My fancy is, that this relates to an ancient family of this name, of which there is now but one man left, and he not likely to have any issue." These are his three reasons; and some mines have perhaps been opened with no better ones! But let us not imagine that this great naturalist was credulous; for he tells Aubrey that "he thought it was but a monkish tale forged in the abbey so famous in former time; but as I have learned not to despise our forefathers, I question whether this may not refer to some rich mine in the hill, formerly in use, but now lost. I shall shortly request you to discourse with my lord about it, to have advice, &c. In the mean time it will be best to _keep all private_ for his majesty's service, his lordship's, and perhaps some private person's benefit." But he has also positive evidence: "A mason not long ago coming to the renter of the abbey for a freestone, and sawing it, out came divers pieces of gold of L3 10_s._ value apiece, of ancient _coins_. The stone belonged to some chimney-work; the gold was hidden in it, perhaps, when the Dissolution was near." This last incident of finding coins in a chimney-piece, which he had accounted for very rationally, serves only to confirm his dream, that they were coined out of the gold of the mine in the hill; and he becomes more urgent for "a private search into these mines, which I have, I think, a way to." In the postscript he adds an account of a well, which by washing, wrought a cure on a person deep in the king's evil. "I hope you don't forget your promise to communicate whatever thing you have relating to your IDEA." This promised _Idea_ of Aubrey may be found in his MSS., under the title of "The Idea of Universal Education." However whimsical, one would like to see it. Aubrey's life might furnish a volume of these philosophical dreams: he was a person who from his incessant bustle and insatiable curiosity was called "The Carrier of Conceptions of the Royal Society." Many pleasant nights were "privately" enjoyed by Aubrey and his correspondent about the "Mine in the Hill;" Ashmole's manuscripts at Oxford contain a collection of many secrets of the Rosicrucians; one of the completest inventions is "a Recipe how to walk invisible." Such were the fancies which rocked the children of science in their cradles! and so feeble were the steps of our curious infancy!--But I start in my dreams! dreading the reader may also have fallen asleep! "Measure is most excellent," says one of the oracles; "to which also we being in like manner persuaded, O most friendly and pious Asclepiades, here finish"--the dreams at the dawn of philosophy! FOOTNOTES: [197] Godwin's amusing _Lives of the Necromancers_ abound in marvellous stories of the supernatural feats of these old students.