europe, his attention was again turned to those philosophical speculations which had, with assistance from their own corruption, beguiled so many people out of solid happiness and trustworthy hopes. The fruits of his benevolent and pious application appeared in 1732, in a work in 2 vols, 8vo, entitled, The Minute Philosopher, a masterly series of dialogues, on Plato's model, which displayed the free-thinker under the various garbs of atheist, libertine, enthusiast, scorner, critic, metaphysician, fatalist, and sceptic. About the time of this publication, Berkeley was a frequent and prominent guest at those memorable parties which Caroline, queen to George II., gave, one evening in the week, to persons of established intellectual celebrity. Many questions were debated among the illustrious men thus brought together, and Berkeley had the honour of taking the lead in advocating those comprehensive and generous views which had shed an enviable brilliancy over every portion of his life, and which the cold

and calculating Hoadly could not hear him pouring into the royal ears without characterising as visionary and extravagant. It was, however, impossible to prejudice the queen against him, and, by her means, he had an offer of the wealthy deanery of Down; but the duke of Dorset, then lord lieutenant of Ireland, was displeased at the manner in which the appointment was made, and it was thought unadvisable to press the completion of it. In a short time afterwards, the see of Cloyne became vacant, and to this Berkeley was consecrated, in Dublin, on the 19th of May, 1733. He took possession immediately of his episcopal residence, and lived in it constantly, unremittingly engaged upon the duties of his diocese, except one winter, when parliamentary business detained him in Dublin. He was never, indeed, inattentive to the interests of religion in the world at large, and the next proof that he publicly gave of this, was in the shape of a rebuke to those who would fain cover unbelief under a specious, but flimsy veil, woven by mathematics. Addison, visiting Garth, the poetical physician, then on his deathbed, some years before, was said to have spoken seriously to him on religion, and to have been shocked by this reply, "I have good reason for disbelieving it, for Dr. Halley, whose time has been spent so much in demonstration, assures me that it is quite incapable of standing a sufficient scrutiny.' Berkeley took occasion from this to address "an infidel mathematician," in a discourse, entitled the Analyst, which argues that mathematical knowledge makes far larger demands than Christianity does upon the implicit acquiescence of mankind. One evidence of this was drawn from the doctrine of fluxions, and a controversy arose in consequence. Berkeley's principal antagonist appeared under the designation of Philalethes Cantabrigiensis, with a tract, in 1734, entitled, Geometry no Friend to Infidelity. The author was said to be Dr. Jurin; and when Berkeley published, in reply, A Defence of Free-thinking in Mathematics, he rejoined by The Minute Mathematician, or the Free-thinker no Just Thinker. The controversy went no farther, but it caused the doctrine of fluxions to be examined with unwonted care, and Maclaurin's able work was the eventual result.

Subsequently, Berkeley, though writing occasional pieces upon subjects of public utility, attracted no particular attention by any thing from his pen, except some

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