=Famous Men: the Soho Circle=--One of the most remarkable chapters in the history of Birmingham would be a full record of the men of the latter half, or even the last quarter, of the last century who gave lustre to the town, and who materially helped its constant progress. “Soho” had not only supplied what the world had long wanted, “power,” but it had set up a standard of excellence, and had trained a class of workmen who were to go forth to conquer, at home and abroad, in all industrial work. The spirit of Soho is still abroad in the land, and Birmingham may claim to have been one of the foremost in the mechanical progress of the past hundred years. The galaxy of great men, as it has been called, who met in Birmingham a century ago is certainly remarkable. Boulton was a native of the town, but many “strangers came within the gates.” James Watt--almost all-accomplished--was soon followed by Joseph Priestley, who lived here for eleven years. His fame had preceded him, his great discoveries had been made. A storm of popular and ignorant bigotry drove him from the town, wrecked his home, ruined his laboratory, and burned his library; but the sons have “blushed to find their fathers were his foes;” and a statue honoured his memory and his great discovery of oxygen on the centenary of that day. Dr. Darwin, of Lichfield and Derby, the father of a noble line, and himself a man of genius and power, was a constant visitor. William Murdock, one of the ablest of the Soho group, the first maker of a locomotive, and the practical inventor of gas-lighting, was long a resident in the town, and is buried near Boulton and Watt. John Baskerville, the printer; Josiah Wedgwood, the famous art-potter; James Keir, the great chemist; Richard Edgeworth and Thomas Day, authors; Joseph Berington, the learned Roman Catholic; Dr. Withering, the botanist; Dr. Parr, the famous Greek scholar; Samuel Galton, the Quaker; John Proud, the Swedenborgian; John Wyatt, the inventor; Edmund Hector, Johnson’s friend; and many others, formed such a “happy family” of genius and worth as few towns of the period could surpass or equal; and that “golden age” of Birmingham, the men and names, and works and progress of the last century, must ever be remembered and honoured, even in these days of quicker progress and greater victories in scientific and industrial pursuits. * * * * * [Many very interesting details of the History of Birmingham are necessarily omitted in this brief summary and may be found in the following works:--