LETTERS ON SCIENTIFIC SUBJECTS. 15 



howerly, will (by God's grace) appeare unto your lordship 

 more and more abundantly. Returning now, therefore, to 

 the matter wherof I last (by mowth) spake unto your honor, 

 and which, also, was the last principall point of my spedy letter 

 than delivered to your Lordship, As concerning thresor hid. 

 First, it may pleas your lordship to consider this clause 

 truely by me noted out of Theseus Ambrosius, fol. 206, b. 

 In copiosa ilia Antonii de Fantis Tarvisini librorum multitu- 

 dine, magnum sanevolumen repertumfuit, in quo abdita quam 

 plurima, et satis abunde curiosa, tarn ad philosophiam, medi- 

 cinam, et herbarum notionem, quam etiam ad asirologiam, geo- 

 mantiam, et magiam, pertinentia continebantur. Et in ejus 

 pr&cipua quadam parte tractabatur de thesauris per totum 

 fere orbem reconditis atque latentibus, quorum admodum clara 

 atque specified notio haberi poterat, fyc. Secondly out of 

 Henricus Leicestrensis (I suppose) it is noted, in the sum- 

 mary of English chronicles, anno 1344, of a Sarazin comming 

 than to Erie Warren, as concerning a great threasor hid in 

 his grownd, in the Marches of Wales, and of the good suc- 

 cess therof. Thirdly (for this xx. yeres space) I have had 

 sundry such matters detected unto me, in sundry lands. 

 Fowrthly, of late, I have byn sued unto by diverse sorts of 

 people, of which, some by vehement iterated dreames, some 

 by vision, as they have thowght, other, by speche forced to 

 their imagination by night, have byn informed of certayn 

 places where threasor doth lye hid; which all, for feare of 

 kepars, as the phrase commonly nameth them, or for mistrust 

 of truth in the places assigned, and some for some other 

 causes, have forborn to deale farder, unleast I shold corrage 

 them, or cownsaile them, how to procede. Wherein I have 

 allways byn contented to heare the histories, fantasies, or il- 

 lusions to me reported, but never entermeddled according to 

 the desire of such. Hereof might grow many articles of 

 question and controversie among the common lerned; and 

 skruple among the theologians : which all I cut of from this 

 place, ready to answer onely your Lordship most largely, in 

 termes of godly philosophic, whan opportunitie shall serve : 

 making small accownt of vulgar opinions in matter of so rare 

 knowledg : but making allways my chief reckening to do no- 

 thing but that which may stand with the profession of a true 

 Christian, and of a faithfull subject. But, if, (besides all 

 bokes, dreames, visions, reports and virgula divina) by any 

 other naturall meanes and likely demonstrations of sympathia 

 and antipathia rerum, or by attraction and repulsion, the places 

 may be discryed or discovered, where gold, silver, or better 

 matter, doth lye hid, within a certayne distance : how great a 



