e the representatives of a whole nation,
could be found to support it. In order that religion and learning might
flourish in America, the seeds of them were to be cast in some rocky
islets severed from America by nearly six hundred miles of stormy ocean.
In order that the inhabitants of the mainland and of the West Indian
colonies might equally benefit by the new university, it was to be
placed in such a position that neither could conveniently reach it.'[60]
Berkeley, who had recently married, left England for Rhode Island, where
he stayed for about three years and wrote _Alciphron_ (1732), in which
he attacks the freethinkers under the title of _Minute Philosophers_.
Then on learning from Walpole that the promised money 'would most
undoubtedly be paid as soon as suits public convenience' which would be
never, he returned to England, and through the Queen's influence was
made Bishop of Cloyne. In that diocese eighteen years of his life were
spent. In the course of them he published the _Querist_ (1735-1737), an
_Essay on the Social State of Ireland_ (1744), and, in the same year,
_Siris_, which contains the bishop's famous recipe for the use of tar
water followed by much philosophical disquisition. The remedy, which was
afterwards praised by the poet Dyer in _The Fleece_, became instantly
popular. 'We are now mad about the water,' Horace Walpole wrote; 'the
book contains every subject from tar water to the Trinity; however, all
the women read it, and understand it no more than if it were
intelligible.' Editions of _Siris_ followed each other in rapid
succession, and it was translated into French and German. The work is
that of an enthusiast, and it should be read not for its argument, but
for its wealth of suggestiveness, and for what Mr. Balfour calls 'a
certain quality of moral elevation and speculative diffidence alien both
to the literature and the life of the eighteenth century.' Berkeley had
himself the profoundest faith in the panacea which he advocated. 'From
my representing tar water,' he writes, 'as good for so many things,
some, perhaps, many conclude it is good for nothing. But charity
obligeth me to say what I know, and what I think, howsoever it may be
taken. Men may conjecture and object as they please, but I appeal to
time and experience.'

In his latter days Berkeley, feeling his health failing, desired to
resign his bishopric and retire to Oxford, and there--while still bishop
of Cloyne, for the king