The tea trays, and other japanned ware of Wolverhampton, are equal in taste and execution to anything produced in Birmingham; indeed, it was at the manufactory of the Messrs. Walton that the plan of skilfully copying the landscapes of our best artists on japan were originated.  The first tea-tray of the kind was copied from one of Turner’s Rivers of France, by a gentleman who has since taken up a very important position in applying the true principles of art to British manufactures.

Wolverhampton, and all the towns and villages in the coal and iron district, are only so many branch-Birminghams; in that hardware metropolis the greater part of the goods made are ordered and sold.

The town is of great antiquity, although with as few remains as most flourishing towns built of brick, where manufactures have chased away mansions.  The name is derived from Walfrana, a sister of King Edgar, who founded a monastery there in A.D. 996, and collected a village round it named Walfrana Hampton, which was eventually corrupted into Wolverhampton.  In the oldest Church, St. Peter’s, there is a pulpit formed of a single stone, elaborately sculptured, and a font, with curious bas-relief figures of saints.  The Church is collegiate, and the College consists of a dean, who holds the prebend of Wolverhampton, which was annexed by Edward IV. to his free chapel of St. George, within the Castle of Windsor.

A Free Grammar School, supported by endowments, affords a head master 400 pounds a-year; the second master 200 pounds; and a third master 120 pounds.  Some years ago these gentlemen had only seventy scholars to teach, but we trust this is, or will be, amended.

Wolverhampton was made a Parliamentary borough by the Reform Act, returning two members from boundaries which include the townships of Bilston, Willenhall, Wednesfield, and the parish of Sedgeley.  The population has increased more than five fold in the last forty years.

Bird, the artist, Congreve, inventor of the rockets which bear his name, and Abernethy, the eminent surgeon, were natives of Wolverhampton; Huskisson, who began the commercial reforms which Peel finished, was born at Oxley Hall, in the immediate neighbourhood.

Close to the town is a good racecourse, well frequented once a year, formerly one of the most fashionable meetings in the country.  The ladies’ division of the Grand Stand used to be a complete parterre of the gayest flowers; but railroads, which have added to the quantity, have very much deteriorated the quality of the frequenters of races, and unless a change takes place, a Grand Stand will soon be as dark, as busy, and as dull as the Stock Exchange.

From Wolverhampton a line nineteen miles in length, through Albrighton (where Staffordshire ends and Shropshire begins) and Shifnal to Wellington, shortens the route to Shrewsbury by cutting off an angle; but as there is nothing to be said about this route except that at Albrighton are the kennels of the hunt of that name, (a hunt in which the greater or less luxury in horseflesh of the young ironmasters affords a thermometer of the state of the iron trade,) we shall on this occasion take the Stafford line.