but we are still rather ignorant of the price. Ah! my two or three
friends who take a song-writer for a magician, have you never heard,
then, that power is a bell which prevents those who set it ringing from
hearing anything else? Doubtless ministers sometimes consult those at
hand: consultation is a means of talking about one's self which is
rarely neglected. But it will not be enough even to consult in good
faith those who will advise in the same way. One must still act: that is
the duty of the position. The purest intentions, the most enlightened
patriotism, do not always confer it. Who has not seen high officials
leave a counselor with brave intentions, and an instant after return to
him, from I know not what fascination, with a perplexity that gave the
lie to the wisest resolutions? "Oh!" they say, "we will not be caught
there again! what drudgery!" The more shamefaced add, "I'd like to see
you in my place!" When a minister says that, be sure he has no longer a
head. There is indeed one of them, but only one, who, without having
lost his head, has often used this phrase with the utmost sincerity; he
has therefore never used it to a friend.

GEORGE BERKELEY

(1685-1753)

Few readers in the United States are unfamiliar with the lines,
"Westward the course of empire takes its way." It is vaguely remembered
that a certain Bishop Berkeley was the author of a treatise on
tar-water. There is moreover a general impression that this Bishop
Berkeley contended for the unreality of all things outside of his own
mind, and now and then some recall Byron's lines--

"When Bishop Berkeley said 'there was no matter,'
And proved it,--'twas no matter what he said."

This is the substance of the popular knowledge of one of the profoundest
thinkers of the early part of the eighteenth century,--the time of
Shaftesbury and Locke, of Addison and Steele, of Butler, Pope, and
Swift,--one of the most fascinating men of his day, and one of the best
of any age. Beside, or rather above, Byron's line should be placed
Pope's tribute:--

"To Berkeley, every virtue under Heaven."

[Illustration: GEORGE BERKELEY.]

Berkeley was born in Ireland, probably at Dysart Castle in the Valley of
the Nore, near Kilkenny, March 12, 1685. The family having but lately
come into Ireland, Berkeley always accounted himself an Englishman. At
Kilkenny School he met the poet Prior, who became his intimate friend,
his business representa