Patience seems the highest accomplishment of an angler.  We behold him, fixed as a statue, on the bank; his head inclining towards the river, his attention upon the water, his eye upon the float; he often draws, and draws only his hook!  But although he gets no bite, it may fairly be said he is bit: of the two, the fish display the most cunning.—­He, surprized that he has caught nothing, and I, that he has kept his rod and his patience.

Party excursion is held in considerable esteem, in which are included Enville, the seat of Lord Stamford; Hagley, that of the late Lord Lyttelton; and the Leasowes, the property of the late Wm. Shenstone, Esq.  We will omit the journey to London, a tour which some of us have made all our lives without seeing it.

Cards and the visit are linked together, nor is the billiard table totally forsaken.  One man amuses himself in amassing a fortune, and another in dissolving one.

About thirty-six of the inhabitants keep carriages for their own private use; and near fifty have country houses.  The relaxations of the humbler class, are fives, quoits, skittles, and ale.

Health and amusement are found in the prodigious number of private gardens scattered round Birmingham, from which we often behold the father returning with a cabbage, and the daughter with a nosegay.

HOTEL.

The spot where our great-grandmothers smiled in the lively dance, when they possessed the flower of beauty in the spring of life, is lost in forgetfulness.  The floor that trembled under that foot which was covered with a leather shoe tied with a silken string, and which supported a stocking of dark blue worsted, not of the finest texture, is now buried in oblivion.

[Illustration:  Hotel.]

In 1750 we had two assembly rooms; one at No. 11. in the Square, the other No. 85. in Bull-street.  This last was not much in use afterwards.  That in the Square continued in repute till in the course of that evening which happened in October 1765, when Edward Duke of York had the honour of leading up the dance, and the ladies of Birmingham enjoyed that of the Duke’s hand, He remarked, “That a town of such magnitude as Birmingham, and adorned with so much beauty, deserved a superior accomodation:—­That the room itself was mean, but the entrance still meaner.”

Truth is ever the same, whether it comes from a prince or a peasant; but its effects are not.  Whether some secret charm attended the Duke’s expression, that blasted the room, is uncertain, but it never after held its former eminence.

In 1772 a building was erected by subscription, upon the Tontine principle, at the head of Temple row, and was dignified with the French name of Hotel:  From a handsome, entrance the ladies are now led through a spacious saloon, at the extremity of which the eye is struck with a grand flight of steps, opening into an assembly-room, which would not disgrace even the royal presence of the Duke’s brother.