Chapter 32

George Berkeley (1685-1753), bishop of Cloyne, was born at Dysert Castle, near Thomastown, Co. Kilkenny, and was educated first at Kilkenny school and afterwards at Trinity College, Dublin. Having taken Anglican orders, he visited London, where he wrote nine papers for the _Guardian_ and was admitted to the companionship and friendship of the leading literary men of the age--Swift, Pope, Addison, Steele, and Arbuthnot. This connection proved of great assistance to him, for Pope not only celebrated him as possessing "every virtue under heaven", but also recommended him to the Duke of Grafton, Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, who appointed him his chaplain and subsequently obtained for him the deanery of Derry. In furtherance of a great scheme for "converting the savage Americans to Christianity", Berkeley and some friends, armed with a royal charter, came to this country, landing at Newport in Rhode Island in January, 1729. All went well for a while: Berkeley bought a farm and built a house; but when the hard-hearted prime minister refused to forward the £20,000 which had been promised, the project came to an end, and Berkeley returned to London in February, 1732. In 1734 he was appointed bishop of Cloyne, and later refused the see of Clogher, though its income was fully double that of his own diocese. In 1752 he resigned his bishopric and settled at Oxford, where he died in 1753.

Berkeley's works are very numerous. His _Essay towards a New Theory of Vision_ (1709), which was long regarded in the light of a philosophical romance, in reality contains speculations which have been incorporated in modern scientific optics. In his _Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous_ (1713) he sets forth his famous demonstration of the immateriality of the external world, of the spiritual nature of the soul, and of the all-ruling and direct providence of God. His tenets on immateriality have always been rejected by "common-sense" philosophers; but it should be remembered that the whole work was written at a time when the English-speaking world was disturbed by the theories of sceptics and deists, whose doctrines the pious divine sought as best he could to confute. In 1732 appeared his _Alciphron, or the Minute Philosopher_, in which, dialogue-wise, he presents nature from a religious point of view and in particular gives many pleasing pictures of American scenery and life. These dialogues have frequently been compared to the dialogues of Plato. To Berkeley's credit be it said that while he ruled in Cloyne he devoted much thought to the amelioration of conditions in his native land. Many acute suggestions in that direction are found in the _Querist_ (1735-1737). By some extraordinary ratiocinative process he convinced himself that tar-water was a panacea for human ills, and in 1744 he set forth his views on that subject in the tract called _Siris_, and returned to the charge in 1752 in his _Further Thoughts on Tar-Water_. Whatever may be thought of the value of Berkeley's philosophical or practical speculations, there is only one opinion of his style. It is distinguished by lucidity, ease, and charm; it has the saving grace of humor; and it is shot through with imagination. Taken all in all, this eighteenth century bishop is a notable figure in literary annals.

Charles Macklin (c. 1697-1797), whose real name was MacLaughlin, was a Westmeath man, who took to the stage in early life and remained on the boards with considerable and undiminished reputation for some seventy years, not retiring until 1789 when he was at least 92 years old. To him we are indebted for what is now the accepted presentation of the character of Shylock in _The Merchant of Venice_. He wrote a tragedy and many comedies and farces: those by which he is now best remembered are the farce, _Love-à-la-Mode_ (1760), and his masterpiece, the farcical comedy, _The Man of the World_ (1764). In Sir Pertinax MacSycophant, Macklin has given us one of the traditional burlesque characters of the English stage.

Thomas Amory (1691?-1788), if not born in Ireland, was at least of Irish descent and was educated in Dublin. He is known in literature for two books. The first, with the very mixed title of _Memoirs containing the Lives of several Ladies of Great Britain; A History of Antiquities; Observations on the Christian Religion_, was published in 1755, and the second, _The Life of John Buncle, Esq._, came out in two volumes in 1756-1766. It appears to have been the author's aim in both works to give us a hotch-potch in which he discourses _de omnibus rebus et quibusdam aliis_. We have dissertations on the cause of earthquakes and of muscular motion, on the Athanasian Creed, on fluxions, on phlogiston, on the physical cause of the Deluge, on Irish literature, on the origin of language, on the evidences for Christianity, and on all other sorts of unrelated topics. Hazlitt thought that the soul of Rabelais had passed into Amory, while a more recent critic can see in his long-winded discussions naught but the "light-headed ramblings of delirium." If we try to read _John Buncle_ consecutively, the result is boredom; but if we open the book at random, we are pretty sure to be interested and even sometimes agreeably entertained.

