And, the nation so overswarmed with ecclesiastics, that the spiritual honours were quickly devoured, and the race left hungry; they therefore fastened upon the temporal—­hence we boast of two knighted priests.

OCCURRENCES.

EARTHQUAKE, &c.

It is a doctrine singular and barbarous, but it is nevertheless true, that destruction is necessary.  Every species of animals would multiply beyond their bounds in the creation, were not means devised to thin their race.

I perused an author in 1738, who asserts, “The world might maintain sixty times the number of its present inhabitants.”  Two able disputants, like those in religion, might maintain sixty arguments on the subject, and like them, leave the matter where they found it.  But if restraint was removed, the present number would be multiplied into sixty, in much less than one century.

Those animals appropriated for use, are suffered, or rather invited, to multiply without limitation.  But luxury cuts off the beast, the pig, the sheep, and the fowl, and ill treatment the horse:  vermin of every kind, from the lion to the louse, are hunted to death; a perpetual contest seems to exist between them and us; they for their preservation, and we for their extinction.  The kitten and the puppy are cast into the water, to end their lives; out of which the fishes are drawn to end theirs—­animals are every were devoured by animals.

Their grand governor, man himself, is under controul; some by religious, others by interested motives.  Even the fond parent, seldom wishes to increase the number of those objects, which of all others he values most!

In civilized nations the superior class are restrained by the laws of honour, the inferior by those of bastardy; but, notwithstanding these restraints, the human race would increase beyond measure, were they not taken off by casualties.  It is in our species alone, that we often behold the infant flame extinguished by the wretched nurse.

Three dreadful calamities attending existence, are inundations, fires, and earthquakes; devestation follows their footsteps, But one calamity, more destructive than them all, rises from man himself, war.

Birmingham, from its elevation, is nearly exempt from the flood; our inundations, instead of sweeping away life and fortune, sweep away the filth from the kennel.

It is amasing, in a place crowded with people, that so much business, and so little mischief is done by fire:  we abound more with party walls, than with timber buildings.  Utensils are ever ready to extinguish the flames, and a generous spirit to use them.  I am not certain that a conflagration of 50_l_. damage, has happened within memory.

I have only one earthquake to record, felt Nov. 15, 1772, at four in the morning; it extended about eight miles in length, from Hall-green to Erdington, and four in breadth, of which Birmingham was part.  The shaking of the earth continued about five seconds, with unequal vibration, sufficient to awake a gentle sleeper, throw down a knife carelessly reared up, or rattle the brass drops of a chest of drawers.  A flock of sheep, in a field near Yardley, frightened at the trembling, ran away.—­No damage was sustained.