The next work on Cornwall deserves particular attention on various grounds,—its extensive plan, arrangement, and parochial history, and the situation in life of its author, Mr. C. S. Gilbert, who at the time of his executing “An Historical Survey of the County of Cornwall; to which is added a complete Heraldry of the same, with numerous engravings,” resided as a druggist in Plymouth or Devonport; and he is said to have acquired a knowledge of this trade by accompanying one of those itinerant doctors in medicine, who are in the habit of attracting customers by exhibitions little suited to the gravity of a profound science.
Mr. Gilbert is understood to have collected information which induced him to believe, that he might claim a descent from the Gilberts of Compton Castle; and under that persuasion he applied himself to the study of antiquities, with genealogy, heraldry, and every collateral science, which led him by degrees to undertake the History of Cornwall, and to complete it in two quarto volumes, usually bound in three; all which he executed with such eagerness, zeal, and disregard of expense, as to involve him during the latter part of
his life in considerable difficulties. For Compton Castle, and the family from which this gentleman thought himself derived, and which is now represented by the Reverend J. Pomeroy Gilbert, of Bodmin, see Prince’s Worthies of Devon, p. 420, edition of 1810.
About the same time that Mr. C. S. Gilbert’s work appeared, another very similar to it came out sanctioned by the names of Mr. Samuel Drew of St. Austell, well known by his profound metaphysical writings, and of Mr. Malachy Hitchins, son of the celebrated astronomer, who, residing at St. Hilary, three hundred miles from London, conducted the Nautical Almanack from the second year of its appearance 1768, to the conclusion of his life in 1809, during a period of more than forty years.
A well written and perspicuous life of Mr. Drew, has been given to the public by his son Mr. Jacob Halls Drew, in which many interesting particulars are given of this distinguished writer; together with a fair and impartial account of his various works, of which the most known, and perhaps the best, is his Essay on the Human Soul. This treatise, published in 1802, contains every argument that can be found in the Phædon of Plato, with additions; and the whole is not inferior to its prototype. But the observation of an ancient peripatetic philosopher, Alexander of Appodisia, a city of Caria in Lesser Asia, is equally applicable to both:
Αλλ’ εστι πολλα των ὁντων, ἁ την μεν ὑπαρξιν εχει γνωριμωτατην, αγνωστοτατην δε την ουσιαν· ὡσπερ ἡτε Κινησις, και ὁ
Τοπος, ετι δε μαλλον ὁ Χρονος. Εκαστου γαρ τουτων το μεν ειναι γνωριμον και αναμφιλεκτον· τις δε ποτε εστιν αυτων ἡ ουσια των χαλεπωτατων οραθηναι.
Εστι δε δη τι των τοιουτων και Ἡ Ψυχη· το μεν γαρ ειναι τι την Ψυχην γνωριμωτατον και φανερωτατον· τι δε ποτε εστιν, ου ῥαδιον καταμαθειν.
Our reason convinces us of its own separate existence apart from matter and organization; beyond that, we must submit to learn from higher authority.
Alexander, therefore, does not go beyond the sphere of human knowledge, when he adds of the soul as capable of a separate existence, Μηδε την αρχην Οργανῳ τινι Σωματικῳ προσχρησθαι προς την ληψιν των νοουμενων, αλλ’ αρκεισθαι αυτον αυτῳ προς το γνωναι το νοουμενον.