_THE TOY-SHOP OF EUROPE._

This extensive town, which, from its manufactures, is of so much
importance to the nation, is distinguished in the commercial annals
of Britain, for a spirit of enterprize and persevering industry. Its
inhabitants are ever on the alert, and continually inventing some new
articles for traffic, or making improvements in others, that have been
introduced in foreign countries; and by their superior skill, aided
by machinery, are enabled to bring into the foreign market an endless
variety of manufactured goods, both useful and ornamental, which they
sell at a more moderate price than any other manufacturers of similar
articles in the known world.

Comparisons are odious, and therefore to be avoided. That the
inhabitants are become wealthy, there is indisputable evidence, but to
whom they are indebted for their opulence, different opinions prevail.

The writer of these pages was born in the year 1749, and having been
an attentive observer more than fifty years, he is convinced that the
extensive trade now carried on in this town, is principally to be
attributed to the enterprising spirit of the late Matthew Boulton,
Esq. who, by his active and unremitting exertions, the indefatigable
perseverance of himself and his agents, together with the liberal
manner in which he patronized genius, laid the foundation.

This town is situated near the centre of the kingdom, in the north
west extremity of the county of Warwick, and so near the verge of it,
that within the distance of one mile and a half from the centre,
on the road to Wolverhampton, a person removes himself into
Staffordshire, and on the road to Alcester, about the same distance