Manufacture,’ of the number of power-looms in Britain at various
periods, though literal exactness in such a matter is unattainable,
affords probably a tolerably correct measure of the rapid multiplication
of these engines.
In 1813. In 1820. In 1829. In 1833.
Not exceeding 2,400. England 12,150 45,500 85,000
Scotland 2,000 10,000 15,000
——————— ——————— ———————
14,150 55,500 100,000
At the present time, we are told by the same authority, the
machinemakers of Lancashire are making power-looms with the greatest
rapidity, and they cannot be made sufficiently fast to meet the demands
of the manufacturers. This quick increase, notwithstanding the
considerable expense of outfit, which by employing hand-weavers the
manufacturer avoids entirely, may safely be taken as a test of the
advantages and national importance of the power-loom. The following
estimate is given of its productiveness as compared with hand-loom
labour. A very good hand-weaver, twenty-five or thirty years of age,
will weave _two_ pieces of cloth per week, of a certain description,
each twenty-four yards long. In 1833, a steam-loom weaver, from fifteen
to twenty years of age, assisted by a girl about twelve years of age,
attending to four looms, can weave _eighteen_ similar pieces in a week;
some can weave twenty pieces. It appears from the fuller statement given
by Mr. Baines, that the comparative productiveness of steam-looms has
rapidly increased up to the last-mentioned period, and therefore it may
be conjectured not yet to have reached its maximum; and it is also
stated, that in those descriptions of plain goods for which they have
hitherto been chiefly used, “cloth made by these looms, when seen by
those manufacturers who employ hand-weavers, at once, excites
admiration, and a consciousness that their own weavers cannot equal it.”
The set-off against these advantages is the interest on capital
employed, and the expense of supplying power. It is not asserted by the
more intelligent, either among masters or workmen, that the power-loom
has been more than a secondary and minor cause of the lamentable
depression and misery now existing among the hand-weavers; a depression
which it is to be feared will never be removed but by the gradual
relinquishment of that laborious and ill-paid trade.
The hardships of Dr. Cartwright’s case, his merits, and the extent to
which the country was then profiting by his discoveries, had become, by
1807, so manifest to those who were best acquainted with the cotton
trade, that a considerable number of the most respectable and
influential gentlemen of Manchester presented a memorial to government,
praying that some remuneration for his useful inventions might be taken
into consideration. He petitioned the legislature himself to the same
effect; and in 1809 obtained from parliament a grant of £10,000 for “the
good service he had rendered the public by his invention of weaving.”
The compensation thus awarded, though falling far short of the sums he
had expended in perfecting his inventions, as well as in defending his
patent-rights, contributed essentially to place him in comparatively
easy circumstances; and being advanced in life, he was thankful to be
enabled to pass the remainder of his days in tranquil retirement. The
activity of his mind however was unabated. Engaged to the last in
scientific pursuits, with an occasional revival of the poetic spirit of
his youth, he closed his active, useful, and benevolent life at
Hastings, October 30, 1823, in the eighty-first year of his age.
Like many inventors, Dr. Cartwright was negligent of his pecuniary
interests: he possessed another quality less common to that class of
persons, entire freedom from jealousy, and great liberality in
communicating his ideas and assistance to others engaged in pursuits
similar to his own. And we may fairly conjecture that the temper of mind
in which such conduct originated, promoted his happiness much more than
any increase to his fortune, procured by a less frank and generous
spirit, could have done. It is also stated, that whether from absorption
in the pursuits of the moment, or carelessness of their value, he was
remarkably apt to forget his own productions, even when offered to his
notice. Among other instances of this disposition, it is related, that
on examining the model of one of his own machines, he expressed great
admiration, and said that he should have been proud to have been the
inventor of it; nor could he readily be convinced that the merit was
indeed his own.
In this sketch of Dr. Cartwright’s life a limited notice only has been
taken of his productions. He is chiefly known as the inventor of the
power-loom; but the public are also reaping the advantage of several
minor improvements in the arts of life, which emanated from his active
and observing mind. It is sufficient here to state that he obtained ten
patents, either for original inventions, or improvements upon his
earlier mechanical attempts: and in addition to the kindred arts of
weaving, spinning, wool-combing, and rope-making, he had successfully
applied his talents to a variety of subjects unconnected with those
manufactures.
An account of his life, containing a more detailed description of his
various inventions, as well as a relation of the struggles and
difficulties which he encountered, is now, we are informed, in
preparation for the press. The portrait from which our engraving is
taken was copied from one painted by Robert Fulton, when studying the
art under his countryman, Benjamin West.
[Illustration]
PORSON.
It is perhaps not easy to invest the memoirs of a verbal critic with the
interest which attaches itself to the lives of men distinguished in
other departments of literature and science: the classical scholar has
little sympathy, in respect of his peculiar vocation, with the world
around him, and the world for the most part repays his indifference with
interest. Nevertheless, it is due to the great reputation of the subject
of this memoir to relate the principal events of his life.
Richard Porson was born December 25, 1759. His father, Mr. Huggin
Porson, was the parish-clerk of East Ruston, near North Walsham, in the
county of Norfolk. Notwithstanding his poverty, Porson had the good
fortune to obtain a first-rate education. Even in his childhood he was
taught by a careful father more than is generally learned by the
children of the rich; and after he had spent a short time at a village
school, to which he was sent at the age of nine, his abilities attracted
the notice of Mr. Hewitt, the vicar of his native place, who kindly
undertook to teach the young prodigy the rudiments of Greek and Latin.
In these elementary studies Porson passed his time till 1774, being also
occasionally employed as a shepherd or a weaver. But his reputation had
reached the ears of Mr. Norris, of Grosvenor Place, who in the summer of
that year undertook the charge of maintaining him at Eton College. His
name soon became favorably known beyond the circle of his admiring
school-fellows. The interest which he excited was fortunate for him, for
on the death of his kind patron Mr. Norris, he would have been unable to
continue at Eton, had it not been for a subscription collected by Sir
George Baker, then President of the Royal College of Physicians, from a
number of gentlemen who had heard of Porson’s talents, and were desirous
of giving him a fair opportunity to cultivate them to the uttermost.
With this subscription, an annuity of 80_l._ for a few years was
purchased for him; and thus he was enabled to finish his course at Eton,
and to proceed thence to Trinity College, Cambridge.
[Illustration:
_Engraved by B. Holl._
PORSON.
_From a Print engraved by W. Sharpe, after a Picture by Hoppner._
Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge.
_London, Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street._
]
In the second term of his third year (1781), Porson obtained one of the
Craven University Scholarships, which, being open to the free
competition of the whole body of undergraduates, have always been
regarded among our most honourable academical distinctions. He took the
degree of B. A. in 1782; and, on the mathematical tripos, obtained the
respectable place of third senior optime: but he gained the first of the
medals annually given by the Chancellor of the University to the two
commencing bachelors of arts, under certain restrictions, who pass the
best examination in classical learning. In the following September he
was elected Fellow of Trinity College. He proceeded to the degree of
M.A. in 1785; but being unwilling, from conscientious motives, to
subscribe to the articles of the Established Church, he could not take
orders, and, according to the rules of the College, vacated his
Fellowship in 1791. He was thus for the second time dependant upon the
liberality of his friends. Nor did they neglect him: a subscription was
entered into by Mr. Cracherode and some others, from the proceeds of
which a life annuity of 100_l._ was purchased for him.
In 1792 he was elected Regius Professor of Greek: but, as the salary of
this office is only 40_l._ per annum, he was still a poor man; and not
being able to procure a suitable lecture room, he was prevented from
making the usual addition to his income, by delivering lectures on the
Greek authors. In 1795 he married Mrs. Lunan, the sister of Mr. Perry,
the well-known Editor of the Morning Chronicle. From this union, short
as it proved, Porson derived important benefits. He laid aside, while it
lasted, most of the unseemly and intemperate habits which he had
contracted at College: but unfortunately his wife died of consumption in
1797, and he subsequently relapsed into his former course of life, and,
as is too notorious, sacrificed friends, health and fortune, to his
passion for drinking. After her death the kindness of his brother-in-law
provided him with a home, gave him an opportunity of mixing in good
society, and preserved him from many inconveniences, to which a man of
Porson’s careless habits is always exposed.
About the time of his wife’s death, in 1797, Porson published an edition
of the Hecuba of Euripides; which he intended to form the first portion
of a complete edition of that poet, and which, with very modest
pretensions, was at once acknowledged to be a piece of first-rate
criticism by the scholars not only of England but of all Europe.
However, in 1800, Gottfried Hermann of Leipzig, who has since become
very eminent as a verbal critic, published an edition of the same play,
as a professed attack on Porson’s; and there was something in the tone,
as well as in the matter of his strictures, which more than
counterbalanced the compliment at the commencement of the preface. When,
therefore, Porson republished the ‘Hecuba,’ in 1802, he added to the
preface a long Supplement, in which Hermann was treated rather
superciliously; indeed it appears from a letter which Porson wrote to
Professor Dalzel, of Edinburgh, on the third of September, 1803, that he
entertained a most sincere contempt for his German censor. The
Supplement, however, obtained the applause of the learned in all
countries, and, in its kind, it has rarely been surpassed in learning
and ingenuity. Porson subsequently published the ‘Orestes,’ ‘Phœnissæ,’
and ‘Medea,’ and the four plays, collected into one volume, have gone
through numerous editions.
