country, no better example could be found than that of the Bishop of Cloyne. When thus settled permanently in his own island, Berkeley devoted himself to its interests with all the euthusiasm of his nature. Probably his episcopal work was not very engrossing. The year after his installation in his bishopric the "Querist' was published in Dublin. Its object was a general exposition, not of the wrongs, but of the vices of Ireland, with many practical suggestions for their remedy, one of which was the establishment of a national bank. Industry, cleanliness, content, and that honest work which is in so many cases to the Celt as to the savage rather a curse than a blessing, are what he recommends and urges with perpetual iteration.

"Whether there ever was, is, or will be, an industrious native poor or an idle rich ?" is the first question in theQuerist;' and on this he rings the changes with infinite variety and wealth of illustration. "Whether the bulk of our Irish natives are not kept from thriving by that cynical content in dirt and beggary which they possess to a degree beyond any other people in Christendom? Whether the creating of wants be not the likeliest way to produce industry in a people? And whether, if our peasantry were accustomed to eat beef and wear shoes, they would not be more industrious! Whether Ireland alone might not raise hemp sufficient for the British navy? Whether the upper part of this people are not truly English by blood, lauguage, religion, manners, inclination, and interest? Whether we are not as much Englishmen as the children of old Romans born in Britain were still Romans?... Whether, if drunkenness be a necessary evil, men may not as well drink the growth of their country?

Whether there be upon earth any Christian or civilised people so beggarly, wretched, and destitute as the common Irish? .. Whether there be any country in Christendom more capable of improvement than Ireland? Whether readier at my countrymen

not are

finding excuses than remedies? Whether it be not a new spectacle under the sun to behold in such a cli

mate and such a soil, and under such a gentle Government, so many roads untrodden, fields untilled, houses desolate, and hands unemployed? Whose fault is it if poor Ireland still continues poor?"

been handed on to us like so many This last pregnant question has of the others, and does not seem much nearer a reply now than in Bishop Berkeley's day. But it is tion approached from the side of curious to see this perennial quesnational compunction and a desire to mend. To think that neither a national bank, nor the distribution of flax and hemp seed, nor the promotion of manufactures in general, should have brought any cure to the distracted country, would probably have much perplexed the ardent philosopher, thus reasoning with his own people with all the heat and vehemence of an anxiety bordering on despair. Some time later he treated the same subject in a still more remarkable and individual way, addressing, under the title of 'A Word to the West,' an eloquent

t remonstrance and exhor

tation to the Catholic priests of Ireland. Among all the remarkable productions of his genius there is none more remarkable than this. Indeed, Berkeley's fame as a philosopher has but obscured the singular exertions in the most practical would of themselves have distinof all fields of public labour which The way guished any other man. in which he addresses "your reverences," with a dignified respect and full acknowledgment of their influence, has been but too seldom emulated in Ireland. We are told in his biography that the priests returned "their sincere and hearty thanks to the worthy author" in the Dublin Journal,' "6 assuring him that they were determined to comply with every particular recommended in his address to the best of their power." The kind of advice thus given by the Protestant Bishop, in his, acknowledged emias at o nence as once a sage of the highest reputation and & man

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itself is but temporary; that all tenures are not of the same kind; that the case of our English and the original Irish is equal in this respect; and that the true aborigines or natural Irish are noted for want of industry in improving even on their own lands, whereof they have both possession and property. ... A tight house, warm apparel, and wholesome food, are sufficient motives to labour. If all had them we should be a flourishing nation. o "But admitting even, for the various reasons above alleged, that it is impossible for our cottagers to be rich, yet it is certain they may be clean. Now, bring them to be cleanly and your work is half done. A little washing, scrubbing, and rubbing bestowed on their persons and houses, would intro duce a sort of industry, and industry in one kind is apt to beget it in another. Indolence in dirt is a terrible symptom, which shows itself, in our lower Irish more perhaps than in any people on this side the Cape of Good Hope. I will venture to add, that, look through out the kingdom, and you shall not find a clean house, inhabited by cleanly people, and yet wanting necessaries. That same spirit of industry that keeps folk clean being sufficient to keep them

also in food and raiment.

