s formed by the Romans, to convey their military force, the
prodigious number of camps, moats, and broken castles, left us by the
Saxons, Danes, and Normans, our common ancestors, indicate _a martial
temper_. The names of those heroic sovereigns, Edward the Third, and
Henry the Fifth, who brought their people to the fields of conquest,
descend to posterity with the highest applause, though they brought
their kingdom to the brink of ruin; while those quiet princes, Henry the
Seventh, and James the First, who cultivated the arts of peace, are but
little esteemed, though under their sceptre, England experienced the
greatest improvement.--The man who dare face an enemy, is the most
likely to gain a friend. A nation versed in arms, stands the fairest
chance to protect its property, and secure its peace: war itself may be
hurtful, the knowledge of it useful.

In Mitchly-park, three miles west of Birmingham, in the parish of
Edgbaston, is _The Camp_; which might be ascribed to the Romans, lying
within two or three stones cast of their Ikenield-street, where it
divides the counties of Warwick and Worcester, but is too extensive for
that people, being about thirty acres: I know none of their camps more
than four, some much less; it must, therefore, have been the work of
those pilfering vermin the Danes, better acquainted with other peoples
property than their own; who first swarmed on the shores, then over-ran
the interior parts of the kingdom, and, in two hundred years, devoured
the whole.

No part of this fortification is wholly obliterated, though, in many
places, it is nearly levelled by modern cultivation, that dreadful enemy
to the antiquary. Pieces of armour are frequently ploughed up,
particularly parts of the sword and the battle-axe, instruments much
used by those destructive sons of the raven.

The platform is quadrangular, every side nearly four hundred yards; the
center is about six acres, surrounded by three ditches, each about eight
yards over, at unequal distances; though upon a descent, it is amply
furnished with water. An undertaking of such immense labour, could not
have been designed for temporary use.

The propriety of the spot, and the rage of the day for fortification,
seem to have induced the Middlemores, lords of the place for many
centuries, and celebrated for riches, but in the beginning of this work,
for poverty, to erect a park, and a lodge; nothing of either exist, but
the names.

MORTIMER