When the London Institution was established, in 1805, Porson was
appointed Librarian, with a salary of 200_l._ per annum. The situation
however gave him no opportunity of useful exertion. He selected indeed
an excellent classical library, and was tolerably diligent in his
attendance; but he acquired in this monotonous employment a habit of
selfish intemperance, which impaired his faculties and ruined his
health. From the beginning of 1808 he was afflicted with asthma; and
neglecting the usual modes of treating this disease, he endeavoured to
cure it by abstinence. Under this regimen he grew weaker and weaker, and
on Monday, September 19, 1808, he was attacked with apoplexy in the
street. Being unknown, he was carried to a neighbouring workhouse; but
on the following day he was discovered and taken home by his friends,
whose attention had been called to an advertisement describing his
person, and some scraps of Greek writing and algebra, which were found
in his pockets. He recovered so far as to receive a visit from his
friend Dr. Adam Clarke, at the Institution; but the hand of death was
upon him, and he never regained the full use of his faculties. He died
on the night of the following Sunday, just as the clock struck twelve.
His body was conveyed to Cambridge, and buried, with the highest
academical honours, in Trinity College Chapel, near the statue of
Newton, where a monument, with a bust by Chantrey, is erected to his
memory.
A complete list of Porson’s works is given by Dr. Young in the
‘Supplement to the Encyclopædia Britannica.’ The general reader will
perhaps form the best notion of his style from his celebrated ‘Letters
to Archdeacon Travis,’ in which the genuineness of the long-controverted
text, 1 John v. 7, is, we may venture to say, finally refuted. This
work, from its subject, is chiefly interesting to the theologian and
scholar: but its wit, terseness and strength of style, and force of
argument, will well repay even the general reader for perusing it. Of
his posthumous works the Photius requires particular notice. It was
printed in 1822, from Porson’s transcript of the Galean MS. of an
imperfect Lexicon, which is generally attributed to the celebrated
Patriarch of Constantinople. He had transcribed and corrected this
Lexicon with the intention of printing it some years before his death,
but a fire having broken out in Mr. Perry’s house at Merton, and having
consumed, among other papers, this transcript, he began the task again,
and completed another copy in his own handwriting. A collection of his
miscellaneous notes, under the title of ‘Adversaria,’ was published
several years after the author’s death.
As Porson was the champion of English scholarship against the attacks of
continental critics, and the head of a school of verbal criticism in
this country, we must expect to find among his English contemporaries
and successors a sort of reverence for him not altogether justified by
his merits, and among the scholars of Germany, on the other hand, a
corresponding feeling of dislike and desire to disparage him. Hermann
wrote an article a few years since in the ‘Vienna Journal,’ on the
characteristics of English scholarship, in which (vol. liv. p. 236,) the
peculiar features of Porson’s criticism are said to be “great metrical
accuracy in the kinds of verse with which he was acquainted; in others,
sometimes an acquiescent acceptance of what he found, sometimes
uncertain alterations: in his knowledge of the Greek language, great
correctness; a sound judgment in the choice of readings, and considerate
circumspection in conjecture, except where his own rules came in the
way.” On the other hand, it is affirmed that “Porson’s notes are
defective in acute and decisive proofs, and in that criticism which
proceeds from a lively conception of the poetical: and that their
contents are much more indicative of great industry and cool
examination.” This is true enough as far as it goes; but had Hermann in
his old age forgotten the rivalry which subsisted between Porson and
himself in his earlier years, he would not have omitted to add that,
with all these drawbacks, Porson was the greatest verbal critic of
modern times.
It has been stated that Porson could not make himself generally
agreeable; but it is well known that he had a strong turn for the
humorous, and was almost always successful in his strokes of wit, so
that it cannot be doubted that his society was courted even by the
superficial; and we have heard from several of his surviving friends
that, though his coarseness was sometimes offensive, he was often a
welcome guest at the tea-table. He was also very happy in connecting
classical allusions with ludicrous associations; and Professor Dobree,
in his inaugural Prælection, speaks rapturously of the delight which
Porson’s broad vernacular translations from Aristophanes afforded to his
intimates at college. Some of his jeux d’esprit have been printed in the
Classical Journal; the poem called ‘The Devil’s Walk’ was till lately
attributed to him: it is stated in the last edition of Coleridge’s works
to be the joint production of that poet and of Southey.
