Johnson, who died in 1784 at the age of seventy-five, was buried in Westminster Abbey, and, mainly through the exertions of his friend Sir Joshua Reynolds, a statue of him was erected in St. Paul’s Cathedral.

Other eminent men besides Dr. Johnson received their education at Lichfield Grammar School:  Elias Ashmole, founder of the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, Joseph Addison the great essayist, whose father was Dean of Lichfield, and David Garrick the actor, were all educated at the Grammar School.  There were five boys who had at one period attended the school who afterwards became judges of the High Court:  Lord Chief Justice Willes, Lord Chief Justice Wilmot, Lord Chief Baron Parker, Mr. Justice Noel, and Sir Richard Lloyd, Baron of the Exchequer.

Leaving Lichfield, we passed along the racecourse and walked as quickly as we could to Tamworth, where at the railway station we found our box awaiting us with a fresh change of clothing.  In a few minutes we were comfortably rigged out for our farther journey; the box, in which my brother packed up the stones, was then reconsigned to our home address.  I was now strong enough to carry my own luggage, which seemed to fit very awkwardly in its former position, but I soon got over that.  There was at Tamworth a fine old church dedicated to St. Editha which we did not visit.  We saw the bronze statue erected in 1852 to the memory of the great Sir Robert Peel, Bart., who represented Tamworth in Parliament, and was twice Prime Minister, and who brought in the famous Bill for the Abolition of the Corn Laws.  These Laws had been in operation from the year 1436.  But times had changed:  the population had rapidly grown with the development of industries, so that being limited to home production, corn reached such a high price that people came to see that the laws pressed hardly upon the poorer classes, hence they were ultimately abolished altogether.  The Bill was passed in 1846, Cobden, Bright, and Villiers leading the agitation against them, and after the Corn Laws were abolished a period of great prosperity prevailed in England.

[Illustration:  SIR ROBERT PEEL. From the portrait by Sir Thomas Lawrence.]

Sir Robert Peel died from the effect of an accident sustained when riding on horseback in Hyde Park, on June 25th, 1850; he fell from his horse, dying three days afterwards, and was buried in his mausoleum, in the Parish Church of Drayton Bassett, a village about two miles from Tamworth.

It was the day of the Municipal Elections as we passed through Tamworth, but, as only one ward was being contested, there was an almost total absence o f the excitement usual on such occasions.

[Illustration:  TAMWORTH CASTLE.]

Tamworth Castle contains some walls that were built by the Saxons in a herringbone pattern.  There was a palace on the site of the castle in the time of Ofta, which was the chief residence of the Kings of Mercia; but William the Conqueror gave the castle and town of Tamworth and the Manor of Scrivelsby in Lincolnshire to his dispensor, or royal steward, Robert of Fontenaye-le-Marmion in Normandy, whose family were the hereditary champions of the Dukes of Normandy: