Dr Edmund, an eminent physician and English writer in the 17th century, was the son of Sir John Borlase, master of the ordnance, and one of the lord justices of Ireland in 1643. He studied in Dublin college, and afterwards at the university of Leyden, at which last place he took the degree of doctor of physic. He afterwards practised physic with great success in the city of Chester, and was incorporated doctor of the faculty in the university at Oxford. Among the books which he wrote and published are the following. 1. Latham Spaw in Lancashire, with some remarkable cases and cures performed by it. 2. The reduction of Ireland to the crown of England. 3. The History of the Irish rebellion. 4. Brief reflections on the earl of Castlehaven's memoirs, &c. He died after the year 1682.

William, a very ingenious and learned writer, was of an ancient family in Cornwall, and born at Pendene, in the parish of St Just, Feb. 2. 1695-6. He was put early to school at Penzance, and in 1709 removed to Plymouth. March 1712-13, he was entered of Exeter college, Oxford; and, June 1719, took a master of arts degree. In 1720, he was ordained a priest; and, in 1722, instituted to the rectory of Ludgvan in Cornwall. In 1732, Lord-chancellor King presented him to the vicarage of St Just, his native parish; and this, with the rectory aforesaid, were all the preferments he ever had. In the parish of Ludgvan were rich copper works, which abound with mineral and metallic fossils: and these, being a man of an active and inquisitive turn, he collected from time to time, and thence was led to study at large the natural history of his native county. He was struck at the same time with the numerous monuments of remote antiquity that are to be met with in Cornwall; and enlarging therefore his plan, he determined to gain as accurate an acquaintance as possible with the Druid learning, and with the religion and customs of the ancient Britons, before their conversion to Christianity. In 1750 he was admitted a fellow of the Royal Society; and, in 1753, published in folio at Oxford his "Antiquities of Cornwall:" a second edition of which was published, in the same form, at London, 1769, with this title, "Antiquities, historical and monumental, of the county of Cornwall; consisting of several essays on the ancient inhabitants, Druid superstition, customs and remains of the most remote antiquity in Britain and the British isles, exemplified and proved by monuments now extant in Cornwall and the Scilly islands; with a vocabulary of the Cornu-British language. Revised, with several additions, by the author. To which is added a map of Cornwall, and two new plates." His next publication was, "Observations on the ancient and present state of the islands of Scilly, and their importance to the trade of Great Britain; Oxf. 1756," 4to. This was the extension of a paper which had been read before the Royal Society in 1753. In 1758 came out his "Natural history of Cornwall; Oxf." fol. After these publications, he sent a variety of fossils and remains of antiquity which he had described in his works, to be repolished in the Ashmolean museum: for which, and other benefactions of the same kind, he received the thanks of the university, in a letter from the vice-chancellor, Nov. 18. 1758; and, March 1766, the degree of doctor of laws. He died in 1772, aged 77 years, leaving two sons out of six, whom he had by a lady he married in 1724. Besides his literary connections with many ingenious and learned men, he had a particular correspondence with Mr Pope; and there is still existing a large collection of letters written by that poet to Dr Borlase. He furnished Pope with many of the materials which formed his grotto at Twickenham, consisting of curious fossils; and there may at present be seen Dr Borlase's name in capitals, composed of crystals, in the grotto. On which occasion Pope says to Borlase in a letter, "I am much obliged to you for your valuable collection of Cornish diamonds: I have placed them where they may best represent yourself, in a /blade, but /shining," alluding to the obscurity of the doctor's situation, and the brilliancy of his talents. Besides the above works, he sent many curious papers to the Philosophical Transactions, and had in contemplation several other works.