The bizarre figure of Laurence Sterne (1713-1768) next claims our attention. The son of a captain in the British army, he was born at Clonmel, Co. Tipperary. Of him almost more than of any of the writers so far dealt with, it may be said that he was Irish only by the accident of birth. His parents were English on both sides, and practically the whole life of their son was spent out of Ireland. He was sent to school at Halifax, in Yorkshire, and thence went to Cambridge University, where he graduated in due season. Taking Anglican orders in 1738, he was immediately appointed to the benefice of Sutton-in-the-Forest, near York, and on his marriage in 1741 with Elizabeth Lumley he received the additional living of Stillington. He was also given sundry prebendal and other appointments in connection with the chapter of the archdiocese of York. He spent nearly twenty years in the discharge of his not very onerous duties and in reading, painting, shooting, and fiddling, without showing the least sign of any literary leanings. Then suddenly, in 1760, he took the world by storm with the first two volumes of _Tristram Shandy_. He at once became the lion of the hour, was fêted and dined to his heart's content, and had his nostrils tickled with the daily incense of praise from his numerous worshippers. He repeated the experiment with equal success the following year with two more volumes of _Tristram_, and so at intervals until 1767, when he published the ninth and last volume of this most peculiar story. In 1768 he brought out _A Sentimental Journey_, and within three weeks he died in his lodgings in London. His other publications include _Sermons_ and _Letters_. _Tristram Shandy_ is unique in English literature--it stands _sui generis_ for all time. There is scarcely any consecutive narrative, and what there is is used merely as a peg on which to hang endless digressions. But while there are many faults of taste and morals, there are also genuine humor and pathos, and without Walter Shandy, Dr. Slop, the Widow Wadman, Yorick, Uncle Toby, and Corporal Trim, English literature would certainly be very much the poorer.

Hugh Kelly (1739-1777), born in Dublin, was the son of a publican and himself became a staymaker, a trade from which he developed through the successive stages of attorney's clerk, newspaper-writer, theatrical critic, and essayist, into a novelist and playwright. His novel, _Memoirs of a Magdalen_ (1767), was translated into French. His first comedy, a sentimental one entitled _False Delicacy_ (1768), achieved a remarkable success on the stage and was even a greater success in book form, 10,000 copies being sold in a year, so that its author was raised from poverty to comparative affluence. In addition, it gave him a European reputation, for it was translated into German, French, and Portuguese. Strange to say, his later comedies, _A Word to the Wise, A School for Wives_, and _The Man of Reason_, were practically failures, and the same is true of his tragedy, _Clementina_. Kelly ultimately withdrew from stage work, and for the last three years of his life practised as a barrister without, however, achieving much distinction in his new profession.

Charles Coffey (d. 1745), an Irishman, was the author of several farces, operas, ballad operas, ballad farces, and farcical operas, the best known of which was _The Devil to Pay, or the Wives Metamorphosed_ (1731).

