The repairs of the chancel belong to the rector, and the remainder of the building to the parish.
SAINT PHILLIP's.
We have touched upon various objects in our peregrinations through Birmingham, which meet with approbation, though viewed through the medium of smoke; some of these, being covered with the rust of time, command our veneration; but the prospect before us is wholly modern.
We have mounted, by imperceptable gradations, from beauty to beauty, 'till we are now arrived at the summit.
If an historian had written in the last century, he would have recorded but two places of worship; I am now recording the fourteenth: but my successor, if not prevented by our own imprudence, in driving away the spirit of commerce, may record the four-and-twentieth. The artist, who carries the manufactures among foreigners, or the overseer, who wantonly loads the people with burdens, draws the wrath of the place upon his own head.
This curious piece of architecture, the steeple of which is erected after the model of St. Paul's, in London, but without its weight, does honour to the age that raised it, and to the place that contains it. Perhaps the eye of the critic cannot point out a fault, which the hand of the artist can mend: perhaps too, the attentive eye cannot survey this pile of building, without communicating to the mind a small degree of pleasure. If the materials are not proof against time, it is rather a misfortune to be lamented, than an error to be complained of, the country producing no better.
Yet, amidst all the excellencies we boast, I am sorry to charge this chief ornament with an evil which admits no cure, that of not ranging with its own coemetery, or the adjacent buildings: out of seven streets, with which it is connected, it lines with none.--Like Deritend chapel, of which I have already complained, from a strong attachment to a point of religion, or of the compass, it appears twisted out of its place. We may be delighted with a human figure, complete in stature, exactly moulded with symmetry, and set off with the graces of dress; but we should be disgusted, if his right side seemed to attempt to out-walk his left.