'In the shade, but shining.'
POPE _to Borlase_.
The little parish of Ludgvan[71] (or as it is sometimes called,
Ludgvan-Lees), on the north shore of the Mount's Bay, can boast of
having contributed at least its share to the list of illustrious
Cornishmen. Small, remote, and obscure as it is, Ludgvan is one of
the places mentioned as the birthplace of Sir Humphry Davy; it was
for more than half a century the residence of the subject of this
article; and here, too, at Tremenheere, was born one of the most
illustrious professors of the healing art that the county has ever
produced--himself the friend and medical attendant of Borlase and of
Pope--I refer to Dr. William Oliver, of Bath.
That the pursuits of a keen inquirer, endowed with no ordinary powers
of observation and considerable artistic talent, should, in such
an out-of-the-way corner of England as Ludgvan still is, have been
directed towards natural history, and to the megalithic remains of
antiquity with which the neighbourhood once abounded, and of which
there are still numerous examples, is not to be wondered at. And it
cannot be denied that the study of those sciences, both in Cornwall
and elsewhere, was materially benefited by the numerous and careful
drawings and descriptions of the stone monuments of a mysterious and
almost unknown race of men, which it was one of the main objects of
Dr. Borlase's learned leisure to investigate and record. Many of these
ancient remains have altogether disappeared since his time, and many
others have been mutilated or altered; but in the Doctor's volumes such
minute descriptions of them have been preserved that the loss of the
monuments themselves has been rendered of much less serious importance
than would have been the case but for his careful and elaborate
records. Of the deductions and suggestions which are appended to those
descriptions something will be said hereafter.
But, in accordance with the method adopted in the case of the other
Worthies of Cornwall, it is well first to say something of the stock
from which Dr. Borlase sprang. A Norman origin is claimed for the
family--they are said to have descended from one Taillefer: presumably
some connexion of him who is reported to have struck the first blow at
the Battle of Hastings. Coming into Cornwall, as, by the way, very few
other followers of the Norman Conqueror did, the Borlases seem to have
adopted a custom which has always more or less prevailed in the county
of merging their own name into that of their place of residence; and
here it may be observed that the name of Borlase, supposed by some to
mean 'the high green summit,' is still attached to two or three little
homesteads in the parish of St. Wenn, three or four miles north-east of
St. Columb Major.[72] The direct male line became extinct in the time
of Elizabeth, when the coheiresses married a Tonkin and a Bray; and
the family does not appear to have risen to any distinction until they
moved farther westward, and about the middle of the seventeenth century
took up their abode (which is still in the possession of a member of
the family) at Pendeen, in the parish of St. Just.
The early Pendeen Borlases seem to have been staunch Royalists, for it
seems that one of them assisted his cousin, Colonel Nicholas Borlase,
in raising a troop of horse for the King. Of this troop a writer in the
_Quarterly Review_ for 1875, quotes the following story:
'Being on one occasion much pressed by the Puritan forces, and making
a running fight, he set fire to a large brake of furze in the night,
which the enemy taking for the fires made on the approach of the
King's army, immediately fled with great precipitation, and left him
both bag and baggage, which he seized the next morning.'
By way of comment on these proceedings, Fairfax quartered some of his
troopers at Pendeen,--doubtless to the intense annoyance of the owner
thereof; and as regards Colonel Nicholas, a letter from Cromwell to
Lenthall tells all that I have been able to gather as to that hero's
career. It is dated Edinburgh, 13th June, 1651, and asks the Speaker
to hasten the hearing of Borlase's case, which seems to have been
involved in the conditions of the hurried treaty of Truro, when Hopton
surrendered to Fairfax, and terminated the supremacy of the Royal cause
in the West country.
The Borlases were not, however, without some sort of barren reward for
their faithfulness to the Stuart cause; for Humphry, who was Sheriff
of Cornwall during the last two years of the reign of James II., was
created a peer by that monarch _after his abdication_. Under these
circumstances he, of course, never enjoyed the title. He sometimes
resided at Truthan, in the parish of St. Erme, near Truro, and left his
estates to the Borlases of Pendeen.
Dr. Borlase was born at Pendeen, on 2nd February, 1695, the second
son of his father, 'John of Pendeen, twice Member of Parliament for
St. Ives in Cornwall in the reign of Queen Anne, and Lydia Harris, of
Hayne, county Devon, his wife,' a lady descended, so the writer in the
_Quarterly Review_ informs us, through the Nevilles and Bouchiers, from
Edward III. But the Borlases had also plenty of good Cornish blood
in their veins; and amongst other old families of the soil with whom
they intermarried may be named their not very distant neighbours, the
Godolphins.