Henry Brooke (1703?-1783), a county Cavan man and the son of a clergyman, was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, and afterwards studied law in London. Becoming guardian to his cousin, a girl of twelve, he put her to school for two years and then secretly married her. Of his large family of twenty-two children, three of whom were born before their mother was eighteen years old, but one survived him. Appointed by Lord Chesterfield barrack-master at Mullingar, Brooke afterwards settled in Co. Kildare. It was there that he wrote his celebrated work, _The Fool of Quality, or the History of the Earl of Moreland_ (5 vols., 1766-1770), which won the commendations of men so widely different as John Wesley and Charles Kingsley. It is, indeed, a remarkable book, combining, as it does, many of the characteristics of Sterne, Mackenzie, Borrow, and George Meredith. It is not very well known nowadays, but it will always bear, and will well repay, perusal. Brooke also wrote a poem on _Universal Beauty_ (1735) and the tragedies _Gustavus Vasa_ (1739), the production of which was forbidden in London but which was afterwards staged in Dublin as _The Patriot_, and _The Earl of Essex_ (1749), which was played both in London and in Dublin, and has been made famous by the parody of one line in it by Samuel Johnson. Another novel, _Juliet Grenville, or the History of the Human Heart_, published in 1774, was not nearly up to the standard of _The Fool of Quality_. Brooke was a busy literary man. He made a translation of part of Tasso, drafted plans for a History of Ireland, projected a series of old Irish tales, wrote one fragment in a style very like that subsequently adopted by Macpherson in his _Ossian_, and for a while was editor of the _Freeman's Journal_. In the beginning, Brooke was violently anti-Catholic; but, as time progressed, he became more liberal-minded, and advocated the relaxation of the penal laws and a more humane treatment of his Catholic fellow-countrymen. Like Swift and Steele, he fell into a state of mental debility for some years before his death. His daughter, Charlotte Brooke (1740-1793), deserves mention as a pioneer of the Irish literary revival, for she devoted herself to the saving of the stores of Irish literature which in her time were rapidly disappearing. One of the fruits of her labors was _The Reliques of Irish Poetry_, published in 1789. She also wrote _Emma, or the Foundling of the Wood_, a novel, and _Belisarius_, a tragedy.

Charles Johnstone (c. 1719-1800), a Co. Limerick man, was educated in Dublin and called to the English bar, but owing to deafness was more successful as a chamber counsel than as a pleader. Emigrating to India in 1782, he became joint proprietor of a newspaper in Calcutta, and there he died. He wrote several satirical romances, such as _Chrysal, or the Adventures of a Guinea; The Reverie, or a Flight to the Paradise of Fools_; and _The History of Arsaces, Prince of Betlis_. Of these the first was the best. Samuel Johnson, who read it in manuscript, advised its publication, and his opinion was vindicated, for it proved a huge success. Sir Walter Scott afterwards said that the author of _Chrysal_ deserved to rank as a prose Juvenal. Johnstone also wrote _The Pilgrim, or a Picture of Life_ and a picaresque novel, _The History of John Juniper, Esquire, alias Juniper Jack_.

Arthur Murphy (1727-1805), born at Cloonquin, Co. Roscommon, was educated at St. Omer. At first an actor, he afterwards studied law and was called to the English bar in 1762. He made a translation of Tacitus, and wrote several farces and comedies, among which may be mentioned _The Apprentice; The Spouter; The Upholsterer; The Way to Keep Him_; and _All in the Wrong_. He also wrote three tragedies, namely, _The Orphan of China; The Grecian Daughter_; and _Arminius_. For the last-named, which was produced in 1798, and which had a strongly political cast, he received a pension of £200 a year. His plays long held the stage.

