workmanship are excellent.

Though the fabric is not void of beauty, yet being closely surrounded
with houses, which destroy the medium of view, that beauty is
totally hid.

The steeple has, within memory, been three times injured by lightning.
Forty feet of the spire, in a decayed state, was taken down and rebuilt
in 1781, with stone from Attleborough, near Nuneaton; and strengthened
by a spindle of iron, running up its centre 105 feet long, secured to
the side walls every ten feet, by braces--the expence, 165_l_. 16s.

Inclosed is a ring of twelve musical bells, and though I am not master
of the bob major and tripple-grandfire, yet am well informed, the
ringers are masters of the bell-rope: but to excel in Birmingham is
not new.

The seats in the church would disgrace a meaner parish than that of
Birmingham; one should be tempted to think, they are the first ever
erected upon the spot, without taste or order: the timber is become hard
with age, and to the honour of the inhabitants, bright with use. Each
sitting is a private freehold, and is farther disgraced, like the coffin
of a pauper, with the paltry initials of the owner's name. These divine
abodes are secured with the coarse padlocks of a field gate.

By an attentive survey of the seats, we plainly discover the increasing
population of Birmingham. When the church was erected, there was
doubtless sufficient room for the inhabitants, and it was probably the
only place for public worship during 800 years: as the town increased,
gallery after gallery was erected, 'till no conveniency was found for