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: