Every thing has its day, whether it be a nation, a city, a castle, 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, in doom’s-day Ulverlei.  Trifling as this place now seems, it must have been the manor-house of Solihull, under the Saxon heptarchy; but went to decay so long ago as the conquest.