descendants, though they have left the place. The families also of
Weaman, Jennings, Whalley, etc. have acquired vast property, and quitted
the meridian of Birmingham; and some others are at this day ripe for
removal. Let me close this bright scene of prosperity, and open another,
which can only be viewed with a melancholy eye. We cannot behold the
distresses of man without compassion; but that distress which follows
affluence, comes with double effect.

We have amongst us a family of the name of Middlemore, of great
antiquity, deducible from the conquest; who held the chief possessions,
and the chief offices in the county, and who matched into the first
families in the kingdom, but fell with the interest of Charles the
First; and are now in that low ebb of fortune, that I have frequently,
with a gloomy pleasure, relieved them at the common charity-board of the
town. Such is the tottering point of human greatness.

Another of the name of Bracebridge, who for more than six hundred years,
figured in the first ranks of life.

A third of the name of Mountfort, who shone with meridian splendor,
through a long train of ages. As genealogy was ever a favourite
amusement, I have often conversed with these solitary remains of
tarnished lustre, but find in all of them, the pride of their family
buried with its greatness:--they pay no more attention to the arms of
their ancestors, than to a scrap of paper, with which they would light
their pipe. Upon consulting one of the name of Elwall, said to be
descended from the Britons, I found him so amazingly defective, that he
could not stretch his pedigree even so high as his grandfather.

A fifth family amongst us, of the name of Arden, stood upon the pinnacle