who hived in the priory for fifteen or twenty generations, ever thought
of indulging posterity with an history of Birmingham. They could not
want opportunity, for they lived a life of indolence; nor materials, for
they were nearer the infancy of time, and were possessed of historical
fads now totally lost. Besides, nearly all the little learning in the
kingdom was possessed by this class of people; and the place, in their
day, must have enjoyed an eminent degree of prosperity.

Though the town has a modern appearance, there is reason to believe it
of great antiquity; my Birmingham reader, therefore, must suffer me to
carry him back into the remote ages of the Ancient Britons to visit his
fable ancestors.

We have no histories of those times but what are left by the Romans, and
these we ought to read with caution, because they were parties in the
dispute. If two antagonists write each his own history, the discerning
reader will sometimes draw the line of justice between them; but where
there is only one, partiality is expected. The Romans were obliged to
make the Britons war-like, or there would have been no merit in
conquering them: they must also sound forth their ignorance, or there
would have been none in improving them. If the Britons were that
wretched people they are represented by the Romans, they could not be
worth conquering: no man subdues a people to improve them, but to profit
by them. Though the Romans at that time were in their meridian of
splendor, they pursued Britain a whole century before they reduced it;
which indicates that they considered it as a valuable prize. Though the
Britons were not masters of science, like the Romans; though the fine
arts did not flourish here, as in Rome, because never planted; yet by
many testimonies it is evident they were masters of plain life; that
many of the simple arts were practiced in that day, as well as in this;