An History of Birmingham (1783) | Page 8

as immediately occur to
memory. I also knew a John England who died at the age of 89; Hugh
Vincent, 94; John Pitt, 100; George Bridgens, 103; Mrs. More, 104. An
old fellow assured me he had kept the market 77 years: he kept it for
several years after to my knowledge. At 90 he was attacked by an acute
disorder, but, fortunately for himself, being too poor to purchase
medical assistance, he was left to the care of nature, who opened that
door to health which the physician would have locked for ever. At 106
I heard him swear with all the fervency of a recruit: at 107 he died. It is
easy to give instances of people who have breathed the smoak of
Birmingham for threescore years, and yet have scarcely left the
precincts of of youth. Such are the happy effects of constitution, temper,
and conduct!

Ancient State of Birmingham.
We have now to pass through the very remote ages of time, without
staff to support us, without light to conduct us, or hand to guide us. The
way is long, dark, and slippery. The credit of an historian is built upon
truth; he cannot assert, without giving his facts; he cannot surmise,
without giving his reasons; he must relate things as they are, not as he
would have them. The fabric founded in error will moulder of itself, but
that founded in reality will stand the age and the critic.
Except half a dozen pages in Dugdale, I know of no author who hath
professedly treated of Birmingham. None of the histories which I have
seen bestow upon it more than a few lines, in which we are sure to be
treated with the noise of hammers and anvils; as if the historian thought
us a race of dealers in thunder, lightning, and wind; or infernals,
puffing in blast and smoak.
Suffer me to transcribe a passage from Leland, one of our most
celebrated writers, employed by Henry the VIIIth to form an itinerary
of Britain, whose works have stood the test of 250 years. We shall
observe how much he erred for want of information, and how natural
for his successors to copy him.
"I came through a pretty street as ever I entered, into Birmingham town.
This street, as I remember, is called Dirtey (Deritend). In it dwells
smithes and cutlers, and there is a brook that divides this street from
Birmingham, an hamlet, or member, belonging to the parish therebye.

"There is at the end of Dirtey a propper chappel and mansion-house of
timber, (the moat) hard on the ripe, as the brook runneth down; and as I
went through the ford, by the bridge, the water came down on the right
hand, and a few miles below goeth into Tame. This brook, above
Dirtey, breaketh in two arms, that a little beneath the bridge close again.
This brook riseth, as some say, four or five miles above Birmingham,
towards Black-hills.
"The beauty of Birmingham, a good market-town in the extreme parts
of Warwickshire, is one street going up alonge, almost from the left
ripe of the brook, up a meane hill, by the length of a quarter of a mile, I
saw but one parish-church in the town.
"There be many smithes in the town that use to make knives and all
manner of cutting tools, and many loriners that make bittes, and a great
many naylers; so that a great part of the town is maintained by smithes,
who have their iron and sea-coal out of Staffordshire."
Here we find some intelligence, and more mistake, cloathed in the dress
of antique diction, which plainly evinces the necessity of modern
history.
It is matter of surprise that none of those religious drones, the monks,
who hived in the priory for fifteen or twenty generations, ever thought
of indulging posterity with an history of Birmingham. They could not
want opportunity, for they lived a life of indolence; nor materials, for
they were nearer the infancy of time, and were possessed of historical
fads now totally lost. Besides, nearly all the little learning in the
kingdom was possessed by this class of people; and the place, in their
day, must have enjoyed an eminent degree of prosperity.
Though the town has a modern appearance, there is reason to believe it
of great antiquity; my Birmingham reader, therefore, must suffer me to
carry him back into the remote ages of the Ancient Britons to visit his
fable ancestors.
We have no histories of those times but what are left by the Romans,
and these we ought to read with caution, because they were parties in
the dispute. If two antagonists write each his own history, the
discerning reader will sometimes draw the line of justice