Page:Walks in the Black Country and its green border-land.pdf/340

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Walks in the Black Country

stipulated condition that her name should always be put first through all generations of their posterity, and this condition is now observed in the compound name. Leveson-Gower. This is the maiden name of the Sutherland family, and in the counting-room of the Old Hall in Wolverhampton, now a tin and japan-ware manufactory, the foundation of that family's fortune was laid. But there is another historical incident connected with this Old Hall of nearer and wider interest to the admirers of dramatic celebrities. Here, side by side with working-men still living, at the same bench. Edwin Booth, the great tragedian, laboured as a skilled artisan. One of the old men of the establishment remembers him well, and his first acting in some amateur theatricals in the town. His impetuous temper was as marked at the workmen's bench as it was in later days on the stage, as Richard or Macbeth. Tin and iron are not the only metals worked at this establishment into every conceivable article of household use and ornament. Paper is here made into a metal and wrought into shapes of wonderful variety and beauty. The trays of this material rank among works of high art. Indeed, these wares of tin-plate and papier maché not only employ but develop artists of first-rate genius. Here Bird, the painter of "The Village Politicians," took his first lessons in the art, by which he won such reputation.