of this long period, subject
to such regulations as the lord and his court feet thought fit to
impose. The more delicate kinds of cutlery were either made in the
capital or brought from the Continent. Indeed it was not till the reign
of George the First that the English surgeons ceased to import from
France those exquisitely fine blades which are required for operations
on the human frame. Most of the Hallamshire forges were collected in a
market town which had sprung up near the castle of the proprietor, and
which, in the reign of James the First, had been a singularly miserable
place, containing about two thousand inhabitants, of whom a third were
half starved and half naked beggars. It seems certain from the parochial
registers that the population did not amount to four thousand at the
end of the reign of Charles the Second. The effects of a species of toil
singularly unfavourable to the health and vigour of the human frame were
at once discerned by every traveller. A large proportion of the
people had distorted limbs. This is that Sheffield which now, with its
dependencies, contains a hundred and twenty thousand souls, and which
sends forth its admirable knives, razors, and lancets to the farthest
ends of the world. [95]

Birmingham had not been thought of sufficient importance to return a
member to Oliver's Parliament. Yet the manufacturers of Birmingham were
already a busy and thriving race. They boasted that their hardware was
highly esteemed, not indeed as now, at Pekin and Lima, at Bokhara and
Timbuctoo, but in London, and even as far off as Ireland. They had
acquired a less honourable renown as coiners of bad money. In allusion
to their spurious groats, some Tory wit had fixed on demagogues,
who hypocritically affected zeal against Popery, the nickname of
Birminghams. Yet in 1685 the population, which is now little less
than two hundred thousand, did not amount to four thousand. Birmingham
buttons were just beginning to be known: of Birmingham guns nobody had
yet heard; and the place whence, two generations later, the magnificent
editions of Baskerville went forth to astonish all the librarians
of Europe, did not contain a single regular shop where a Bible or an
almanack could be bought. On Market days a bookseller named Michael
Johnson, the father of the great Samuel Johnson, came over from
Lichfield, and opened stall during a few hours. This supply of
literature was long found equal to the demand. [96]

T