Berkeley’s head quarters were in London, in Green Street, for more than two years after the return to England in the beginning of 1732. Extant correspondence with Lord Percival ends in Rhode Island, and our picture of the two years in London is faintly formed by letters to Prior and Johnson. These speak of ill-health, and breathe a less sanguine spirit. The brilliant social life of former visits was less attractive now, even if old friends had remained. But Swift had quitted England for ever, and Steele had followed Addison to the grave. Gay, the common friend of Berkeley and Pope, died soon after the return from Rhode Island, and Arbuthnot was approaching his end at Hampstead. Samuel Clarke had passed away when Berkeley was at Whitehall; but Seeker now held the rectory of St. James’s, and Butler was in studious retirement on the Wear; while Pope was at Twickenham, publishing his _Essay on Man_, receiving visits from Bolingbroke, or visiting Lord Bathurst at Cirencester Park. Queen Caroline, too, was holding her receptions at Kensington; but “those who imagine (as you write),” he tells Prior in January, 1734, “that I have been making my court here all this time, would never believe (what is most true) that I have not been at the Court or at the Minister’s but once these seven years. The care of my health and the love of retirement have prevailed over whatsoever ambition might have come to my share.” There is a hint of a visit to Oxford, at Commemoration in 1733, when his friend Seeker received the honorary degree. ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