a man go into a mine, the entrance of it being into the
sea, but that the sea will follow him, and so drown the mine? To which
objection thus I answer, that at low water mark, the sea being ebbed
away, and a great part of the sand bare; upon this same sand (being
mixed with rocks and crags) did the master of this great work build a
round circular frame of stone, very thick, strong, and joined together
with glutinous or bituminous matter, so high withal that the sea at the
highest flood, or the greatest rage of storm or tempest, can neither
dissolve the stones so well compacted in the building or yet overflow
the height of it. Within this round frame, (at all adventures) he did
set workmen to dig with mattocks, pickaxes, and other instruments fit
for such purposes. They did dig forty feet down right into and through a
rock. At last they found that which they expected, which was sea coal,
they following the vein of the mine, did dig forward still: so that in
the space of eight and twenty, or nine and twenty years, they have
digged more than an English mile under the sea, so that when men are at
work below, an hundred of the greatest ships in _Britain_ man sail over
their heads. Besides, the mine is most artificially cut like an arch or
a vault, all that great length, with many nooks and bye-ways: and it is
so made, that a man may walk upright in the most places, both in and
out. Many poor people are there set on work, which otherwise through the
want of employment would perish. But when I had seen the mine, and was
come forth of it again; after my thanks given to Sir _George Bruce_, I
told him, that if the plotters of the Powder Treason in England had
seen this mine, that they (perhaps) would have attempted to have left
the Parliament House, and have undermined the Thames, and so to have
blown up the barges and wherries, wherein the King, and all the estates
of our kingdom were. Moreover, I said, that I could afford to turn
tapster at _London_, so that I had but
one quarter of a mile of his mine to make me
a cellar, to keep beer and bottled ale
in. But leaving these jests in
prose, I will relate a few
verses that I made
merrily of this
mine.

I that have wasted, months, weeks, days, and hours
In viewing kingdoms, countries, towns, and towers,
Without all measure, measuring man