SPECTATOR'S LIBRARY.

BIOGRAPHY,

A Memoir of the Life. Writings. and Mechanical Inventions of Edmund Cartwright. D.D , P.R.S., Inventor of the Power Loom, See. &c Saunders and 011ey. TRAVEL!. Travels in Egypt. Arabia Petrrea, and the Holy Laud. By the Rev. Stephen Olin, DO., President of the Wesleyan University. With twelve illustrations on steel. In tan volumes IFileY and Putnam; Harper and Brothers, New Yak. prevrox.

The Ranker's Wife. or Court and City: a Novel. By Mm. Gore, Authoress of

■ • Mothers and Daughters," ' • Mrs. Armitage," Sze. In three volumes... Culburn.

LIFE AND INVENTIONS or DR. CARTWRIGHT.

ALTHOUGH Dr. EDMUND CARTWRIGHT, the inventor of the power-loom and the wool-combing machine, was conspicuously be- fore the public on several occasions, and was finally rewarded with a Parliamentary grant of 10,0001., his name, like that of HAR- GREAVES Or COMPTON, is little known compared with ARKWRIGHT'S; for WATT was rather a philosophical discoverer than a mechanical inventor, and his discovery was of a more comprehensive character, applicable to a greater variety of purposes, coming more home to the pleasures and business of men, and indeed rendering the inventions of these mechanics available to any great extent. This want of present popular notoriety, in the case of CART- WRIGHT, is attributable in part to the time being scarcely ripe for his great inventions, so that his patents expired before they were much used ; partly to the fact that his inventions, especially his power-loom, required improvements, to be profitably worked ; but chiefly because he made no fortune by his inventions. With his inventive genius, whatever it was, ARKWRIGHT combined great skill in practically applying it ; he had a comprehensive mind for factory arrangements, and considerable business qualities ; and was not, it is to be apprehended, restrained by any nice scruples. From want of training, the Reverend Dr. CARTWRIGHT was de- ficient in the practical ability requisite to give full effect to his own inventions ; and even had they been perfected, his character was too guileless and open, and his mind too discursive, to carry on successfully an extensive manufactory ; he could only derive wealth from his discoveries while they continued a monopoly. ARK- WRIGHT, on the other hand, was perhaps greater as a manu- facturer than as an inventor. His rights, like those of other patentees, were invaded ; but ARKWRIGHT could beat his rivals without monopoly, not merely by the advantage which priority and a knowledge of principles give in a new pursuit, but by his business abilities. The final result was, that Calm.- WRIGHT lost his own fortune, became insolvent, and was only pre- served from an embarrassed old age by the public grant which enabled him to retire to the otium dignitate on a small farm in Kent. ARKWRIGHT lived and died a millionaire, with the publicity which extensive business connexion never fails to impart, and the notoriety that great wealth produces ; and his son has not long since died a greater millionaire than the father. Ages hence, these factitious differences will be adjusted, and CARTWRIGHT attain a greater celebrity in the history of the cotton-trade than he has at present. EDMUND CARTWRIGHT was not, as we have said, trained to business, but educated at Oxford for the Church, as his family had the gift of a living. In youth and manhood, his tastes appeared to be poetical, literary, agricultural, and even medical, rather than mechanical. He published several poems ; one of which, Armine and Elvira, had considerable success, running through several editions within the year : he was connected with the Monthly Review as a reviewer : he cultivated his own glebe, making many experiments upon it : finding, as a country clergy- man, his parishioners