From this uncouth swamp sprung the philosopher, the statesman, and tradition says, the gunpowder-plot.

DUDDESTON.

Four furlongs north-east of Birmingham, is Duddeston (Dud’s-town) from Dud, the Saxon proprietor, Lord of Dudley, who probably had a seat here; once a considerable village, but long reduced to the manor-house, till Birmingham, swelling beyond its bounds, in 1764, verged upon this lordship; and we now, in 1783, behold about eighty houses, under the names of Duke-street, Prospect-row, and Woodcock-lane.

It afterwards descended to the Paganalls, the Sumeris, then to the Bottetourts, and was, in 1323, enjoyed by Joan Bottetourt, lady of Weoley castle, a daughter of the house of Sumeri.

Sir Thomas de Erdington held it of this lady, by a chief-rent, which was a pair of gilt spurs, or six-pence, at the option of the tenant.

Erdington sold it, in 1327, to Thomas de Maidenhache, by whose daughter, Sibell, it came in marriage to Adam de Grymforwe; whose posterity, in 1363, conveyed it for 26_l_. 13s. 4d. now worth 20,000_l_. to John atte Holt; and his successors made it their residence, till the erection of Aston-hall, in the reign of James I.

It is now converted into beautiful gardens, as a public resort of pleasure, and dignified with the London name of Vauxhall.  The demolished fish-ponds, and the old foundations, which repel the spade, declare its former grandeur.

In 1782 it quitted, by one of the most unaccountable alignments that ever resulted from human weakness, the ancient name of Holte, familiar during four hundred and nineteen years, for that of Legge.

Could the ghost of Sir Lister re-visit his departed property, one might ask, What reception might you meet with, Sir Lister, in 1770, among your venerable ancestors in the shades, for barring, unprovoked, an infant heiress of 7000_l_. a year, and giving it, unsolicited, to a stranger?  Perhaps you experience repeated buffetings; a sturdy figure, with iron aspect, would be apt to accost you—­“I with nervous arm, and many a bended back, drew 40_l_. from the Birmingham forge, with which, in 1330, I purchased the park and manor of Nechels, now worth four hundred times that sum.  I planted that family which you have plucked up by the roots:  in the sweat of my brow, I laid a foundation for greatness; many of my successors built on that foundation—­but you, by starving your brother, Sir Charles, into compliance, wantonly cut off the entail, and gave away the estate, after passing through seventeen descents, merely to shew you had a power to give it.  We concluded here, that a son of his daughter, the last hope of the family, would change his own name to preserve ours, and not the estate change its possessor.”—­“I,” another would be apt to say, “with frugal hand, and lucrative employments under the crown, added, in 1363, the manor of Duddeston; and, in 1367, that