DESCARTES TO BERKELEY Berkeley’s Wnal work of theoretical philosophy was a Latin treatise on motion, published in 1712 By that time he had been for two years a priest of the Protestant Church of Ireland From time to time he visited London, where he became a friend of Alexander Pope and was presented at court by Jonathan Swift In 1714 he made a grand tour of the continent, taking the Alpine route in the middle of winter in an open chair; he was suitably terriWed by Mont Cenis, ‘high, craggy and steep enough to cause the heart of the most valiant man to melt within him’ In 1724 he became Dean of Derry, and resigned his Fellowship of Trinity Shortly afterwards he conceived the plan of founding a college in Bermuda to educate and give religious instruction to the sons of British colonists from mainland America alongside native Americans He foresaw that the leadership of the civilized world would one day pass to America, and in a poem ‘On the Prospect of Planting Arts and Learning in America’ he wrote: Westward the course of empire takes its way The four Wrst acts already past A Wfth shall close the drama with the day: Time’s noblest oVspring is the last Berkeley obtained a charter for his college and the promise of a parliamentary grant of £20,000 He set sail across the Atlantic in 1728 Having reached Newport, Rhode Island, he soon determined that this would be a more suitable venue for his academy But the promised grant did not in the end materialize, and he returned to England in 1731 without having achieved anything The citizens of the United States, however, did not forget his care for the education of their ancestors, and named after him a college at Yale and a university town in California In 1734 Berkeley was appointed Bishop of Cloyne Although he was a conscientious bishop, his pastoral task was not a heavy one, and he devoted himself to propagating the virtues of tar-water, which he advertised as a panacea for most human diseases Tar-water was a concoction from the bark of pine trees which Berkeley had seen used in America as a remedy for smallpox It is, he wrote in his treatise Siris, ‘of a nature so mild and benign and proportioned to the human constitution, as to warm without heating, to cheer but not inebriate’ His words were later purloined by the poet Cowper and used in praise of tea 78