destitute of medical aid, he studied physic, and thought he had discovered in yeast a specific for putrid fever and scurvy,—a remedy that attracted much attention at the time, and perhaps stimulated the use of effervescing medicines. It was not _till 1784, when EDMUND CARTWRIGHT was in his forty-first year, that his attention was accidentally turned to mechanics. The circumstances have been often told in accounts of the cotton- trade ; but as the story before us is the authoritative one, and is not only curious in itself but the turning-point of Dr. CARTWRIGHT'S life, we will risk the telling it again. "In the summer of 1784, Mr. Cartwright happening to be at Matlock in Derbyshire, became, during his visit there, highly interested in the progress of those ingenious manufactures which not many years before had been esta- blished in that immediate neighbourhood. The application of machinery to the art of spinning was at that times novelty ; and the splendid fortunes that some ingenious mechanics, who had been successful in introducing it, were supposed to be realizing, seemed to hold out extraordinary encouragement to the exercise of any inventive faculty that should contribute to the improve- ment of our national manufactures. Mr. Cartwright was not aware in how high a degree a faculty of this nature existed in his own mind, until it was brought into action by the accidental occurrence of a conversation at the public table, on the subject of new and ingenious inventions, especially that of Sir Richard Arkwright's recently invented method of spinning cotton by ma- chinery. "It was observed by some of the company present, that if this new mode of Spinning by machinery should be generally adopted, so much more yarn would be manufactured than our own weavers could work up, that the consequence would be a considerable export to the Continent, where it might be woven into cloth so cheaply as to injure the trade in England.* Mr. Cartwright replied to this observation, that the only remedy for such an evil would be to apply the power of machinery to the art of weaving as well as to that of spinning, by contriving looms to work up the yarn as fast as it was produced by the spindle. Some gentlemen from Manchester who were present, and who, it may be pre- • "The fulfilment of this prediction, twenty years subsequently to the above conversation, in fact led to the first adoption of the power-loom ; which came afterwards into more general use from the great demand for English cotton goods, in consequence of the disturbed state of the Continent." sumed, were better acquainted with the subject of discussion, would not admit of the possibility of such a contrivance, on account of the variety of movements required in the operation of weaving. Mr. Cartwright, who, if he ever had seen weaving by hand, had certainly paid no particular attention to the process by which it was performed, maintained that there was no real impossibility in ap- plying power to any part of the most complicated machine, (producing as an instance the automaton chess-player); and that whatever variety of movements the art of weaving might require, he did not doubt but that the skilful appli- cation of mechanism might produce them. The discussion having proceeded to some length, it made so strong an impression on Mr. Cartwnght's mind, that immediately on his return home, he set about endeavouring to construct a maHiine that should justify the proposition he had advanced, of the practi- cability of weaving by machinery. It may be remarked, that the incredulity expressed by those gentlemen, who were of all persons most likely to be ac. quainted with the fact had any attempt been previously made to weave by machinery, is a pretty decisive proof that nothing of the kind had then been effected.

