He had not been forgotten at home during his absence; and shortly after his return he became Bishop of Cloyne, in which place he was most exemplary, devoting himself to his episcopal duties, to the education of his children, and the pleasures of composition. It was while occupied with his plan of a college, especially as a nursery for the Colonial churches, shortly before sailing for America, that the future seemed to be revealed to him, and he wrote the famous poem, the only one to be found among his works, entitled, "Verses on the Prospect of Planting Arts and Learning in America."[15] The date may be fixed at 1726. Such a poem was an historic event. I give the first and last stanzas. "The Muse, disgusted at an age and clime Barren of every glorious theme, _In distant lands now waits a better_, _Producing subjects worthy fame_. * * * * * "_Westward the course of empire takes its way_; The first four acts already past, A fifth shall close the drama with the day; Time's noblest offspring is the last." It is difficult to exaggerate the value of these verses, which have been so often quoted as to become one of the commonplaces of literature and politics. There is nothing from any oracle, there is very little from any prophecy, which can compare with them. The biographer of Berkeley, who wrote in the last century, was very cautious, when, after calling them "a beautiful copy of verses," he says that "another age will, perhaps, acknowledge the old conjunction of the prophetic character with that of the poet to have again taken place."[16] The _vates_ of the Romans was poet and prophet; and such was Berkeley. The sentiment which prompted the prophetic verses of the good Bishop was widely diffused; or, perhaps, it was a natural prompting.[17] Of this an illustration is afforded in the life of Benjamin West. On his visit to Rome in 1760, the young artist encountered a famous improvvisatore, who, on learning that he was an American come to study the fine arts in Rome, at once addressed him with the ardor of inspiration, and to the music of his guitar. After singing the darkness which for so many ages veiled America from the eyes of science, and also the fulness of time when the purposes for which America had been raised from the deep would be manifest, he hailed the youth before him as an instrument of Heaven to raise there a taste for those arts which elevate man, and an assurance of refuge to science and knowledge, when, in the old age of Europe, they should have forsaken her shores. Then, in the spirit of prophecy, he sang:--