And, now, we are impatient to follow these pretty silk bundles to the factory, and see the weaving. It is strange to see, on our way to so thoroughly modern an establishment, such tokens of antiquity, or reminders of antiquity, as we have to pass. We pass under St. Michael's Church, and look up, amazed, to the beauty and loftiness of its tower and spire; the spire tapering off at a height of three hundred and twenty feet. The crumbling nature of the stone gives a richness and beauty to the edifice, which we would hardly part with for such clear outlines as those of the restored Trinity Church, close at hand. And then, at an angle of the market-place, there is Tom, peeping past the corner,--looking out of his window, through his spectacles, with a stealthy air, which, however ridiculous, makes one thrill, as with a whiff of the breeze which stirred the Lady Godiva's hair, on that memorable day, so long ago. It is strange, after this, to see the factory chimney, straight, tall, and handsome, in its way, with its inlaying of colored bricks, towering before us, to about the height of a hundred and thirty feet. No place has proved itself more unwilling than Coventry to admit such innovations. No place has made a more desperate resistance to the introduction of steam power. No place has more perseveringly struggled for protection, with groans, menaces, and supplications. Up to a late period, the Coventry weavers believed themselves safe from the inroads of steam power. A Macclesfield manufacturer said, only twenty years ago, before a Committee of the House of Commons, that he despaired of ever applying power-looms to silk. This was because so much time was employed in handling and trimming the silk, that the steam power must be largely wasted. So thought the weavers, in the days when the silk was given out in hanks or bobbins, and woven at home, or, when the work was done by handloom weavers in the factory--called the loom-shop. The day was at hand, however, when that should be done of which the Macclesfield gentleman despaired. A small factory was set up in Coventry by way of experiment, in the use of steam power, in 1831. It was burned down during a quarrel about wages,--nobody knows how or by whom. The weavers declared it was not their doing; but their enmity to steam power was strong enough to restrain the employers from the use of it. It was not till every body saw that Coventry was losing its manufacture,--parting with it to places which made ribbons by steam,--that the manufacturers felt themselves able to do what must be done, if they were to save their trade. The state of things now is very significant. About seventy houses in Coventry make ribbons and trimmings, (fringes and the like.) Of these, four make fringes and trimmings, and no ribbons; and six or eight make both. Say that fifty-eight houses make ribbons alone. It is believed that three-fourths of the ribbons are made by no more than twenty houses out of these fifty-eight.