" His first attempts, as might be supposed, were rude and clumsy ; but as neither drawings nor models now remain of them, we have no means of tracing his earliest steps in mechanical experiment, nor of ascertaining the mode in which he proposed to overcome difficulties that had appeared insurmountable even to experienced mechanicians.

"In the course of a few months, however, be had brought his loom to such a state of progress as led him to imagine that it might eventually become profit- able ; and, to the surprise of every one who was at all conversant with under- takings of this nature, as well as to that of his personal friends, he took out a patent, in April 1785, in order to secure to himself the expected advantages of the invention."

From this time till he received the Parliamentary grant in 1809, or indeed till his death, the life of Dr. CARTWRIGHT was that of a projector. Finding his power-loom was not likely to be in- troduced rapidly, from the opposition of the workmen and the public to machinery, the indifference of the masters to change, and the usual suspicion against novelties, with the still more cogent reasons that it required improvements of detail to make it work successfully, and that the time was not yet come for its demand to supply a want, the inventor determined to introduce it himself. Accordingly, he set up a manufactory in Doncaster ; which was the cause of his becoming involved in difficulties, owing to his ignorance of business and perhaps of business-like arts. Something, too, must be allowed to his having, in common parlance, "too many irons in the fire." Besides inventing his wool-combing machine, he was always dabbling. He made experiments, and we believe some improvements, on the steam-engine ; bread was made in his own house by ma- chinery; be invented a machine for biscuit-making, which he gave to a baker at Doncaster ; he had a plan for rendering houses fire- proof, applicable to America ; and he invented "geometrical bricks" for building arches, which should be, if we understand him rightly, self-dependent, regardless of abutments or keystone. Even in retirement, and when more than threescore years and ten were pressing upon him, be was still inventing or projecting. Improve- ments in agriculture were his daily employment ; he had a plan for enabling men to draw carriages ; when sent, in his seventy- ninth year, to Dover for warm sea-bathing, he solved the bath-man's difficulties in pumping up water; and when turned of eighty and dropping into the grave, he conceived he had discovered a method of working an engine by gunpowder instead of steam. In short, he seems to have been the model of a sanguine man ; often "meeting disappointments, but never in a disappointed frame of mind." This happy disposition, conjoined with excellent health, appears to have carried him cheerily through life. In his youth and manhood, he bad sufficient means, and was engaged in active duty, literary pursuits, and agricultural experiments ; the mecha- nical projects of his "age confirm'd," opened a new field of exertion, at a period when the generality of men are settling down into a regular routine ; though his fortunes were embarrassed, he appears never to have been reduced to need or involved in discre- ditable difficulties ; and long ere the infirmities of age had reached him, he was enabled to retire to a moderate competence and to a mode of life be enjoyed. Even his death might be considered happy—" like ripe fruit be pluck'd." His only complaint was debility ; he seems to have suffered no pain ; and having, three weeks before his death, removed to Hastings to take the chance of warm bathing and change of air, he was still able to enjoy himself on the beach. He died on the 30th October 1823, in the eighty-first year of his age ; and the children who survived him were all respectably settled in life. This volume is what it professes to be, a Memoir rather than a Life ; succinctly running over the principal epochs of its hero's career, and illustrating his character, friends, and pursuits, by anecdotical remarks, and extracts from his correspondence, rather than aiming at a regular biography. As it has been compiled from personal recollections and materials furnished by the family, the volume contains as much relating to Dr. CARTWRIGHT as is now likely to be published ; and, though a less partial and more specific notice of him might have been desired, yet the volume is entitled to the praise of being pleasantly arranged and not over-done. An ap- pendix contains the poems and some of the principal scientific papers- of Dr. CARTWRIGHT.

Among the hero's correspondents was GRIFFITHS, the editor of the Monthly Review ; at that time (about 1780) a very influential publication. The letters seem to have related to works for review- ing; and Gaarrirus appears to have managed matters in a fair and painstaking way. The following letter is curious, not only as a, specimen of the editor, but for the subject work, and the facts. connected with (young) CIBBER'S " Lives of the Poets."

"Mr. Griffiths to Mr. Cartwright. " Turnham Green, 16th June.

"Dear Sir—I base sent you a feast! Johnson's new volumes of the 'Lives of the Poets.' You will observe that Savage's life is one of the volumes. I suppose it is the same which he published about thirty years ago, and therefore you will not be obliged-to notice it otherwise than in the course of enumeration. In the account of Hammond, my good friend Samuel has stumbled on a ma- terial circumstance in the publication of Cibber's Lives of the Poets.' He in- timates that Cibber never saw the work. This IS a reflection on the book- seller, your humble servant. The bookseller has now in his possession The- ophilus Cibber's receipt for twenty guineas, (Johnson says ten,) in considera- tion of which he engaged to revise, correct, and improve the work, and also to affix his name in the titlepage.' Mr. Cibber did accordingly very punctually revise every sheet ; he made numerous corrections, and added many improve- ments—particularly in those lives which came down to his own times, and brought him within the circle of his own and his father's literary acquaintance, especially to the dramatic line. To the best of toy recollection, he gave some entire lives, besides inserting abundance of paragraphs, of notes, anecdotes, and remarks, in those which were compiled by Shiells and other writers. I say other, because many of the best pieces of biography in that collection were not Written by Shiells, but by superior hands. In short, the engagement of Cibber, or some other Englishman, to superintend what Shiells in particular should offer, was a measure absolutely necessary, not only to guard against Ids Scotticisms and other defects of expression, but his virulent Jacobaism, which inclined him to abuse every Whig character that came in his way. This, indeed, he would have done, but Cibber (a stanch Williamite) opposed and prevented him, insomuch that a violent quarrel arose on the sub- ject. By the way, it seems to me that Shiells' Jaeobitism has been the only circumstance that has procured him the regard of Mr. Johnson, and the favour- able mention that he has made (in the paragraph referred to) of Shiells' virtuous life and pious end'—expressions that must draw a smile from every one who knows, as I did, the real character of Robert Shells, And now, what think you of noticing this matter, in regard to truth and the fair fame of the honest bookseller?"

