Dr Edmund, an eminent physician and English writer in the seventeenth century, was the son of Sir John Borlase, master of the ordnance, and one of the lords justices of Ireland; in 1643. He studied in Dublin College, and afterwards at the university of Leyden, where he took the degree of doctor of physic. He afterwards practised physic with success in the city of Chester, and was incorporated doctor of the faculty in the university of 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, London, 1670, Svo; 2. The Reduction of Ireland to the crown of England, London, 1675, Svo; 3. The History of the Irish rebellion, London, 1680, Svo; 4. Brief Reflections on the Earl of Castlehaven's Memoirs, relative to the part which he took in the Irish War, London, 1682, folio. The precise time of his death is uncertain.

William, a learned antiquary and naturalist, was descended of an ancient family in Cornwall, and born at Pendean, in the parish of St Just, on the 2d February 1695-6. He was put early to school at Penzance, and in 1709 removed to Plymouth. In March 1713 he was entered at Exeter College, Oxford; and in June 1719 he took his degree as master of arts. In 1720 he was ordained as 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 already mentioned, were all the preferments he ever obtained. In the parish of Ludgvan are rich copper works, abounding with mineral and metallic fossils, which, being a man of an active and inquisitive turn of mind, he collected from time to time; and thus was led to study at large the natural history of his native county. He was also much struck with the numerous monuments of remote antiquity that are to be met with in Cornwall; and therefore, enlarging his plan, he determined to gain as accurate an acquaintance as possible with the learning of the Druids, 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 he published in folio, at Oxford, his "Antiquities of Cornwall," a second edition of which was published, in the same form, at London, 1769, with the title of "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." 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," Oxford, 1756, 4to. This was merely an extension of a paper which had been read to the Royal Society in 1753. In 1758 appeared his "Natural History of Cornwall," Oxford, folio. After these publications, he transmitted a variety of fossils and remains of antiquity which he had described in his works, to be deposited in the Ashmolean Museum; for which, as well as other benefactions of a similar kind, he received the thanks of the university, in a letter from the vice-chancellor, dated the 18th November 1758; and in March 1766 the degree of doctor of laws was conferred on him. He died in 1772, at the age of seventy-seven, leaving two sons out of six, whom he had had by a lady he had 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 extant a large collection of letters written by that poet to Dr Borlase. He furnished Pope with many of the materials, consisting of curious fossils, which formed his grotto at Twickenham; and Dr Borlase's name in capitals, composed of crystals, might be seen in the grotto. It is with reference to this circumstance that Pope says in a letter to Borlase, "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 shade, but shining." Besides the works above mentioned, he sent many curious papers to the Philosophical Transactions; and had in contemplation several other works.