Oliver Goldsmith (1728-1774), essayist, poet, novelist, playwright, historian, biographer, and editor, was a many-sided genius, who, as Johnson said in his epitaph, left scarcely any kind of writing untouched, and touched none that he did not adorn. Born, probably, in Co. Longford, the son of a poor clergyman, he was educated at various country schools until, in 1744, he secured a sizarship in Trinity College, Dublin. There he had a somewhat stormy career, but eventually took his degree in 1749. He then lounged at home for a while in his widowed mother's cottage at Ballymahon, until he was persuaded to take orders, but spoiled his already sufficiently poor chances of ordination by appearing before the bishop of Elphin in scarlet breeches. After other adventures in search of a profession, he went to Edinburgh in 1752 to study medicine, and two years later transferred himself to Leyden for the same purpose. It was from Leyden that, with one guinea in his pocket, one shirt on his person, and a flute in his hand, he started on his celebrated walking tour of Europe, during which he gained those impressions which he was afterwards to embody in some of his greater works. In 1756 he arrived in England, where for three years he had very varied experiences--as a strolling player, an apothecary's journeyman, a practising physician, a reader for the press, an usher in an academy, and a hack-writer. In 1759 he published anonymously his _Enquiry into the Present State of Polite Learning in Europe_, which was well received and helped him to other literary work. _The Bee_, a volume of essays and verses, appeared in the same year. He was made editor of the _Lady's Magazine_; he published _Memoirs of Voltaire_ (1761), a _History of Mecklenburgh_ (1762), and a _Life of Richard Nash_ (1762). In 1762 also he brought out his _Citizen of the World_, a collection of essays, which takes an extremely high rank. In 1764 his poem, _The Traveller, or a Prospect of Society_, made its appearance; and in 1766 he gave to the world his famous novel, _The Vicar of Wakefield_. His reputation as a writer was now established; he was received into Johnson's circle and was a member of the Literary Club; Reynolds and Burke were proud to call him friend. In 1768 he had his comedy, _The Good Natured Man_, produced at Covent Garden Theatre, where it achieved a fair measure of success and brought him in £400. In 1770 he repeated his triumph as a poet with _The Deserted Village_. He wrote a _History of Animated Nature_, a _History of England_, and a _History of Rome_, all compilations couched in that easy style of which he was master. He also wrote a _Life of Parnell_ and a _Life of Bolingbroke_. Finally, in 1773, his great comedy, _She Stoops to Conquer_, was staged at Covent Garden, and met with wonderful success. A little more than a year later Goldsmith died of a nervous fever, the result of overwork and anxiety, and was buried in the burial ground of the Temple Church. His unfinished poem, _Retaliation_, a series of epigrams in epitaph form on some of his distinguished literary and artistic friends, was issued a few days after his death, and added greatly to his reputation as a wit and humorist, a reputation which was still further enhanced when, in 1776, _The Haunch of Venison_ made its appearance. In the latter year a monument, with a medallion and Johnson's celebrated Latin epitaph attached, was erected to his memory in Westminster Abbey.

Goldsmith's renown, great in his own day, has never since diminished. His essays, his novel, and his poems are still read with avidity and pleasure; his comedy is still acted. It is his statue that stands along with Burke's at the entrance gate to Trinity College, Dublin, the _alma mater_ seeking to commemorate in a striking manner two of her most distinguished sons by placing their effigies thus in the forefront of her possessions and in full view of all the world. Personally, Goldsmith was a very amiable and good-hearted man, dear to his own circle and dear to that "Mr. Posterity" to whom he once addressed a humorous dedication. He had his faults, it is true, but they are hidden amid his many perfections. Everyone will be disposed to agree with what Johnson wrote of him: "Let not his frailties be remembered; he was a very great man."

Edmund Burke (1729-1797), born in Dublin, the son of a Protestant father and a Catholic mother whose name was Nagle, was educated first at a Quaker school in Ballitore, Co. Kildare, and afterwards at Trinity College, Dublin. He became a law student in London, but he did not eventually adopt the law as a profession. He brought out in 1756 a _Vindication of Natural Society_, in which he so skilfully imitated the style and the paradoxical reasoning of Bolingbroke that many were deceived into the belief that the _Vindication_ was a posthumously published production of the viscount's pen. In the following year Burke published in his own name _A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful_, which attracted widespread attention, was translated into German and French, and brought its author into touch with all the leading literary men of London. He was instrumental with Dodsley the publisher in starting the _Annual Register_ in 1759, and for close on thirty years he continued to supply it with the "Survey of Events." He entered public life in 1760 by accompanying "Single-Speech" Hamilton to Dublin when the latter was appointed Chief Secretary for Ireland. In 1765 he was made private secretary to the prime minister, the Marquis of Rockingham, and, as member for Wendover, entered parliament, where he speedily made a name for himself. During Lord North's long tenure of office (1770-1782) Burke was one of the minority and opposed the splendid force of his genius to the corruption, extravagance, and mal-administration of the government. To this period belong, in addition to lesser works, his great speeches _On American Taxation_ (1774) and _On Conciliation with America_ (1775), as well as his spirited _Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol_ (1777). He had been elected member of parliament for Bristol in 1774, but he lost his seat in 1780 because he had advocated the relaxation of the restrictions on the trade of Ireland with Great Britain and of the penal laws against Catholics. In the second administration of Rockingham (1782) and in that of Portland (1783) he was paymaster of the forces, a position which he lost on the downfall of the Whigs in the latter year, and he never again held public office. His speech on the impeachment of Warren Hastings in 1788 is universally and justly ranked as a masterpiece of eloquence. When the French Revolution broke out, he opposed it with might and main. His _Reflections on the French Revolution_ (1790) had an enormous circulation, reached an eleventh edition inside of a year, was read all over the continent as well as in the British Isles, and helped materially not only to keep England steady in the crisis, but also to incite the other powers to continue their resistance to French aggression. He continued his campaign in _Thoughts on French Affairs_ and _Letters on a Regicide Peace_. He was given two pensions in 1794, and would have been raised to the peerage as Lord Beaconsfield, had not the succession to the title been cut off by the premature death of his only son. He himself died in 1797 and was buried at Beaconsfield, where, as far back as 1768, he had purchased a small estate.

