eventually not only confessed his defeat in a generous and manly spirit, but very gracefully acknowledged his obligations to his humble antagonist. Drew had now a greater task in hand which was drawing near its completion. For several years he had occupied his mind with the subject of the immortality of the soul, having read every book he could procure on the subject. None of these books quite satisfied him. "He imagined," as he says, that the immortality of the soul admitted of more rational proof than he had ever seen. Accordingly in 1798 he resolved to make notes of his thoughts on this vast theme. In 1801 these were fully prepared for the press and submitted to the judgment of the judicious friend referred to above--Rev. John Whittaker, of Ruan Lanyhorne, in Cornwall. By his advice Drew committed the work to the press, with the title, "The Immateriality and Immortality of the Soul." It was published by subscription; "the best families" in the county giving their names as subscribers. The first edition numbered 700 copies, of which subscriptions were entered for 640. A few weeks after its publication, Drew received a letter from a publisher in Bristol asking the author to state his terms for the copyright. _Twenty pounds_ and thirty copies of the new edition was all he asked, so little did he suspect the popularity his work would attain, and so low did he rate his own abilities as an author. A pleasing circumstance deserves mention here in connection with the appearance of the first edition of this essay. A highly favorable review of it appeared in the _Anti-Jacobin_, which Drew afterward discovered to have been written by no other than Mr. Polwhele, the clergyman whose pamphlet anent the Wesleyans Drew had so resolutely and successfully attacked. Such an act of grace was infinitely creditable to the critic as well as gratifying to the author. In regard to the history of this essay, the following note, written by Samuel Drew's son,[34] is full of interest: "After passing through five editions in England and two in America, and being translated and printed in France, the 'Essay on the Soul,' the copyright of which Mr. Drew had disposed of on the terms just named, and which, before its first appearance, a Cornish bookseller had refused at the price of _ten_ pounds, became again his property at the end of twenty-eight years. He gave it a final revision, added much important matter, and sold it a second time for £250." [34] Samuel Drew, M.A., the self-taught Cornishman." By his Eldest Son. P. 102. London: Ward & Co.