re in some places of the realm. Nevertheless, it
was better cheap with us when strangers only brought it hither; for it
is our quality when we get any commodity to use it with extremity
towards our own nation, after we have once found the means to shut out
foreigners from the bringing in of the like. It breedeth in like
manner great expense and waste of wood, as doth the making of our pots
and table vessels of glass, wherein is much loss, sith it is so
quickly broken; and yet (as I think) easy to be made tougher, if our
alchemists could once find the true birth or production of the red
man, whose mixture would induce a metallic toughness unto it, whereby
it should abide the hammer.

Copper is lately not found, but rather restored again to light. For I
have read of copper to have been heretofore gotten in our island;
howbeit as strangers have most commonly the governance of our mines,
so they hitherto make small gains of this in hand in the north parts;
for (as I am informed) the profit doth very hardly countervail the
charges, whereat wise men do not a little marvel, considering the
abundance which that mine doth seem to offer, and, as it were, at
hand. Leland, our countryman, noteth sundry great likelihoods of
natural copper mines to be eastwards, as between Dudman and Trewardth,
in the sea cliffs, beside other places, whereof divers are noted here
and there in sundry places of this book already, and therefore it
shall be but in vain to repeat them here again. As for that which is
gotten out of the marchasite, I speak not of it, sith it is not
incident to my purpose. In Dorsetshire also a copper mine lately found
is brought to good perfection.

As for our steel, it is not so good for edge-tools as that of Cologne,
and yet the one is often sold for the other, and like talc used in
both, that is to say, thirty gads to the sheaf, and twelve sheaves to
the burden.

Our alchemy is artificial, and thereof our spoons and some salts are
commonly made and preferred before our pewter with some,[4] albeit in
truth it be much subject to corruption, putrefaction, more heavy and
foul to handle than our pewter; yet some ignorant persons affirm it to
be a metal more natural, and the very same which Encelius calleth
_plumbum cincreum_, the Germans _wisemute, mithan_, and _counterfeie_,
adding that where it groweth silver cannot be far off. Nevertheless it
is known to be a mixture of brass, lead, and tin (of which this latter
occupi