2. 24 © F THE PROLONGATION 



rouze fufpicion, not fcem fufpicious to him ? I con- 

 fefs, that, from fo inconceivable an unfufpicioufnefs, 

 lie almoft renders himfelf fufpedled by me. 



Our namelefs correfpondent, indeed, makes him 

 fay: He could not believe all this (namely what the 

 dervife had told him in relation to Flamel) : but, with 

 permiffion, Lucas only fays : he paffes over a number 

 of things frill lefs credible, [des chofes encore moins 

 croyables] that he heard of him. And does he not 

 better confefs above, that he fhould have nearly 

 given him credit for all the reft, (what he had told 

 him before the difcourfe turned upon Flamel) — and 

 this reft, however, conlifted of matters very little cre- 

 dible ! — -The truth of the matter feems to be : that the 

 good Lucas, like other people of brifk and lively tem- 

 pers, did not rightly know what he believed or ought 

 to believe. He appears, if we may judge from the 

 whole tenour of his book, to be a man of a found in- 

 tellect, but little imagination, of various but by no 

 means deep knowledge, a lover of curious matters, 

 but without any difpolition to fanaticifm, and yet not 

 entirely free from vulgar prejudices. Something of the 

 latter we muft reafonably lay to the account of the 

 times in which he lived. Moreover, he was no idle 

 traveller : he had commiffions from his king ; his bu- 

 flnefs was to look out for and buy up old coins and 

 manufcripts ; his future fortune depended on his proper 

 execution of this bufinefs, and accordingly he never 

 loft light of it. And it was actually on this account, 

 as it fhould feem, that he got acquainted with the uf- 

 bec dervife, that he might ihew him certain manu- 

 fcripts that he had bought, and get his opinion about 



them : 



