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xiv
PREFACE.

his life in considerable difficulties. For Compton Castle, and the family from which this gentleman thought himself derived, and which is now represented hy 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