382
NOTES AND QUERIES. [n s. v. MAY is, 1912.
The College appealed to the Court of
King's Bench for a mandamus to compel
the Visitor to appoint one of its two nominees.
The question was argued at great length
for the Bishop in Hilary and Easter terms,
1788, while Mansfield, the " nearest and
dearest friend " of Borlase, and the subse-
quent Lord Chief Justice of the Court of
Common Pleas, was heard for the College.
The mandamus was granted. On 26 April
Borlase and Barnes went to Ely House,
and the Visitor announced, his intention of
appointing Barnes, who thereupon pro-
tested furiously against the selection. The
Visitor deferred his definitive decision, and in
the meantime nine of the fellows expressed
their preference for Borlase ; but the Bishop
was obdurate, and Barnes was appointed.
He held the Mastership for fifty years, from
1788 to 1838, when he died at the age
of 95.
Barnes was elected Vice-Chancellor, and in his opening speech apologized for appear- ing before the University in that position. He came " furtivis quasi honorib us indutus," and he concluded with a handsome compli- ment to Borlase. On laying down his office on 3 Nov., Barnes made a violent philippic against the Bishop. Next day Dr. William Pearce, afterwards Borlase's brother-in-law, was elected Vice-Chancellor, and his speech was an unqualified eulogy on the Bishop, who had made him Master of Jesus College (Gunning, ' Reminiscences,' i. 108). Some poor epigrams made over this controversy are in H. J. Wale's ' My Grandfather's Pocket-Book,' pp. 300-1. The first of them is given as an impromptu by Gibbon. Borlase appears to have approved of the proceedings against the Rev. William Frend, Fellow of Jesus College ; but Pearce, the Master of that College, was by that time his brother-in-law (' Life of Isaac Milner,' p. 87).
In 1788 Borlase was appointed Professor of Casuistry, now known as Moral Philosophy a professorship founded by a fellow of Peterhouse but, like most of his colleagues at Oxford and Cambridge, he never lectured. He became Rector of Newton, near Sudbury, Suffolk, and Vicar of Cherry Hinton, near Cambridge, in 1789, and held until his death these three appointments, and that of Registrary. He married at Cherry Hinton, on 19 May, 1791, Henrietta, called collo- quially " Harriot," third daughter of the Rev. Walter Serocold of that parish, who had been privately baptized on 25 Nov., 1756. She died in childbed on 25 May, 1792, and was buried on 31 May in front of
the chancel steps at Cherry 'Hinton with her
infant child. Borlase's second wife, whom
he married at Upholland, co. Lancaster, on
10 Nov., 1800, was Anne, second daughter
of the Rev. Thomas Holme of Holland House.
For many years after her husband's death
her house at Cambridge was the centre of
hospitality for all Cornishmen at the Uni-
versity. Borlase died, after a few days'
illness, at Cambridge, on 7 Nov., 1809, and
was buried by the side of his first wife at
Cherry Hinton on 11 Nov., being aged 67.
His widow died at Charlton, Kent, on 21
April, 1844.
Borlase was the first person in England to draw up and print a list of the graduates at a university. His volume, ' Cantabrigienses Graduati,' which set out their names from 1659 to 1787, was published at Cambridge in the latter year. It was without preface or introduction, but the title-page explained that the catalogue was " e libris subscriptio- num desumptus atque ordine alphabetico compositus." A later issue, bringing the list down to 1800, came out in that year.
He contributed, under the editorship of Dr. Kippis, to the second edition of the ' Biographia Britannica ' ; he supplied infor- mation to the Rev. Charles Symmons for his ' Life of Milton ' ; and he communicated to J. S. Hawkins, the editor in 1787 of George Ruggle's comedy of ' Ignoramus,' the transcript of an account printed on pp. cxix cxxii " of King James the first's visit in the month of May, 1615, to the unirersity of Cambridge," which was reproduced in Nichols's ' Progresses of King James,' iii. 46, 83.
Borlase sat for his portrait to Romney in January and February, 1794, and paid 30 guineas for it. The picture was sent to Penzance on 14 August following, and is now at Castle Horneck, the home of the family. He is represented as " nearly full-face, dressed in black high - collared coat, white cravat, and frill." His first wife's portrait, by Downman, was engraved by Henry Kingsbury, and published in 1779.
(Gent. Mag., 1791, pt. i. 488 ; 1800, pt. ii. 1287 ; 1809, pt. ii. 1084, 1233 j 1811, pt. i. 239 ; 1844, pt. i. 666 ; J. Chaloner Smith, ' Portraits,' ii. 787 ; Symmons, ' Milton ' (1822), p. 21 ; Ward and Roberts, ' Romney/ ii. 15 ; Cooper, ' Annals of Cambridge,' iv. 388, 428 ; Nichols, ' Literary Anecdotes/ viii. 630 ; ' Peterhouse Admission Book/ ed. T. A. Walker, p. 319, supplemented by further information from that gentleman.) W. P. COURTNEY.
