e, a
man, or an insect; the difference is, one is a winter's day, the other
may be extended to the length of a summer's--an _end_ waits upon all.
But we cannot contemplate the end of grandeur, without gloomy ideas.

Birmingham is surrounded with the melancholy remains of extinguished
greatness; the decayed habitations of decayed gentry, fill the mind with
sorrowful reflections. Here the feet of those marked the ground, whose
actions marked the page of history. Their arms glistened in the field;
their eloquence moved the senate. Born to command, their influence was
extensive; but who now rest in peace among the paupers, fed with the
crumbs of their table. The very land which, for ages, was witness to the
hospitality of its master, is itself doomed to stirility. The spot
which drew the adjacent country, is neglected by all; is often in a
wretched state of cultivation, sets for a trifle; the glory is departed;
it demands a tear from the traveller, and the winds teem, to sigh
over it.

THE MOATS.

In the parish of King's-norton, four miles south west of Birmingham, is
_The Moats_, upon which long resided the ancient family of Field. The
numerous buildings, which almost formed a village, are totally erased,
and barley grows where the beer was drank.

BLACK GREVES.

Eight miles south west of Birmingham, in the same parish, near Withod
Chapel, is _Black Greves_ (Black Groves) another seat of the Fields;
which, though a family of opulence, were so far from being lords of the
manor, that they were in vassalage to them.

The whole of that extensive parish is in the crown, which holds the
detestable badge of ancient slavery over every tenant, of demanding
under the name of harriot, the best moveable he dies possessed of--Thus
death and the bailiff make their inroads together; they rob the family
in a double capacity, each taking the best moveable.

As the human body descends into the regions of sickness, much sooner
than it can return into health; so a family can decline into poverty by
hastier steps, than rise into affluence. One generation of extravagance
puts a period to many of greatness.

A branch of the Fields, in 1777, finished their ancient grandeur, by
signing away the last estate of his family.--Thus he blotted out the
name of his ancestors by writing his own.

ULVERLEY, OR CULVERLEY.

Four miles from Birmingham, upon the Warwick road, entering the parish
of Solihull, in Castle-lane, is Ulverle,