y George Birch, Esq; of Handsworth.

The house, left by its owners, is in that low, or rather boggy
situation, suitable to the fashion of those times. I can discover no
traces of a moat, though there is every conveniency for one: We are
doubly hurt by seeing a house in a miserable hole, when joining an
elegible spot.

BLAKELEY.

Five miles north-west of Birmingham, is _Blakely-hall_, the manor house
of Oldbury. If we see a venerable edifice without a moat, we cannot from
thence conclude, it was never the residence of a gentleman, but wherever
we find one, we may conclude it was.

Anciently, this manor, with those of Smethwick and Harborn, belonged to
the family of Cornwallis, whose habitation was Blakeley-hall: the
present building seems about 300 years old.

The extinction of the male line, threw the property into the hands of
two coheirs; one of whom married into the family of Grimshaw, the other
into that of Wright, who jointly held it. The family of Grimshaw
failing, Wright became then, and is now, possessed of the whole.

I am unacquainted with the principal characters who acted the farce of
life on this island, but it has long been in the tenancy of a poor
farmer, who, the proprietor allured me, was _best_ able to stock the
place with children. In 1769, the Birmingham canal passing over the
premises, robbed the trench of its water. Whether it endangers the
safety is a doubt, for _poverty_ is the best security against violence.

WEOLEY

Four miles west of Birmingham, in the parish of Northfield, are the
small, but extensive ruins of _Weoley-castle_, whose appendages command
a track of seventeen acres, situate in a park of eighteen hundred.

These moats usually extend from half an acre to two acres, are generally
square, and the trenches from eight yards over to twenty.

This is large, the walls massy; they form the allies of a garden, and
the rooms, the beds; the whole display the remains of excellent
workmanship. One may nearly guess at a man's consequence, even after a
lapse of 500 years, by the ruins of his house.

The steward told me, "they pulled down the walls as they wanted the
stone." Unfeeling projectors: there is not so much to pull down. Does
not time bring destruction fast enough without assistance? The head
which cannot contemplate, offers its hand to destroy. The insensible
taste, unable itself to relish the dry fruits of antiquity, throws them
away to prevent another. May the fin