the young time
of Pompey, which was before the coming of Caesar into this island.

There were mines of lead sometimes also in Wales, which endured so long
till the people had consumed all their wood by melting of the same (as
they did also at Comeriswith, six miles from Stradfleur), and I suppose
that in Pliny's time the abundance of lead (whereof he speaketh) was to be
found in those parts, in the seventeenth of his thirty-fourth book; also
he affirmeth that it lay in the very sward of the earth, and daily gotten
in such plenty that the Romans made a restraint of the carriage thereof to
Rome, limiting how much should yearly be wrought and transported over the
sea.[178]

* * * * *

Iron is found in many places, as in Sussex, Kent, Weredale, Mendip,
Walshall, as also in Shropshire, but chiefly in the woods betwixt Belvos
and Willock (or Wicberry) near Manchester, and elsewhere in Wales. Of
which mines divers do bring forth so fine and good stuff as any that
cometh from beyond the sea, beside the infinite gains to the owners, if we
would so accept it, or bestow a little more cost in the refining of it. It
is also of such toughness, that it yieldeth to the making of claricord
wire 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 vessel 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 natu