With a member of the last-named family John Borlase seems to have had
an altercation one day in church, the particulars of which are set
forth in his victim's petition to Parliament as follows, viz.:
'HONOURED SIRS,
'Life, the precious tenet of mankind, forceth me to inform your
honours that Sunday, the 26th February, 1709, in full view of most
of the congregation of Maddern, John Borlase, one of Her Majesty's
Justices of the Peace, did wilfully break the peace by striking me
almost to the ground with his staff, and if not timely prevented
by one Paul Tonkin, he would have been striking me again. He did
at the same time highly threaten me, with Chrit^{r}. Harris, Esq.,
Jane his wife, and John his son. Mr. Harris ordered his servant to
beat me. Of the truth of the above information I am ready to give
my corroboration. Humbly craving the Honble. Speaker and House of
Commons not to skreene such daring offenders, but to give me leave to
prosecute them as the law directs, is the humble prayer of, Hond.
Sirs,
'Your in all humility and duty,
'FFRANCES GODOLPHIN.'
What this poor gentleman had done to deserve the 'Justice's justice'
thus summarily inflicted on him, observes the writer in the _Quarterly
Review_, from whom I quote this letter, there and then, in the midst
as it seems of divine service, and by the occupant of the next pew, we
are left to conjecture.
Pendeen[73] is a house of unusual interest in this part of
Cornwall, where, indeed, primæval remains abound, but where are few
examples--save small and (with one or two exceptions) not particularly
interesting churches--of mediæval and later architecture. It is
now occupied as a farmhouse, but was formerly a place of much more
importance. Substantially built of native granite, the structure was
evidently designed for the occupation of some prosperous man; and
its ground-plot indicates that it was so traced as to be capable of
some sort of defence against marauders. In one of the bedrooms--most
probably that in which William Borlase first saw the light--are some
curious figures on the wall, of which a sketch is preserved by the
writer.
But it is not so much to the house itself as to its surroundings that
we must look for what were probably the determining circumstances
of Borlase's career. He was in the very heart of the cromlehs, the
cliff-castles, the weird stone-circles, and the huge monoliths of
a forgotten race; and, close to the house, there was a long and
mysterious double cave--a vau or ogou--which, we can but believe,
must have excited an inquiring child's awe-struck interest. We are
indebted chiefly to himself for the little that we know of his early
days; and this information is derived from a modest autobiographical
sketch which he drew up in 1772, when seventy-seven years old, for his
friend Huddesford, the Curator of the Ashmolean Museum, at Oxford,
an institution to which Borlase contributed nearly the whole of his
collections of natural history and antiquities.
His first school seems to have been at the nearest town, Penzance;
and of him his master said what so many a master has said of many
another apt but dreamy and indolent scholar, who was nevertheless
destined afterwards to distinguish himself, that 'he could learn, but
would not.' Thence he went, in 1709, under the tuition of the Rev.
Mr. Bedford, at Plymouth, where he seems to have profited more by the
instruction which he received. It has also been supposed that he was
educated partly at Tiverton School. In March, 1712-13 he was entered,
Cornish fashion, at Exeter College, Oxford, and here he took his B.A.
and M.A. degrees in due course; was in 1719 ordained deacon; and in
1720, priest.
Dr. Borlase gives the following picture of the Oxford of his days:
'When I was at Oxford in the year 1715, we--I mean pupils, tutors,
barbers, shoe-cleaners, and bed-makers--minded nothing but Politics;
the Muse stood neglected; nay meat and drink, balls and ladies,
had all reason to complain in their turns that we minded Scotland
and Preston more than the humane, softer, and more delicate
entertainments of Genius and Philosophy. This was a most unhappy
time, and I have often lamented it.' And he concludes with the strong
Conservative opinion: 'If I can see anything in our English history,
'tis that the poor nation is always the worse for alterations, tho'
particular persons may be the better, that is, the richer or more
powerful.'
His amusing description of a journey home from the University with Sir
John St. Aubyn, in 1722, is given hereafter in the chapter on that
family.
Two years after he was ordained priest, and (his father having bought
for him the next presentation) he was presented to the living of
Ludgvan, by Charles, first Duke of Bolton, through the influence, as
Nichols inaccurately tells us, of Sir William Morice, of Werrington--a
family with whom the St. Aubyns intermarried. This living he held for
fifty-two years.[74]
When Borlase settled in his Rectory, the retired situation of the
place did not altogether prevent his indulging in the mild social
dissipations of the neighbourhood; notably there was a bowling-green
club, formed in 1719, which proved an agreeable means of meeting with
his friends, and afforded Mr. Gwavas--one of the latest writers in the
old Cornish language, and a member of the party--an opportunity of
composing a set of verses in Cornish in honour of the foundation of the
club.
