Page:Walks in the Black Country and its green border-land.pdf/168

154 servus in asserendo regem, in vindicando ecclesiam, in propugiando legem et libertatem anglicanam, sæpe captus, anno 1648, semel condemnatus ct tamen non decollatus, renatum denuo vidit diaclama hic inconcussa semper virtutc senex.

Differt non aufert mortem longissima vita, Sed differt multum cras believe mori. Quod ncqueas vitare, fugis: Nec formidanda est."

Considering his energetic efforts and powerful influence in developing the resources and shaping the great industries of the Black Country, we trust few of our readers will think we have given a notice of disproportionate length to Dud Dudley. His inventions and experiments were of inestimable value to the entire country and to the world; and the present Earl does but deserved honour to this early representative of his house in prosecuting, on such an extensive scale, the enterprise which that remarkable man first set on foot at Himley more than two centuries ago.

Dudley is a goodly town of nine or ten thousand inhabitants, about ten miles west of Birmingham; and is planted high and dry above the levels of the intervening villages. Some portions of it are built upon hills uplifted above the smoke of the valley, but still enveloped thinly with smoke of their own making; for furnaces or forges are planted like redoubts on the ridgy eminences. As nearly every one of the towns and villages in the district is carrying on the iron and coal business in common