[Footnote 245: _Ibid._, pp. 33-35. Kennedy, _Rise and Progress of the Cotton Trade_, Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society, vol. iii., Second Series (1815), pp. 118-119. Mr. Kennedy states that before the coming of the great inventions the endeavours to find better methods filled the cottages with little improvements, and that the multiplication of instruments was forcing the work out of cottages. “Here,” he says “commences the factory system” (p. 118).] It was particularly to carding and to spinning that the inventors gave their attention, and during more than thirty years before Arkwright took out his first patent numerous efforts were made to discover improved mechanical means of performing the operations. Apart from the invention of the “spinning-jenny,” which, though not patented until the year following Arkwright’s patent, was in use some years before, the most notable efforts were those of Lewis Paul, whose title to fame is enhanced by his friendship with Dr. Samuel Johnson.[246] [Footnote 246: Cole, _Some Account of Lewis Paul_. Paper read at the meeting of the British Association, 1858. Reproduced by French, _Life and Times of Samuel Crompton_ (1859), App. III. The references are to the pages in French’s book.] It is now generally accepted that, in the patent taken out by Paul in 1738, the idea of attenuating cotton by rollers was embodied, so that question need not be discussed.[247] Evidently Paul was born in London and died there, but during part of his life he lived in Birmingham, and it appears that the invention was carried through at this place, with the assistance of John Wyatt as workman.[248] Whatever the merits of the invention may have been, it is clear that in the hands of Paul and his friends it did not attain much success. None of them appears to have possessed the push and business instinct of Richard Arkwright, and it may have been to this lack, as much as to lack of inventive genius, that the non-success was due. [Footnote 247: For the contrary view, Ure, _Cotton Manufacture_, i., pp. 237 _et seq._ The proximity of the date of the patent to that of Kay’s patent and the “Manchester Act” is a fact again worthy of notice.] [Footnote 248: French, _ibid._, pp. 269-270. Espinasse, _ibid._, p. 341.]