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that I am, and fhall ever be, with the

greatest refpect,

MY LORD,

Your Lordship's most obedient,

Moft obliged, and

Moft humble fervant.

I defire to present my most humble respects to my Lady Oxford.

LETTER XXXVII.

To his Excellency the Lord CARTERET, Lord Lieutenant of IRELAND.

MY LORD,

BEING

September 3d, 1724.

EING ten years older than when I had the honour to fee your Excellency laft, by confequence, if I am fubject to any ailments, they are now ten times worse, and so it happened. For I have been, this month past, so pestered with the return of a noise and deafness in my ears, that I had not spirit to perform the common offices of life, much lefs to write to your Excellency, and least of all to answer fo obliging and condescending a letter as that I received

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from

from you. But these ugly ten years have a worse consequence; that they utterly destroy any title to the good opinion you are pleased to exprefs of me, as an amufer of the world and myself. To have preferved that talent, I ought, as I grew older, to have removed into a better climate, inftead of being funk for life in a worse. I imagine France would be proper for me now, and Italy ten years hence. However, I am not fo bad as they would make me: For, fince I left England, fuch a parcel of trash has been there fathered upon me, that nothing but the good judgment of my friends could hinder them from thinking me to be grown the greatest dunce alive.

There is a gentleman of this kingdom juft gone for England; it is Doctor George Berkeley, Dean of Derry, the best preferment among us, being worth about 1100 / a year. He takes the Bath in his way to London; and will, of courfe, attend your Excellency, and be prefented, I fuppofe, by his friend my Lord Burlington. And, because I believe you will chufe out fome very idle minutes to read this letter, perhaps you may not be ill entertained with fome account of the man, and his errand.

He

He was a Fellow in the University here; and, going to England very young, about thirteen years ago, he became the founder of a fect there called the Immaterialists, by the force of a very curious book upon that fubject. Doctor Smaldridge, and many other eminent perfons were his profelytes. I fent him fecretary and chaplain, to Sicily, with my Lord Peterborow; and, upon his Lordfhip's return, Doctor Berkeley spent above seven years in travelling over moft parts of Europe, but chiefly through every corner of Italy, Sicily, and other islands. When he came back to England, he found fo many friends that he was effectually recommended to the Duke of Grafton, by whom he was lately made Dean of Derry. Your Excellency will be frighted, when I tell you all this is but an introduction: For I am now to mention his errand. He is an abfolute philofopher, with regard to money, titles, and power; and, for three years paft, hath been ftruck with a notion of founding an university at Bermudas, by a charter from the Crown. He hath feduced feveral of the hopefulleft young clergymen and others here, many of them well provided for, and all of them in the fairest way of preferment: But, in England,

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England, his conquests are greater; and, I doubt, will fpread very far this winter. He fhewed me a little tract, which he defigns to publish; and there your Excellency will fee his whole scheme of a life academico-philofophical, (I shall make you remember what you were) of a college founded for Indian scholars and miffionaries; where he, moft exorbitantly, propofeth a whole hundred pounds a year for himself, forty pounds for a fellow, and ten for a ftudent. His heart will break if his deanry be not taken from him, and left to your Excellency's difpofal. I difcourage him by the coldness of courts and minifters, who will interpret all this as impoffible, and a vifion; but nothing will do. And, therefore, I do humbly entreat your Excellency, either to ufe fuch perfuafions as will keep one of the first men in this kingdom, for learning and virtue, quiet at home, or affist him, by your credit, to compafs his romantic defign; which, however, is very noble and generous, and directly proper for a great perfon of your excellent education to encourage,

I must now, in all humility, intreat one favour of you, as you are Lord Lieute

nant,

nant. Mr. Proby, furgeon of the army here, laid out the greatest part of his fortune to buy a captainfhip for his eldest fon. The young man was lately accufed of discovering an inclination to Popery, while he was quartered in Galway. The report of the court-martial is tranfmitted to your Excellency. The universal opinion here is, that the accufation was false and malicious: And the Archbishop of Tuam, in whofe diocese Galway is, upon a ftrict enquiry, hath declared it to be fo. But all this is not to fway with your Excellency, any more than that the father is the moft univerfally beloved of any man I ever knew in his ftation. But I intreat, that you will please to hear the opinion of others, who may speak in his favour; and, perhaps, will tell you, that, as party is not in the cafe, fo you cannot do any perfonal thing more acceptable to the people of Ireland, than in inclining towards lenity to Mr. Proby and his family; although I have reafon to be confident, that they neither need nor defire more than juftice. I beg your Excellency will remember my requeft to be only that you would hear others, and not think me fo very weak, as to imagine I could have hopes of giving

the

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