OF HUMAN LIFE. 24.I 



VI. and to attract the public attention to fuch a degree 

 as at length to induce the king to fend Cramoin", the 

 mailer of requefts, to interrogate him, by what fecret 

 method,, he who was otherwife known as a man with- 

 out property, had acquired fo great wealth ? 



.To fpeak philofophically, it is not unlikely that thefe' 

 means, unufual as they may be, and how fecret foever 

 Flamel might have reafon to keep them, were no other 

 than very natural ones. But in the time of Charles the 

 Vlth of France, it was not the cultom to think very 

 philofophically : feveral fupernatural methods were 

 then in vogue for becoming rich. Flamel might have 

 given out that he was matter of more than one, and he 

 would immediately have obtained univerfal belief. 

 Thus, for inflance, he might have faid, that he pro- 

 cured his treafures by virtue of a covenant with the 

 wretched devil, Satan — but this would have led him 

 Uraightway to a fcaffold in the place de Greve. He 

 might have faid, that a fairy had prefented him with 

 a bag of gold that would never be empty — -but then 

 he would have been obliged to produce the bag. He 

 might have faid, that he had by chance difcovered in 

 a corner of his cellar a great ftone with a talifmannic 

 ring ; and, that, on railing the ftone, he found a mar- 

 ble winding flaircafe of a hundred and fifty fteps, 

 which led. to a vault enlightened by a huge carbuncle, 

 and in this vault a large ftone vafe full of pieces cf 

 gold, &c, 1 But neither would this have ferved his 

 turn ; he would in like manner have been forced to 

 produce his treafure. The lafeft anfwer, and that 

 which was bell adapted to thofe barbarous times (when 



vol, i. r the 



