The vicar’s grammar would not have found favour with Lindley Murray; but speculations as to how an artificial wreath or a glass case can be made an act, illegal or otherwise, do not form the real interest of this notice. _That_ is discovered in the spectacle of two judicial tribunals assuming the rôle of arbiters of taste, and elevating the placing of jampots, enamelled tin wreaths, and the like abominations on graves to illegality. No one can, without mingled feelings of disgust and pity, see the marmalade jars that have held water for flowers, or any artificial things displayed in places with such sacred and melancholy associations, but this would seem to be a question of taste, or the want of it, alone. It would not be a much greater stride for courts of law to determine in what kind of clothes parishioners should attend service. And—another matter. Without defending artificial flowers, are the decayed natural blossoms, shrivelled with heat, and soddened into an obscene and hideous pulp by rains, a pleasing sight? Is it not possible, after all, that the sense of permanency in a glass case or a glass chaplet is a soothing feeling to many a poor mourner who lacks “culture,” but whose instincts revolt from the rotting lilies and stephanotis of the bereaved rich? [Illustration: THE LIVERPOOL MAIL, 1836. _From a Print after J. Pollard._] Returning to Stonebridge, the road to Coleshill, and to Castle Bromwich and Lichfield will be seen branching off from the Holyhead Road. Here, until the middle of the eighteenth century, the traffic for Shrewsbury and Chester commonly turned off. After that date, not only were the roads through Birmingham and Wolverhampton improved, but the places themselves grew into greater importance, and the old Chester Road, by consequence, decayed. By 1802 all the Chester coaches had deserted it, but the Liverpool Mail came this way until the last. Up to 1761 this was not the way to Coleshill at all. Until that year the road branched off at a point half a mile from Meriden, and lay through Packington Park. It was a straight and flat road, and convenient for Coleshill, but offensive to Sir Clement Fisher, who then was the squire at Packington Hall. It passed within sight of his windows, and he relaxed no effort until an Act of Parliament was passed, stopping it up, and making the present hilly and circuitous road in its stead. The preamble of the Act, stating that the old road was inconvenient and dangerous, is one of the most audacious falsehoods ever publicly stated. The old road can still be traced in the Park, and standing beside it is an old tombstone, recording the fate of a London tailor struck by lightning when travelling this way. XLVII But enough of Packington. Let us on to Birmingham, now but nine miles distant, by Elmdon, Wells Green, and Yardley.