OF HUMAN LIFE. 243 



government, notwithftanding the infallible procefs of 

 making the philofopher's ftone lay in the royal library, 

 to fall fhort, in the year 1787, by more than a hun- 

 dred million? 



For Ife people of the eighteenth' century, it will be 

 the mo'ft advifeable courfe, till thefe queftions fhall be 

 fatisfa&orily anfwered, to believe that Flamel came by 

 his wealth in a way perhaps not the moft ordinary and 

 mofr. lawful, but yet perfectly natural. Can we not 

 guefs how ? then will the incapacity we are undet of 

 fatisfyihg bur curiohty hot be an apparent reafon, much 

 lefs a fufficient reafon for calling to our affirmance the 

 hlerogiyphical book of the jew Abraham, and faint 

 James of Comporlella, for rendering an inexplicable 

 affair by fomething Hill ten times more inexplicable 

 — not comprehenflble, but Hill more incornprehenfi-- 

 ble. But even this how ? lies not fo far beyond the 

 reach of the human intellect, as our anonymous feems 

 willing to perfuacle us ; and the conjecture of Gabriel 

 Naude (who was one of the molt intelligent men of 

 the former part of the laft century), even though, ac- 

 cording to the remark of Lenglet du Frefnoy, it be 

 tainted with an incurable chronological blemifh, con- 

 ducts us, at leail, to another, which, as a merely 

 poflible hypothecs, is yet always infinitely more pro- 

 bable, than the opinion that Flamel had discovered the 

 philofopher's ltone ; which is juft the fame thing as 

 faying, that he had found Fortunatus's wifhing-hat, or 

 the feal-ring of Solomon. The jews, fays du Frefnoy, 

 were not again driven out of France till the year 1406, ( 

 and Flamel had then long ago caufed the church of 

 faint Jaques de la Boucherie to be built. It is pity he 

 did not tell us how long. Well; but why does he 



B. % take 



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