The charter for the market has evidently been repeated by divers kings, both Saxon and Norman, but when first granted is uncertain, perhaps at an early Saxon date; and the day seems never to have been changed from Thursday.

The lords were tenacious of their privileges; or, one would think, there was no need to renew their charter.  Prescription, necessity, and increasing numbers, would establish the right.

Perhaps, in a Saxon period, there was room sufficient in our circumscribed market-place, for the people and their weekly supplies; but now, their supplies would fill it, exclusive of the people.

Thus by a steady and a persevering hand, she kept a constant and uniform stroke at the anvil, through a vast succession of ages:  rising superior to the frowns of fortune:  establishing a variety of productions from iron:  ever improving her inventive powers, and perhaps, changing a number of her people, equal to her whole inhabitants, every sixteen years, till she arrived at another important period, the end of the civil wars of Charles the first.

MODERN STATE

OF

BIRMINGHAM.

It is the practice of the historian, to divide ancient history from modern, at the fall of the Roman Empire.  For, during a course of about seven hundred years, while the Roman name beamed in meridian splendour, the lustre of her arms and political conduct influenced, more or less, every country in Europe.  But at the fall of that mighty empire, which happened in the fifth century, every one of the conquered provinces was left to stand upon its own basis.  From this period, therefore, the history of nations takes a material turn.  The English historian divides his ancient account from the modern, at the extinction of the house of Plantagenet, in 1485, the fall of Richard the Third.  For, by the introduction of letters, an amazing degree of light was thrown upon science, and also, by a new system of politics, adopted by Henry the Seventh, the British constitution, occasioned by one little act of parliament, that of allowing liberty to sell land, took a very different, and an important course.

But the ancient and modern state of Birmingham, must divide at the restoration of Charles the Second.  For though she had before, held a considerable degree of eminence; yet at this period, the curious arts began to take root, and were cultivated by the hand of genius.  Building leases, also, began to take effect, extension followed, and numbers of people crowded upon each other, as into a Paradise.

As a kind tree, perfectly adapted for growth, and planted in a suitable soil, draws nourishment from the circumjacent ground, to a great extent, and robs the neighbouring plants of their support, that nothing can thrive within its influence; so Birmingham, half whose inhabitants above the age of ten, perhaps, are not natives, draws her annual supply of hands, and is constantly fed by the towns that surround her, where her trades are not practised.  Preventing every increase to those neighbours who kindly contribute to her wants.  This is the case with Bromsgrove, Dudley, Stourbridge, Sutton, Lichfield, Tamworth, Coleshill, and Solihull.