permitted, by one who has shown himself as indisposed to exaggerate, as interested to explain.

In the labours of his observatory Herschel was assisted by his sister, Miss Caroline Herschel, with whose help he published, in 1798, his catalogue of Flamsteed's stars. This lady, whose exertions, both as an observer and calculator, are well known to astronomers, is still living, at a very advanced age, in

Hanover.

We do not know of any very trustworthy account of Herschel. 'The Obituary for 1822,' the Gentleman's Magazine,' the 'Annual Register,' &c., do not state their authorities. We have followed the firstmentioned work as to facts and dates in most of the particulars here mentioned.

THE incident which immediately led to the invention of the power-loom is best related in the words of the inventor himself. "Happening to be at Matlock in the summer of 1784, I fell in company with some gentlemen of Manchester, when the conversation turned on Arkwright's spinning machinery. One of the company observed, that as soon as Arkwright's patent expired, so many mills would be erected, and so much cotton spun, that hands never could be found to weave it. To this observation I replied, that Arkwright must then set his wits to work to invent a weaving mill. This brought on a conversation on the subject, in which the Manchester gentlemen unanimously agreed that the thing was impracticable; and in defence of their opinion, they adduced arguments which I certainly was incompetent to answer,

or even to comprehend, being totally ignorant of the subject, having never at that time seen a person weave. I controverted however the impracticability of the thing." Looms driven by power had been constructed before, but they had not been made to answer; and it is probable, from the circumstances of Dr. Cartwright's life, that he had never heard of them at all events the idea thus suggested to him did not lie dormant. Before the following April, he had constructed his first power-loom; and he took out his last weaving patent Aug. 1, 1787. Mechanical spinning therefore was the parent of mechanical weaving. Without the former, the latter would have been needless; without the latter, the former would have been incomplete. Every state of the cotton manufacture, from the cleaning of the raw wool to the formation of a perfect web, may be, and in many establishments is, now carried on under the same roof, and by the moving power of the same engine. The name of Dr. Cartwright should follow that of Sir Richard Arkwright in the list of our national benefactors; though at present it is far less known to the world at large. It was long indeed before Cartwright's merits were appreciated, and they failed to obtain for him the wealth and distinction which the creation of the factory system secured to Arkwright. The utility of the power-loom is now acknowledged, and its sphere appears to be rapidly enlarging. But it is still limited even in the cotton, and much more in the silk and woollen manufactures; and it is not unreasonable to expect that, as prejudices give way, and fresh refinements render the machine susceptible of more general, not to say universal, application, the art of weaving by mechanism, as formerly of spinning, may give an impulse to our trade, of which we now see the beginning, but cannot conjecture the end. Edmund Cartwright was the fourth son of William

Cartwright, Esq., of Marnham in Nottinghamshire, a gentleman whose family had been long established in the county, and had suffered considerably in its fortune by adherence to the cause of Charles I. in the civil war. He was born April 24, 1743; and at the school of Wakefield, and at University College, Oxford, received the education usually bestowed upon young men destined for the clerical profession. At an early age he manifested a taste for poetic composition; but though he had printed some short pieces anonymously, his name was not given to the public, until the appearance, in 1770, of Armenia and Elvira,' a legendary poem, which became so popular that it passed through seven editions in little more than a year. He also published, about the same period, the Prince of Peace,' and Sonnets to Eminent Men.' In 1774 he became a contributor to the Monthly Review, in which he continued to write for ten years.

We have not ascertained the date of his taking orders, of his election to a fellowship at Magdalen College, or of his vacating that fellowship by marriage. The degree of D.D. he took in 1806. For some years after his marriage he resided, first on his living at Brampton in Derbyshire, and afterwards at Goadby-Marwood in Leicestershire; where the hours which were not devoted to the duties of his calling were chiefly employed in literary pursuits.

Hitherto Mr. Cartwright's private life had been that of a retired country clergyman, varied only by his correspondence with literary friends. From his family connexions, and the esteem in which he was held by some who had power to advance him, his prospects in the church were favourable; and he had good reason to believe, that if he had confined himself to the line of life in which he had been educated, and in which he was then advancing, he would have at

tained a more ample provision in his profession, than it was his lot to acquire by the exercise of his mechanical talent. The existence of such a talent in his own mind had been wholly unknown even to himself, until he was upwards of forty years of age, when the circumstance which has been above narrated called it into action, and caused a change in the whole tenor of his life. In his first attempts he had to contend with the difficulties which usually beset genius without experience. "As I had never before turned my thoughts to anything mecha nical, either in theory or practice, nor had even seen a loom at work, or knew anything of its construction, you will readily believe that my first loom was a most rude piece of machinery. The warp was placed perpendicularly; the reed fell with the weight of at least half a hundred weight, and the springs which threw the shuttle were strong enough to have thrown a Congreve rocket. In short, it required the strength of two powerful men to work the machine at a slow rate, and only for a short time." This, as we have seen, was in 1785 he also applied his talents to effecting the substitution of machinery for manual labour in combing wool, and took out his first patent on this subject in April 1790.

The following anecdotes we quote from the Pursuit of Knowledge,' vol. ii.; we believe them to rest upon the best authority. "Dr. Cartwright's children. still remember often seeing their father about this time walking to and fro apparently in deep meditation, and occasionally throwing his arms from side to side; on which they used to be told that he was thinking of weaving and throwing the shuttle. From the moment indeed when his attention was first turned to the invention of the power-loom, mechanical contrivance became the grand occupying subject of his thoughts. With that sanguineness of disposition