JOHN A DEAN'S HOLE.

At the bottom of Digbeth, about thirty yards North of the bridge, on the left, is a water-course that takes in a small drain from Digbeth, but more from the adjacent meadows, and which divides the parishes of Aston and Birmingham, called John a Dean's Hole; from a person of that name who is said to have lost his life there, and which, I think, is the only name of antiquity among us.

The particle de, between the christian and surname, is of French extraction, and came over with William the First: It continued tolerably pure for about three centuries, when it in some degree assumed an English garb, in the particle of: The a, therefore is only a corruption of the latter. Hence the time of this unhappy man's misfortune may be fixed about the reign of Edward the Third.