train
missionaries for the colonies and to labor among the North American
Indians. As a metaphysician, he was an _absolute idealist_. This is no
place to discuss his theory. In the words of Dr. Reid, "He maintains ...
that there is no such thing as matter in the universe; that the sun and
moon, earth and sea, our own bodies and those of our friends, are nothing
but ideas in the minds of those who think of them, and that they have no
existence when they are not objects of thought; that all that is in the
universe may be reduced to two categories, to wit, _minds_ and _ideas in
the mind_." The reader is referred, for a full discussion of this
question, to Sir William Hamilton's _Metaphysics_. Berkeley's chief
writings are: _New Theory of Vision, Treatise Concerning the Principles of
Human Knowledge_, and _Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous_. His name
and memory are especially dear to the American people; for, although his
scheme of the training-college failed, he lived for two years and a half
in Newport, where his house still stands, and where one of his children is
buried. He presented to Yale College his library and his estate in Rhode
Island, and he wrote that beautiful poem with its kindly prophecy:

Westward the course of empire takes its way:
The four first acts already past,
A fifth shall close the drama with the day;
Time's noblest offspring is the last.

CHAPTER XXVII.

THE RISE AND PROGRESS OF MODERN FICTION.

The New Age. Daniel Defoe. Robinson Crusoe. Richardson. Pamela, and
Other Novels. Fielding. Joseph Andrews. Tom Jones. Its Moral. Smollett.
Roderick Random. Peregrine Pickle.

THE NEW AGE.

We have now reached a new topic in the course of English
Literature--contemporaneous, indeed, with the subjects just named, but
marked by new and distinct development. It was a period when numerous and
distinctive forms appeared; when genius began to segregate into schools
and divisions; when the progress of letters and the demands of popular
curiosity gave rise to works which would have been impossible, because
uncalled for, in any former period. English enterprise was extending
commerce and scattering useful arts in all quarters of the globe, and thus
giving new and rich materials to English letters. Clive was making himself
a lord in India; Braddock was losing his army and his life in America.
This spirit of English enterprise in foreign lands was evoking literary