There can be little doubt, from what we know of his surroundings and
proclivities, that Borlase was already making notes of the neighbouring
antiquities, and dipping into his favourite authorities--the best
of the day--for information, which he was afterwards to apply in a
somewhat too speculative manner, to his pet subject--the Druids. He
seems to have relied mainly for this purpose upon several passages in
Julius Cæsar, Pliny, Elias Schedius de Diis Germanis, Smith's 'Syntagma
de Druidis;' a collection of the French and German writers in Frickius
de Druidis, Sheringham, Sammes, Montfaucon, Mons. Martin's 'Religion of
the Ancient Gauls,' Toland's 'History of the Druids,' Rowland's 'Mona
Illustrata,' Dr. Stukeley in his 'Stonehenge and Abury,' and Keysler in
his 'Antiquities.'[75]
His method was to examine, and especially to survey and to _draw_
carefully the old weather-beaten stone structures of Cornwall; being
convinced, as he says, 'of the necessity of copying the original
monuments,' and 'offering something to the public which their
_undeniable_ properties suggested.' We shall, however, I think,
presently see that, in endeavouring to carry out this method, the
worthy antiquary was rather prone to do that which so many other
investigators have done--namely, to see that which he _wished_ to see.
Fortunately for him, and for the records of the 'Cornish Antiquities,'
when he married (as he did in 1724) Anne Smith, the daughter of the
then Rector of Camborne and Illogan--'peramatæ, amanti, amabili,' as
he wrote for her epitaph--he found a partner who (again to use his own
words) took 'more than her part of the domestic cares,' in order that
he might the better prosecute his antiquarian researches. The marriage
ceremony was performed by his elder brother the Rev. Walter Borlase,
LL.D., of Castle Horneck (the seat of the family on their removing from
Pendeen, about a century and a half ago), afterwards Vice-Warden of the
Stannaries from 1761 to 1776.
Although he lived to a very ripe old age, his health seems to have
somewhat failed him for a time in 1730; and he accordingly repaired to
Bath, as the waters were then in high repute for maladies such as his,
in order to be under the care of his friend Dr. Oliver, who happily
cured him, and gave him 'a new lease of life.' There can be little
doubt that this excursion was also of great importance in another
way; for it was here, and at this time, that he made the acquaintance
of Pope,[76] of Ralph Allen, and of many other well-known characters
in the literary and scientific world, who afterwards became his
correspondents. His clever pencil was also employed during his sojourn
at Bath in designing the obelisk in Orange Grove--so named after the
Prince of Orange--another of those persons who credited the renowned
Bath waters with the power of renewing their youth.
In 1732 Dr. Borlase's elder brother, Walter, died; and thereupon the
subject of this memoir had the Vicarage of St. Just added to his
previous preferment. This second living he held for the long period of
forty years. The two places were not so far apart (only about twelve
miles) as to preclude his giving attention to both cures; and indeed
those biographers who have written of Borlase (notably Chalmers), state
that his performance of his clerical duties was highly praiseworthy,
being marked with 'the most rigid punctuality and exemplary dignity.'
At St. Just, a populous mining parish, his congregation often consisted
of 1,000 persons on a Sunday morning, and 500 in the afternoon. This,
too, it must be remembered, was at a time when Churchmanship generally
was at a very low ebb in Cornwall, and needed Wesley's trumpet-call to
arouse it.[77]
Notwithstanding his increased responsibilities, Borlase did not neglect
his antiquarian and scientific studies, nor his out-of-door pursuits
of gardening and planting, for which the mild air of Ludgvan was
highly favourable. In fact, at this period he seems to have 'entered
upon the study of Druid learning' with renewed fervour. His chief
companions were Sir John St. Aubyn of St. Michael's Mount hard by,
and the Rev. Edward Collins of St. Erth, the latter of whom appears
to have joined in nearly all his rambles, and not to have failed to
administer occasionally 'the salutary censure of a friend;' for, as
Borlase himself tells us, he found Mr. Collins a useful 'check in some
disquisitions.'