As an orator and a deep political thinker, Burke holds a foremost place among those of all time who distinguished themselves in the British parliament. His keen intellect, his powerful imagination, his sympathy with the fallen, the downtrodden, and the oppressed, and his matchless power of utterance of the thoughts that were in him have made an impression that can never be effaced. His wise and statesman-like views on questions affecting the colonies ought to endear him to all Americans, although, if his counsels had been hearkened to, it is probable that the separation from the mother country would not have occurred as soon as it did. For his native land he used his best endeavors when and how he could, and although, as her defender, he was faced by obloquy as well as by the loss of that parliamentary position which was as dear to him as the breath of his nostrils, he did not flinch or shrink from supporting her material and spiritual interests in his own generous, manly, whole-hearted way. Trinity College, Dublin, has done well in placing his statue at her outer gates as representing the greatest Irishman of his generation.

A political associate of Burke's for many years was Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751-1816). Of Co. Cavan descent, Sheridan was born in Dublin, and was educated partly in his native city and partly at Harrow, and the remainder of his life was spent in England. He was distinguished first as a playwright and afterwards as a parliamentary orator. In 1775 his comedy, _The Rivals_, was produced at Covent Garden Theatre; his farce, _St. Patrick's Day, or the Scheming Lieutenant_, and his comic opera, _The Duenna_, were staged in the same year. His greatest comedy, _The School for Scandal_, was acted at Drury Lane Theatre in 1777, and it was followed in 1779 by _The Critic_. His last dramatic composition was the tragedy, _Pizarro_, produced in 1799. Elected to parliament in 1780, Sheridan was made under-secretary for foreign affairs in the Rockingham administration of 1782, and in 1783 he was secretary to the treasury in the Coalition Ministry. He sprang into repute as a brilliant orator during the impeachment of Warren Hastings, 1787-1794. His speech on the Begums of Oude was one of the greatest ever delivered within the walls of the British parliament. In 1806, on the return of the Whigs to power, he was appointed treasurer in the navy. In 1812 his long parliamentary career came to a close when he was defeated for the borough of Westminster. He died in 1816, and was honored with a magnificent funeral in Westminster Abbey.

To give an idea as to how Sheridan's oratorical powers impressed his contemporaries, it is perhaps enough to repeat what Burke said of his second speech against Warren Hastings, namely, that it was "the most astonishing effort of eloquence, argument, and wit united of which there is any record or tradition", and to add that when, after three hours of impassioned pleading, he brought his first speech against Hastings to an end, the effect produced was so great that it was agreed to adjourn the house immediately and defer the final decision until the members should be in a less excited mood. As a dramatist Sheridan is second in popularity to Shakespeare alone. _The School for Scandal_ and _The Rivals_ are as fresh and as eagerly welcomed today as they were a hundred and forty years ago. Like Burke, he was true to the land of his birth and his oppressed Catholic fellow-countrymen. Almost his last words in the house of commons were these: "Be just to Ireland. I will never give my vote to any administration that opposes the question of Catholic emancipation."