suitable in their sphere.

If we turn the other side of the picture, we shall see a man born in
affluence, take the reins of direction; but like Phæton, not being able
to guide them, blunders on from mischief to mischief, till he involves
himself in destruction, comes prone to the earth, and many are injured
by his fall. From directing the bridle, he submits to the bit; seeks for
bread in the shops, the line designed him by nature; where his hands
become callous with the file, and where, for the first time in his life,
he becomes useful to an injured society.

Thus, from imprudence, folly, and vice, is produced poverty;--poverty
produces labour; from labour, arise the manufactures; and from these,
the riches of a country, with all their train of benefits.

It would be difficult to enumerate the great variety of trades practised
in Birmingham, neither would it give pleasure to the reader. Some of
them, spring up with the expedition of a blade of grass, and, like that,
wither in a summer. If some are lasting, like the sun, others seem to
change with the moon. Invention is ever at work. Idleness; the
manufactory of scandal, with the numerous occupations connected with the
cotton; the linen, the silk, and the woollen trades, are little
known among us.

Birmingham begun with the productions of the anvil, and probably will
end with them. The sons of the hammer, were once her chief inhabitants;
but that great croud of artists is now lost in a greater: Genius seems
to increase with multitude.

Part of the riches, extension, and improvement of Birmingham, are owing