In 1732 he published " The Minute Philosopher," in two volumes 8vo., against Freethinkers. In 1733 he was made bishop of Cloyne ; and might have been removed in 174.5; by Lord Chester field, to Clogher, but declined it. He resided constantly at Cloyne ; where he faithfully discharged all the offices of a good bishop, yet continued his studies with unabated attention.
About this time he engaged in a con troversy with the mathematicians, which excited much debate in the literary world ; and the occasion of it was this : Addison had given the Bishop an account of the behaviour of their common friend Dr. Garth, in his last illness, which was equally unpleasing to both these advo cates of revealed religion. For when Addison went to see the Doctor, and be gan to discourse with him seriously about another world, " Surely, Addison," re plied he, "I have good reason not to be lieve those trifles,since my friend Dr. Hal ley, who has dealt so much in demonstra tion, has assured me, that the doctrines of christianity are incomprehensible, and the religion itself an imposture." The Bishop, therefore, took up arms against Halley, and addressed to him, as to an in fidel mathematician, a discourse called " The Analyst ;" with a view of shelving that mysteries in faith were unjustly ob jected to by mathematicians, who he thought admitted much greater myste ries, and even falsehoods in science, of which he endeavoured to prove that the doctrine of fluxion furnished a clear ex ample. This occasioned a long contro
versy between himself and some eminent mathematicians.
In 1736 Bishop Berkeley published " The Querist," a discourse addressed to magistrates, occasioned by the enormous licence and irreligion of the times ; and many other things afterwards of a smaller kind. In 1744 came out his celebrated and curious book, " Siris ; a Chain of Phi losophical Reflections and Inquiries con cerning the virtues of Tar-water." July the same year he removed, with his lady and family, to Oxford, partly to superin tend the education of a son, but chiefly to indulge the passion for learned retire ment, which had always strongly possess ed him. Ile would have resigned his bishopric for a canonry or headship at Oxford ; but it was not permitted him. Here he lived highly respected, and col lected and printed the same year all his smaller pieces in SVO But this happiness did not long continue,beingsuddenly cut by a palsy of the heart, January 14, 1753, in the 69th year of his age, while listening to a sermon that his lady was reading to him. The excellence of Berkeley's moral character is conspicu ous in his writings : he was an amiable as well as a very great man ; and in ma ny respects worthy the character given him by Pope : "To Berkeley every virtue under hea ven."