Joseph Scott, Esq; yet living, assigned, July 7, 1779, certain messuages and lands in and near Walmer-lane, in Birmingham, of the present rent of 40_l_. 18s. part of the said premises to be appropriated for the interment of protestant dissenters; part of the profits to be applied to the use of a religious society in Carr’s lane, at the discretion of the trust; and the remainder, for the institution of a school to teach the mother tongue.

[Illustration:  Free School.]

That part of the demise, designed for the reception of the dead, is about three acres, upon, which stands one messuage, now the Golden Fleece, joining Summer-lane on the west, and Walmer-lane on the east; the other, which hath Aston-street on the south, and Walmer-lane on the west, contains about four acres, upon which now stand ninety-one houses.  A building lease, in 1778, was granted of these last premises, for 120 years, at 30_l_. per annum; at the expiration of which, the rents will probably amount to twenty times the present income.  The trust, to whose direction this charity is committed, are

     Abel Humphrys, bailiff,
     John Allen,
     John Parteridge,
     William Aitkins,
     Joseph Rogers,
     Thomas Cock,
     John Berry,
     William Hutton,
     Thomas Cheek Lea,
     Durant Hidson,
     Samuel Tutin.

FREE SCHOOL.

It is entertaining to contemplate the generations of fashion, which not only influences our dress and manner of living, but most of the common actions of life, and even the modes of thinking.  Some of these fashions, not meeting with the taste of the day, are of short duration, and retreat out of life as soon as they are well brought in; others take a longer space; but whatever fashions predominate, though ever so absurd, they carry an imaginary beauty, which pleases the fancy, ’till they become ridiculous with age, are succeeded by others, when their very memory becomes disgusting.

Custom gives a sanction to fashion, and reconciles us even to its inconveniency.  The fashion of this year is laughed at the next.

There are fashions of every date, from five hundred years, even to one day; of the first, was that of erecting religious houses; of the last, was that of destroying them.

Our ancestors, the Saxons, after their conversion to christianity, displayed their zeal in building churches:  though the kingdom in a few centuries was amply supplied, yet that zeal was no way abated; it therefore exerted itself in the abbey.—­When a man of fortune had nearly done with time, he began to peep into eternity through the windows of an abbey; or, if a villian had committed a piece of butchery, or had cheated the world for sixty years, there was no doubt but he could burrow his way to glory through the foundations of an abbey.