It may be necessary to say a few words in conclusion on those two
peculiarities for which perhaps Porson is most talked about at the
present day: his extraordinary memory, and his fondness for the manual
labour of writing. The former he attributed in great measure to the
latter. He told a friend, that he recollected nothing which he had not
transcribed three times, or read at least six times; adding the
assurance, that any one who would take the same trouble would acquire
the same powers. We should incline to ascribe the tenacity of his
recollection, so far as it depended on cultivation, in great measure to
the early training of his father, who taught him the rules of arithmetic
without the use of book or pencil; and his proficiency was such, that at
nine years of age he is said to have been able to extract cube roots in
his head. His memory was as indiscriminate as it was retentive and
capacious. Proper names of no importance, foolish ballads, and prosing
tales he could recall as easily, and repeat as accurately, as the
passages of ancient authors which he required for the illustration or
correction of a line of Euripides: he loved to recite, and was equally
ready to repeat, ‘Jack the Giant Killer,’ or half a book of Milton, to
his wearied company. As to his penmanship, it has been objected to him
that he wasted many hours in an employment which would have better
suited a country writing-master than a man of such talents. But it must
be recollected that a reader of Greek MSS. must also be a scribe
himself; and a great deal of the facility with which Porson performed
his collations is to be attributed to his practice as a calligrapher.
And if, as he used to say, his memory was principally formed by repeated
copying, he certainly did not throw away his time; for all that he did
in the way of illustrating Greek authors was mainly owing to his memory.
And the world has at least derived one benefit from the perfection of
Porson’s handwriting, in the adoption by the English University presses
of a set of uniform types, formed after his models, of which even
Hermann has said that they far exceed all attempts made in modern times
to improve the beauty of Greek writing.
[Illustration: [London Institution.]]
[Illustration:
_Engraved by J. Posselwhite._
WICLIF.
_From a Print by G. White, after a Picture in the Collection of the
Duke of Dorset._
Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge.
_London, Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street._
]
[Illustration]
WICLIF.
The village of Wiclif, distant about six miles from Richmond in
Yorkshire, had long been the residence of a family of the same name,
when it gave birth, about the year 1324, to its most distinguished
native. The family possessed wealth and consequence; and though the name
of the Reformer is not to be found in the extant records of the
household, it is probable that he belonged to it. Perhaps the spirit of
the times, and zeal for the established hierarchy, may have led it to
disclaim the only person who has saved its name from absolute obscurity.
John Wiclif was first admitted at Queen’s College, Oxford, but speedily
removed to Merton, a society more ancient and distinguished, and adorned
by names of great ecclesiastical eminence. Here he engaged in the
prescribed studies with diligence and success. In scholastic learning he
made such great proficiency as to extort admiration from some who loved
him not; and the direction in which his talents were turned is indicated
by the honourable appellation, which he early acquired, of the Evangelic
or Gospel Doctor. The terms, “profound,” “perspicuous,” “irrefragable,”
were applied to mark the respective peculiarities of Bradwardine, of
Burley, and of Hales; and so we may infer, that the peculiar bent of
Wiclif’s youthful exertions was towards the book on which his subsequent
principles were founded, and that he applied the ambiguous fruits of a
scholastic education, not to enlarge the resources of sophistry, but to
illustrate the treasures of truth. And on the other hand, in the
illustration of those oracles, and in the accomplishment of his other
holy purposes, it was of good and useful service to him that he had
armed himself with the weapons of the age, and could contend with the
most redoubtable adversaries on the only ground of argument which was at
all accessible to them.
In 1356 he put forth a tract on ‘The Last Age of the Church,’ which was
the first of his publications, and is on other accounts worthy of
mention. It would appear that his mind had been deeply affected by
meditation on the various evils which at that period afflicted the
world, especially the pestilence which had laid waste, a few years
before, so large a portion of it. He was disposed to ascribe them to
God’s indignation at the sinfulness of man; and he also believed them to
be mysterious announcements of the approaching consummation of all
things. Through too much study of the book of the Abbot Joachim, he was
infected with the spirit of prophecy; and, not contented to lament past
and present visitations, he ventured to predict others which were yet to
come. All however were to be included in the fourteenth century, which
was to be the last of the world. That Wiclif should have been thus
carried away by the prevalent infatuation, so as to contribute his
portion to the mass of vain and visionary absurdity, was human and
pardonable: but in his manner of treating even this subject, we discover
the spirit and the principles of the Reformer. Among the causes of those
fearful calamities, among the vices which had awakened to so much
fierceness the wrath of the Almighty, he feared not to give the foremost
place to the vices of the clergy, the rapacity which _ate up the people
as it were bread_, the sensuality which infected the earth with its
savour, and “smelt to heaven.” Here was the leaven which perverted and
corrupted the community; here the impure source whence future
visitations should proceed. “Both vengeance of sword, and mischiefs
unknown before, by which men in those days shall be punished, shall
befal them, because of the sins of their priests.” Thus it was that in
this singular work, of which the foundation may have been laid in
superstition, Wiclif developed notwithstanding a free and unprejudiced
mind, and one which dared to avow without compromise, what it felt with
force and truth.