ho had
rather have a _bush_, that it was impossible to get one for him. I am
told," he adds, "that there is a person about Glastonbury who hath a
nursery of them, which he sells for a crown a piece," but they are
supposed not to be "of the right kind."

The main object of this letter is the writer's "suspicion of gold in
this country;" for which he offers three reasons. Tacitus says there was
gold in England, and that Agrippa came to a spot where he had a prospect
of Ireland--from which place he writes; secondly, that "an honest man"
had in this spot found stones from which he had extracted good gold, and
that he himself "had seen in the broken stones a clear appearance of
gold;" and thirdly, "there is a story which goes by tradition in that
part of the country, that in the hill alluded to there was a door into a
hole, that when any wanted money they used to go and knock there, that a
woman used to appear, and give to such as came.[207] At a time one by
greediness or otherwise gave her offence, she flung to the door, and
delivered this old saying, still remembered in the country:

'When all _the Daws_ be gone and dead,
Then.... Hill shall shine gold red.'

My fancy is, that this relates to an ancient family of this name, of
which there is now but one man left, and he not likely to have any
issue." These are his three reasons; and some mines have perhaps been
opened with no better ones! But let us not imagine that this great
naturalist was credulous; for he tells Aubrey that "he thought it was
but a monkish tale forged in the abbey so famous in former time; but as
I have learned not to despise our forefathers, I question whether this
may not refer to some rich mine in the hill, formerly in use, but now
lost. I shall shortly request you to discourse with my lord about it, to
have advice, &c. In the mean time it will be best to _keep all private_
for his majesty's service, his lordship's, and perhaps some private
person's benefit." But he has also positive evidence: "A mason not long
ago coming to the renter of the abbey for a freestone, and sawing it,
out came divers pieces of gold of L3 10_s._ value apiece, of ancient
_coins_. The stone belonged to some chimney-work; the gold was hidden in
it, perhaps, when the Dissolution was near." This last incident of
finding coins in a chimney-piece, which he had accounted for very
rationally, serves only to confirm his dream, that they were coined out
of the gold of the mine