364 RAYMUND LULLY, 



CHAP. XIV. 



elude that those of Waterford in Ireland, of 

 Somersetshire, and of Cardiganshire, must have 

 been still more minute, and that the chief sup- 

 ply must have been obtained from the foreign 

 commerce of that age, which consisted chiefly in 

 the exports of wool and a few cloths and hides. 



The supply of gold to the mint, when it first 

 began to be coined into money in the reign of 

 Edward III., could only have been procured by 

 purchase with silver or with some other com- 

 modities, as no accounts appear of any being 

 furnished by the royal or other domestic mines. 

 Although it can have little connexion with the 

 actual supply of gold, it is scarcely possible to 

 pass without notice one of those delusions of the 

 human mind which extensively prevailed in for- 

 mer ages, and has not been wholly dissipated 

 even in the age in which we have lived. 



Raymund Lully, who came to England in 

 the reign of Edward III., pretended, and was 

 believed, to possess the power of transmuting 

 the inferior metals into gold and silver. He seems 

 to have been a strange compound of fanaticism 

 and imposture. He was originally a Jew, who 

 had been converted to Christianity and had 

 become a Dominican friar. Cremer, abbot of 

 Westminster, brought him to England, and in- 

 troduced him to the king, for whom he agreed 

 to exercise his science on condition of the 