"If you have any regard (as is not to be doubted) either for the souls or bodies of your people, or even for your own interest or credit, you cannot fail to inveigh against this crying sin of your country. Were this but done heartily-would you but be instant in season and out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort,' such is the ascendant you have gained over the people, that we might soon expect to see the good fruits thereof.... It stands upon you to act with vigour in this cause, and shake off the shackles of sloth from your Countrymen, the rather because there be some who surmise that yourselves have put them on. Right or wrong, men will be apt to judge of your doc trines by their fruits. It will reflect small honour on their teachers if, in stead of honesty and industry, those of your communion are peculiarly distinguished by the contrary qualities, or if the nation converted by the great and glorious St. Patrick should, above all other nations, be stigmatised and mark. ed out as good for nothing. Many suspect your religion to be the cause of that notorious idleness which prevails

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so generally among the natives of this island, as if the Roman Catholic faith was inconsistent with an honest diligence in a man's calling. But whoever considers the great spirit of industry that reigus in Flanders and France, and even beyond the Alps, must acknowledge this to be a groundless suspicion. In Piedmont and Genoa, in the Milanese and the Venetian States, and indeed throughout all Lombardy, how well is the soil cultivated, and what manufactories of silk, velvet, paper, and other commodities flourish! To which I might add, that the person whose authority will be of the greatest weight with you, even the Pope himself, is at this day endeavouring to put new life into the trade and manufactures of his country. Though I am in no secret of, the Court of Rome, yet I will venture to affirm, that neither Pope nor Cardinals will be pleased to hear that those of their communion are distinguished above all others by sloth, dirt, and beggary; or be displeased at your endeavouring to rescue them from the reproach of such an infamous distinction."

It is unnecessary to apologise for quoting so largely from this extraordinary appeal at a moment when Ireland and its affairs are again in the ascendant, and when so graphic a picture of its condition a hundred years ago, and the relations then existing between the priesthood and people, is thus presented before us. The Bishop dwells upon these relations with the most un

hesitating distinctness. He has no ences" to effect what reformation doubt of the power of "your reverthey please in the race so dutifully subject to them. Perhaps so strange an address was never written by a dignified ecclesiastic in one Church to the priesthood of another. Its candour and honesty and generous meaning seem, if we may trust the biographer of Berkeley, to have been understood and appreciated by the body to whom it was ad dressed. They are said to have acknowledged in the 'Dublin Journal' that "in every page it contained a proof of the author's extensive charity; his views are only towards the public good; the means

he provideth are easily complied with; and his manner of treating persons in their circumstances so very singular, that they plainly show the good man, the polite gentleman, and the true patriot." How far these sentiments came from the heart it is of course impossible to tell, or whether there might not be some among their reverences who found the heretic Bishop's advice impertinent and uncalled for; but nevertheless there it is, as curious a memorial of the age and the man as could well be found. Notwithstanding Berkeley's philosophical understanding, his liberal mind and friendly ways of thinking, and experience of the world, it is evident that he looked upon the penal laws respecting Roman Catholics as a matter of course, unalterable, and founded on everlasting justice; just as he speaks with im perturbable calm, and not the slightest appearance even of a doubt as to the righteousness of the arrangement, about the slaves in the plantations. These simplest rules of natural justice did not, it is evident, in the smallest degree affect a mind so open, so generous, so full of regard for his fellow-creatures. This is one of the mysteries of humanity which it is the most hard to elucidate. We are far from taking up the extreme side of those great questions, or of going wild, for instance, with rapture on that most doubtful and insoluble problem of negro emancipation, the practical difficulties of which are immense. As a question of expediency or even possibility, it is perhaps as far from solution as ever it was; but in theory there no longer remains a doubt on the subject. This, however, it is clear had never entered Berkeley's mind. A hundred years is no such great matter in the world's history; but all the material changes that have been effected since then reckon small enough in comparison with the revolution which has been wrought in all our

estimates of things and modes of thought. Berkeley takes slavery for granted with the utmost calm, just as he takes it for granted that it is in the natural order of things that a priesthood, to whose influence he appeals as supreme over a whole nation, should be "obnoxious to the laws," and the communion in general lie under the "discouragements" to which he alludes so placidly. And yet he could not take for granted the existence of a stool or a table! What are our vulgar novelties of gas and penny-post, and the rest of our modern stock-in-trade, in comparison with the extraordinary revolution of ideas which has placed, in this respect at least, by mere dint of time, the mass of men who never think at all, on a height unattainable by one of the greatest thinkers and best men of his age!

The last great public undertaking of Bishop Berkeley's life has a whimsical aspect, which in fact it derives (according to the strictest rules of his own philosophy) from our eyes alone, being in its nature and effect upon the time a very serious matter of the gravest importance to the world. This was the discovery and promulgations of tar-water-grand sovereign panacea for every evil under heaven. The curious enthusiasm of the man's nature, and scorn of all secondary restraints such as the fear of ridicule, or the blame of interfering with the business of others comes out most distinctly in the fervour and persistence with which he thrusts his nauseous draught down the world's throat. It cured himself, he tells us, of "a nervous cholic" which "rendered his life a burden to him;" upon which he began, with his natural energy and hopefulness, to try it upon his neighbours; and having worked a variety of cures in Cloyne, immediately judged it his duty to make known the marvel to his country and mankind in general. He addressed himself to this sub