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 stage 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. [Illustration: _Engraved by J. Thomson._ D^R. CARTWRIGHT. _From a Picture in the possession of Miss Cartwright._ Under the Superintendance of the Society of the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. _London, Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street._ ]