The poet CRABBE was another correspondent : here is a pleasant letter when he was getting famous.

"From Mr. Crate to Dr. Cartwright. 'June 1813.

"Now, my dear Sir, I begin to think that I am, as it were, a great man I — a man to be spoken of—not so much as Nicholson who killed his master, or Peg Nicholson who would have killed his Majesty, but still spoken of, in an honest way, enough to have it called fame; for, look ye, I have letters addressed to me, as an author, from strangers and strange admirers; and is not that fame? Oh! that Hatchard's current were as flattering. No less than four letters from gentlemen and ladies lie at this time before me; and I make my boast of them to you, as I intended to do to Sir Walter Scott, whose letter of the 18th I have to reply to, and I will let him know what a man I am. A gentleman from town insists that I have my picture painted, and prints taken for my books. Again, a lady invites me (she knows not my age, nor I hers) into the mountainous countries, that I may witness the sublime of nature, and describe it in that beautiful • a • • Well, thirdly, another lady offers me a narrative for a new work, which, if related in my pathetic * • * • And lastly, I have a young poet's request for an opinion of his verses ; mixed, you may be sure, with notable things said of my own."

FULTON, the inventor of steam-boats, was an intimate friend and fellow experimentalist of CARTWRIGHT. When Fuvrow went to Paris, they carried on a communication by correspondence; and though none of the letters throw much light upon the steps of the invention of the steam-boat, yet they are interesting as showing how Fut,rox's mind was occupied with various plans for propelling boats by mechanical power. C'UlTWItIGHT'S improved engine was thought of as the machine for that purpose; and the following allusion to the subject is a fair indication of the Doctor's sanguine spirit, and that his friend was aware of it.

"Paris. 28th March 1802.

"My dear Sir—It is with great pleasure I have received your flattering account of your steam-engine; and although attachment to you makes Inc believe every thing you say, yet such belief is merely a work of faith, for I cannot see the reason why you have l3 pounds' purchase to the square inch."

THE PROJECTOR AT E10 LITT -ONE.

"My dear Sir—Since I wrote last to you, I have luckily discovered a method of working an engine by explosion, in a way to be perfectly secure from danger, and completely effectuaL You will be surprised when I tell you it is by gun- powder. To give continuous action to that which is instantaneous ; or, in other words, to control the velocity of such an exploding body as gunpowder, so as to produce steady and equable movement, hie labor hoc opus. This, my dear Sir, I have (in theory) accomplished; and by a contrivance equally certain as it is simple—more simple, indeed, than the lock of a common gun. As soon as a model of it is made, (which, though it will not be one hour's work, I may probably not get these three days,) you shall know the result. Were gunpowder a dearer article than it is, yet as the heavy expense of fuel would be saved, my mode of working an engine may possibly be as cheap, power for power, as steam. The weight of the engine, an object for my pur- pose of great importance, as well as the prime cost, and the space it would occupy, would not, I apprehend, be more than one-fourth of Perkins's. In my engine there will be this advantage—its power may be increased or dimi- nished at pleasure, merely by regulating the feed of powder; and as the stress upon the engine will lie in a small compass, that particular part might be made to sustain any pressure without inconvenience, and without any additional load of metal worth speaking of. Should my ideas on this business be, as I have every reason to think, correct, the discovery will be one of the greatest importance. I had a vast deal more to have written to you about one thing or other ; but in truth I am downright tired, and I must walk out for a little fresh air into my hay. field."