He is compendiously called an Irish prelate and philosopher. Born in the County of Kilkenny, 1684, and dying in Oxford, 1753, he began as a philosopher. While still young, he wrote his famous treatise on “The Principles of Human Knowledge,” where he denies the existence of matter, insisting that it is only an impression produced on the mind by Divine power. After travel for several years on the Continent, and fellowship with the witty and learned at home, among whom were Addison, Swift, Pope, Garth, and Arbuthnot, he conceived the project of educating the aborigines of America, which was set forth in a tract, published in 1725, entitled “A Proposal for the better Supplying of Churches in our Foreign Plantations, and for Converting the Savage Americans to Christianity, by a College to be erected in the Summer Islands, otherwise called the Isles of Bermuda.” Persuaded by his benevolence, the Minister[298] promised twenty thousand pounds, and there were several private subscriptions, to promote what was called by the King “so pious an undertaking.” Berkeley possessed already a deanery in Ireland, worth eleven hundred pounds a year. Turning away from this residence, and refusing to be tempted by an English mitre, offered by the Queen, he set sail for Rhode Island, “which lay nearest to Bermuda,” where, after a tedious passage of more than four months, he arrived 23d January, 1729. Here he lived on a farm back of Newport, having been, according to his own report, “at very great expense in purchasing land and stock.”[299] In familiar letters he has recorded his impression of this place, famous since for fashion. “The climate,” he says, “is like that of Italy, and not at all colder in the winter than I have known it everywhere north of Rome.… This island is pleasantly laid out in hills and vales and rising grounds, hath plenty of excellent springs and fine rivulets, and many delightful landscapes of rocks and promontories and adjacent islands.… The town of Newport contains about six thousand souls, and is the most thriving, flourishing place in all America for its bigness. It is very pretty, and pleasantly situated. I was never more agreeably surprised than at the first sight of the town and its harbor.”[300] He seems to have been contented, and when his companions went to Boston stayed at home, “preferring,” as he wrote, “quiet and solitude to the noise of a great town, notwithstanding all the solicitations that have been used to draw us thither.”[301]