Birmingham, says the late Mr. William Hutton, (the historian of this
large and populous town,) Birmingham began 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 crowd 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 to the late John
Taylor, Esq. who possessed the singular power of perceiving things as
they really were. The spring and consequence of action were open to his
view. He rose from minute beginnings to shine in the commercial, as
Shakspeare did in the poetical, and Newton in the philosophical,
hemisphere.
To this uncommon genius we owe the gilt button, the japanned and gilt
snuff-boxes, with the numerous race of enamels. From the same fountain
issued the painted snuff-box, at which one servant earned three pounds
ten shillings per week, by painting them at a farthing each. In his
shops were weekly manufactured, buttons to the amount of 800_l._,
exclusive of other valuable productions. One of the present nobility, of
distinguished taste, examining the works with the master, purchased some
of the articles, among others, a toy of eighty guineas value; and while
paying for them, observed with a smile, “he plainly saw he could not
reside in Birmingham for less than two hundred pounds a day.” Mr. Taylor
died in 1775, at the age of sixty-four, after acquiring a fortune of
200,000_l._
The active powers of genius, the instigation of profit, and the affinity
of one calling to another, often induce the artist to change his
occupation. There is nothing more common among us; even the divine and
the lawyer are prone to this change. Thus the church throws her dead
weight into the scale of commerce, and the law gives up the cause of
contention: but there is nothing more disgraceful, except thieving, in
other places. “I am told,” says an elderly gentleman, as he amused
himself in a pitiful bookseller’s shop in a wretched market town, “that
you are a stocking-maker by trade!” The humble bookseller, half
confused, and wholly ashamed, could not deny the charge. “Ah,” cried the
senior, whose features were modelled between the sneer and the smile,
“there is neither honour nor profit in changing the trade you were bred
to. Do not attempt to sell books, but stay at home, and pursue your own
business.” The dejected bookseller, scarcely one step higher than a
“walking stationer,” lived to acquire a large fortune. Had he followed
the senior’s advice, he might, like a common foot soldier, have starved
upon eight-pence a day. This humble and dejected bookseller was Mr.
Hutton himself. He says, toy trades first made their appearance in
Birmingham in the beginning of Charles the Second’s reign, in an endless
variety, attended with all their beauties and their graces. When he
wrote, he ranked, as first in preeminence, the