Thus tranquilly passed away some fifteen years of this quiet and
uneventful, but busy life,[78] until circumstances again brought
him into contact with that outer world of larger and more learned
minds which 'do mostly congregate in cities.' In 1748 he went to
Exeter, to be present at the ordination of his eldest son. Here he
was introduced to the Dean of Exeter, the Rev. Dr. Charles Lyttelton,
afterwards Bishop of Carlisle, and the first President of the Society
of Antiquaries. And it is not a little curious to note, by the way,
that Dr. Lyttelton's successor as Dean of Exeter, Jeremiah Milles,
of Duloe in Cornwall, also succeeded his predecessor in the Deanery
in the distinguished post of President of the Antiquaries. It can
readily be believed that new sources of intellectual enjoyment opened
up with an acquaintance with such men as these. They forthwith became
correspondents; and to their names were added, either about this time
or at other periods of Borlase's life, those of Linnæus, Gronov of
Leyden, Stukeley, Atterbury (Bishop of Rochester), Browne Willis,
Pococke (Bishop of Ossory), Thomas Pennant, and Ellis, the author of
the 'Corallines.' The library at Castle Horneck contains upwards of
forty volumes in MS. of Borlase's Correspondence and Notes.
One of the fruits of Borlase's visit to Exeter was the production of
his first essay (or 'Exercise' as it was termed) for the 'Philosophical
Transactions.' This appeared in 1749. It was the first scientific
account of any of the Cornish minerals; and was entitled 'Spar, and
Sparry Productions, called Cornish Diamonds.' This was considered of
sufficient merit to secure his election as Fellow of the Royal Society,
an honour which was conferred upon him on his visit to London in the
following year. Many other contributions followed, nineteen in all;
chiefly on subjects connected with meteorology and natural phenomena,
and one paper of an antiquarian character. They are catalogued in the
'Biographia Britannica,' vol. ii., p. 425.
But the time had now arrived when Borlase felt himself strong enough
to invite the attention of the world to more considerable works from
his pen and pencil. And first he turned his attention to grouping and
arranging the results of his archæological researches, the publication
of which, by subscription, he set about accomplishing. It was not,
however, until 1753 that he saw his way clear to taking the MSS. of
his 'Cornish Antiquities' with him to Oxford--preferring that city to
London for two reasons, the first of which we can easily understand,
viz., its greater retirement; but the second is one which sounds
strange to modern ears, because of the '_more ready access to books_.'
So great was his diligence, and that of his engravers, that the work,
in folio, with its numerous illustrations, was published at Oxford in
February of the following year, 1754;[79] and the indefatigable author
at once returned to Cornwall in order to arrange the materials for his
next great work, the 'Natural History' of his native county. Meanwhile,
in 1756, appeared his account of the Scilly Islands, an enlargement of
one of his papers in the 'Philosophical Transactions,' and a work of
which Dr. Johnson wrote in the _Literary Review_ that 'This is one of
the most pleasing and elegant pieces of local inquiry that our country
has produced.'
On this occasion, too, he seems to have proceeded with his usual
despatch; for in October, 1757, we find him once more at Oxford, for
the purpose of printing the last-named work. And again, by the spring
of the following year, 1758, this too was ready for the public eye.
Having now secured in print the results of so many years' labours, the
happy idea occurred to him of presenting to his beloved University
the collections of antiquities, natural history, etc., upon which his
works were based, and he accordingly deposited them forthwith in the
Ashmolean Museum, continuing to send thither from time to time any
similar rarities which he discovered. It is scarcely necessary to add
that for this generous gift he received the thanks of the University;
which, in token of the high appreciation in which they held his talents
and his liberality, on the 23rd March, 1766, conferred on him, by
diploma, the degree of Doctor of Laws, the highest academical honour
which it was in the power of the University to bestow.
But Borlase was now getting an old man, being over seventy years of
age. The friends of his youth were dying off; and he was unable to
undertake the long antiquarian rambles which had been the delight of
his stalwart days. His outdoor amusements began to be restricted to
the superintendence (which he seems to have thoroughly enjoyed) of the
improvement of the numerous roads which ran through his parish; one
of which, it may be mentioned, was the highroad to Penzance, until
that which now skirts the shore of the Mount's Bay was substituted
for it. His literary labours consisted partly in writing his 'Sacræ
Exercitationes,' which were chiefly paraphrases of Ecclesiastes, the
Canticles of Solomon, and the Lamentations of Jeremiah--rather for
his own pleasure than with any view to publication; and his home
recreations were the 'Belles Lettres' and drawing and painting. He did
not, however, neglect entirely his old pursuits; for he prepared for
the press the new and enlarged edition of his 'Antiquities,' which, as
we have seen, was published in 1769; and he busily engaged himself in
a similar office for his 'Natural History,' which he did not live to
complete. The emendations, however (or rather the principal of them),
appeared in the Journal of the Royal Institution of Cornwall for 1875.
And during this latter part of his life, as well as during the previous
years, he was occupied in collecting materials for a Parochial History
of the County, which never saw the light.
His last literary labour was a treatise on the 'Creation and the
Deluge,' which contains some ingenious speculations on the nature of
earthquakes and submarine upheavals. The beginning of this little work
he had actually sent to the press; but a sudden and violent illness in
1771 warned him that he was overtaxing his strength, and he resolved
not to go on with the publication. Within two or three months of his
death he drew up a short memoir of his life, written in the third
person, for his friend Huddesford, which closes in the following happy
strain:
'Being now in his seventy-seventh year, very little more can be hoped
for by himself or expected by others.
'Having been long accustomed to the confinement of his study,
retirement and old age incessantly call upon him with the less
terrour; and resignation to his increasing infirmities becomes every
day easier and less irksome, till at last he now accounts it among
the blessings of long life that it has quieted and extinguished
every spark of ambition, and that it enables him to withdraw more
and more with some decency from the world; precluding the perhaps
well-intended, though rather too frequent visits of civility, in which
there is generally more dissipation at all stages of life than real
compensation for the waste of time, especially in the days of age.
'In hopes, however, of being not entirely useless as yet, whilst it
pleases God to grant him life, most of his present time (as not the
least of his pleasures) he allots to the instruction of a dutiful and
apprehensive youth, the present companion of his retirement.'
So lived, and so, on the 31st August, 1772, peacefully died, at
Ludgvan, Cornwall's 'Nourice of Antiquity,' Dr. William Borlase. He was
buried by the side of his wife, near the east end of his own church,
on the north side of the altar; and his executor inscribed on his
unpretending monument the words:
'Perurbani, perhumani, perquam pii,
hujusce parochiæ per annos LII.
rectoris desideratissimi,
in republica necnon literaria versatissimi.
Loquuntur scripta,
testantur posteri.'
He had six sons, only two of whom survived him, the Rev. John Borlase
and the Rev. George Borlase, Casuistical Professor and Registrar of the
University of Cambridge. His son Christopher, a sailor, died of a fever
on the coast of Guinea in 1749, and appears to have inherited some of
his father's artistic skill.
As an illustration of Borlase's 'method,' and of his perfervid
imagination when he got amongst his native granite rocks, I have
thought it would be interesting to cull the following few notes from
his 'Scilly Isles':
'On a Carn adjoining the Giant's Castle,' he observes, 'the floor,
consisting only of one Rock, must convince us that this _Circle_
was intended for a place of Worship, for it could not serve for a
_Sepulchre_; but why the _Quoits_ were hollowed out into _Basons_ (as
they are placed in a _Religious Circle_) must have been in some sort
or other subservient to the purposes of the _Druid Superstition_.' As
regards the 'Rock Basons,' he goes on to say, 'My opinion concerning
the use of them you do not want to be informed of; I have always
thought that they were designed to receive in their utmost purity the
waters of the Heavens for holy uses; but in such doubtful cases let
every man think for himself.' A little further on, however, the worthy
Doctor's theory as to the extreme purity of the water is somewhat
disturbed by his finding some of them inconveniently near the sea; but
he is equal to the occasion. 'Though,' he says, 'the spray of the sea
so near them on every hand might well be supposed to fill these Basons
with salt water, yet I found the water in them to be quite fresh.' Some
of these were actually under the sea-level!
In another place, writing of tolmens, the Doctor observes that, though
their Cornish name, appropriately enough, signifies a holed stone, yet
that was not 'the true Druid name ... for the Druids _probably_ call'd
it by the name of one of their Deities as soon as it was ritually
consecrated, and most likely by that of _Saturn_.'
He is in doubt whether the furrows which he noticed on certain rocks
were channels on the sites of the holy fires of the Druids, made in
order to enable the priests the better to collect the sacred embers,
or whether they were designed to collect the blood of sacrificed
victims for the purposes of divination. But he admits ''tis all mere
conjecture.'
And again--a 'canopy rock' with a row of rude stone pillars before it
is a 'Druid Seat of Judgment';--in fact, on Borlase's theory, the whole
of the Scilly Isles must have been thickly peopled with Druids.
But as the writer in the _Quarterly_ truly observes, 'The Druids have
of late years been somewhat rudely dismissed from the shade of their
accustomed oaks, and the rock-basons have been proved to be simply the
result of the weathering of the granite.'
[Illustration: (end of chapter vignette.)]