'But, I know not how, my soul has always raised itself, and looked forward on futurity, in this view and expectation, that when it shall depart out of life, it shall then live for ever; and if this were not true, that the mind is immortal, the soul of the most worthy would not above all others have the strongest impulse to glory.

"What besides this is the cause that the wisest men die with the greatest equanimity, the ignorant with the greatest concern? Does it not seem that those minds which have the most extensive views, foresee they are removing to a happier condition, which those of a narrow sight do not perceive? I, for my part, am transported with the hope of seeing your ancestors, whom I have honoured, and loved, and am earnestly desirous of meeting not only these excellent persons whom I have known, but those of whom I have heard and read, and of whom I myself have written; nor would I be detained from so pleasing a journey. O happy day, when I shall escape from this crowd, this heap of pollution, and be admitted to that divine assembly of exalted spirits! when I shall go not only to those great persons I have named, but to my Cato, my son, than whom a better man was never born, and whose funeral rites I myself performed, whereas he ought rather to have attended mine. Yet has not his sout

deserted me, but, seeming to cast back a look on me, is gone before to those habitations to which it was sensible I should follow him. And though I might appear to have borne my loss with courage, I was not unaffected with it; but I comforted myself in the assurance, that it would not be long before we should meet again, and be divorced no more."

In N° 467, Hughes is supposed to have paid a tribute of gratitude and respect to his illustrious friend and patron, Lord Cowper; for whom the character of MANILIUS, from a strong resemblance to that accomplished nobleman, in its leading feature, appears to have been designed.

The Essays on the Immortality of the Soul, and on Divine Providence, in Nos. 210 and 237, exhibit the piety of Hughes in a pleasing light. In the paper on Providence in particular, he has arranged the arguments for the constant superintendance of the Deity with great perspicuity and force; and he has happily illustrated his reflections by an apologue founded on a Jewish tradition.

To the Guardian our author furnished but one essay in N° 37, which is an ingenious and moral criticism on Othello, and the passion of Jealousy; to which he has annexed, as a still further instance of its frequently dreadful consequences,

a very tragic event which occurred in Spain, and of whose authenticity he ventures to assure the reader. To this number, in the late editions, have been added three letters on loquacity and masquerading, intended by Hughes for the Guardian, and which were first published in Duncombe's Collection of Letters, printed in 1772.

All the periodical Essays of Hughes are written in a style which is, in general, easy, correct, and elegant; they occasionally exhibit wit and humour; and they uniformly tend to inculcate the best precepts moral, prudential, and religious.

3. GEORGE BERKELEY, D. D. the celebrated Bishop of Cloyne in Ireland, was the son of William Berkeley of Thomastown, in the county of Kilkenny, and was born on the twelfth of March, 1684, at Kilcrin, near the native town of his father. After receiving a competent education at Kilkenny school, under the care of Dr. Hinton, he was entered, at the age of fifteen, a pensioner of Trinity College, Dublin, under the tuition of Dr. Hall; and, on the 9th of June, 1707, he was admitted a fellow.

In the same year that he attained this promotion in his college, he published his first literary effort, entitled, Arithmetica absque Algebra aut Euclide demonstrata; a little tract which he had

written at the age of twenty, and which strongly evinces an early partiality for mathematical science, and the subtleties of metaphysical discussion.

It may be considered as an able prelude to his elaborate work on "The Theory of Vision," which made its appearance in 1709, and is the first attempt, observes Mr. Nicholson, "to distinguish the immediate operations of the senses from the conclusions we habitually deduce from our sensations. The author clearly shews, that the connection between the sight and touch is the effect of habit; insomuch that a person born blind, and suddenly made to see, would at first be utterly unable to foretel how the objects of sight would affect the sense of touch; or, indeed, whether they were tangible or not; and that until experience had repeatedly taught him what events were concomitant with his sensations, he would be incapable of forming any notion of proximity or distance *." These positions, which threw new light upon the nature of vision, and explained many phenomena in optics before deemed inexplicable, were singularly confirmed by the well-known case in Cheselden's Anatomy, of the young man who was born blind and couched at the age of fourteen years.

* Aikin's General Biography, vol. ii. p. 127.

The year following this successful effort he published "The Principles of Human Knowledge;" an attempt to disprove the existence of matter, and to demonstrate that all material objects are not external to, but exist in, the mind, and are, in short, merely impressions made upon it by the immediate power and influence of the Deity, who in this, as in every other agency, acts by certain rules, usually termed laws of nature, and from which he seldom, if ever, deviates. To this steady adherence of the Almighty to the laws that he has promulgated, we owe the reality of things, the ideas of which as perceived by sense, are thus so effectually distinguished from such as are the mere product of the mind itself, or of dreams, that no greater danger of confounding them can occur on this theory than on the common hypothesis of the external existence of

matter.

This theory, which is, in fact, but an extension of Mr. Locke's mode of reasoning, may be traced to the writings of Aristotle. "It was the doctrine of Aristotle," says Dr. Reid, " that, as our senses cannot perceive external material objects themselves, they receive their species; that is, their images or forms, without the matter; as wax receives the form of the seal, without any of the matter of it. These images or forms, are