obtained.

~Books.~--The oldest known Birmingham book is a "Latin Grammar, composed
in the English tongue," printed in London in 1652, for Thomas Underhill,
its author having been one of the masters of our Free School.

~Book Club (The).~--Commenced some few years previous to 1775, at which
time its meetings were held in Poet Freeth's, Leicester Arms,
Bell-street. As its name implies, the club was formed for the purchase
and circulation among the members of new or choice books, which were
sold at the annual dinner, hence the poet's hint in one of his
invitations to these meetings:--

"Due regard let the hammer be paid,
Ply the glass gloomy care to dispel;
If mellow our hearts are all made,
The books much better may sell."


In these days of cheap literature, free libraries, and halfpenny papers,
such a club is not wanted.

~Books on Birmingham.~--Notes of Birmingham were now and then given
before the days of that dear old antiquary Hutton, but _his_ "History"
must always take rank as the first. Morfitt's was amusing as far as it
went; Bissett's was ditto and pictorial; but it remained till the
present period for really reliable sketches to be given. The best are
Langford's "Century of Birmingham Life," Harman's "Book of Dates,"
Dent's "Old and New Birmingham," Bunce's "Municipal History," and the
last is "Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham."