The jenney of Hargreaves differed nothing in principle from the one-thread wheel; the train of thought, therefore, which led to its invention, was obvious enough to have occurred to many; but the rollers of Sir Richard differ in principle so materially from every other known contrivance, and, I may say, from every probable contrivance, for ef fecting the same end, that it is scarce possible to conceive that any thing but accident could have suggested the idea. Accordingly we find Sir Richard himself acknowledge that it was to accident he was indebted for the first hint of this improvement; but the plan was long in ma turing, and it was several years before he was able to render his ma chine certain and effectual. Had the invention of the mule preceded that of the twist-frame, as your correspondent loosely insinuates, or even had it been coeval with it, is it likely that Sir Richard could have maintained his patent-right, or that a fact of such importance could have escaped the knowledge of that host of adversaries with which Sir Richard had to contend from the very first..

The term mule, which is applied to this machine, is itself charac teristic of its origin, and proves that it is the offspring of the twistframe and jenney; and your correspondent would have done well to have rendered himself more minutely acquainted with its form and principle, ere he had described it as a "machine of entirely different structure," ""invented about the time, or perhaps rather before, Six Richard obtained his patent," "not a mere improvement, but a sepa rate invention," possessing "all the merit of originality."

It is not my wish to detract from the merit of Mr. Crompton, to whom every praise of ingenuity and skill is due, and who, by a judi cious combination of the two machines of Arkwright and Hargreaves, has produced a third, in principle the same, but in some respects su -perior to either, more especially for spinning the fine kind of yarn. But the merit of invention and originality is due to Sir Richard alone; his claims have been sanctioned by a jury of his countrymen, and were never before, to my knowledge, disputed either by Mr. Crompton or his friends. The pretensions of Sir Richard's early associates to a share of his invention, by which his right was even attempted to be set aside, enter not into the present question. Your correspondent has nade a claim in favour of Mr. Crompton alone; a claim of priority and originality, unsupported, however, by any kind of proof, and com pletely at variance with the facts which I have just stated.

From the general tenor of your correspondent's letter, however, I am disposed to believe that he is himself but superficially acquainted with the subject on which he has addressed you, and has fallen into an error in which Mr. Crompton never can support him; otherwise it is scarce possible to conceive how he could have asserted the two ma chines to be of "entirely different structure;" "the one not an improvement of the other, but a separate invention," since they are manifestly and notoriously so similar in many respects.

The machines for preparing cotton for spinning have, as your correspondent justly observes, kept pace with the spinning itself; but I was ignorant that our obligations were chiefly due to Mr. Crompton for

these

these improvements. I have always regarded Sir Richard Arkwright as the inventor of that beautiful and most perfect series of machines by which cotton is now generally prepared for spinning; and though he lost his exclusive right to the whole by one solitary instance of anticipation, yet his claim even to that contrivance is still, I believe, regarded as just by all who are well acquainted with the history of that litigation. The invention of cylinder cards is claimed by many, and perhaps with equal justice; yet, if I mistake not, the late Robert Peel, Esq. father of the present Sir Robert, was the first in point of time. He constructed a machine at Blackburn as early as the year 1762, in which he was assisted by Hargreaves, afterwards the inventor of the jenney, and who had before this time greatly improved the common hand or stock cards. Many years elapsed before this machine was sufficiently perfect to be really useful, and I shall be glad to find Mr. Crompton on the list of its improvers. It was in the hands of Sir Richard Arkwright that it received its last finish, whose genius rendered it one of the most beautiful and perfect contrivances in the whole business.

I do not clearly understand your correspondent when he speaks of some other inventions of Mr. Crompton, by which "the moving power either produced by steam or water is caused to do the greatest possible. work from the degree of force given;" nor where he ascribes to him a share in the merit of applying steam engines to the purposes of spinning. Perhaps he will have the goodness to explain and particularize these inventions.

Your correspondent seems to have yet to learn, that the knowledge and use of this machine (the mule) is as well known upon the continent as it is here, and that all the vigilance both of the government and manufacturers of this country has been unable to prevent either the exportation of machines or the emigration of mechanics. I have myself seen yarn of 200 hanks in the pound which was spun in Germany, in which country and in Prussia and Switzerland are many considerable cotton-mills. In France a few years ago there were erected in one year only not less than seventy mills, for which one contractor alone engaged to furnish upwards of twenty steam engines. The population of France engaged in the cotton-manufacture amounted a year or two ago, according to the report of Chaptal, ex-minister of the Interior, to 200,000 persons.

Your correspondent is more accurate in some of the concluding statements of his letter. Mr. Crompton never did, and, for reasons which must be obvious to every one, never could obtain a patent for his machine; nor has he, I believe, derived that advantage from it which, from its importance, he had a right to expect. A subscription was begun some years ago, and I understood that a sum, a small onç indeed, had been presented to him by some of the principal manufacturers of Lancashire, but the information of your correspondent on this head at least is probably more accurate than mine.

The crank in the carding machine that takes off the cotton.

In

In troubling you with this communication, I have no other wish than to correct the mis-statements of R. R. whose zeal to do justice to the merits of one man has rendered him guilty of great injustice to an other-to a man who has long and deservedly been considered as the father of spinning in this country, and whose genius has "enabled us to surpass all our rivals, not only in the beauty of the manufacture, but in our ability to undersell them in their own markets."

EXTRACTS FROM A MANUSCRIPT TOUR THROUGH THE COUNTIES OF GLOUCESTER, WORCESTER, SALOP, HERE FORD, AND MONMOUTH.

By a gentleman of Literary eminence (continued.)

The city of Gloucester can boast a Roman if not a British origin, but the present city has been built nearer to the great monastery founded in Saxon tiines. It retains the usual form of Saxon towns. Four cross streets, once crouded with churches and markets, are now paved and regularly built, and the modern improvement of old towns has been successfully applied. We inspected the county gaol, which is constructed in a style of singular propriety, suggested, in part, by the foreign lazarettos. It evinces the skill of the architect, who has shewn that the punishment of malefactors may become more effectual as more systematic and refined.

By the sumptuous cathedral we were readily attracted. As the area in which it stands is equally spacious and neat, the elevation gains every advantage, and rises with appropriate dignity. Several of the English cathedral churches are degraded by their environs, and the architectural effect of them, if not totally obscured, is at least greatly impoverished. The good taste with which some of them have been restored within these few years, has been farther displayed in extending and beautifying the area in which they are now centrically placed, Of this advantage a more noble instance does not occur than at Salis bury, or a more striking one from its deficiency than at Winchester.

The rich Benedictine abbey at Gloucester was distinguished by its magnificent church, which was spared at the reformation, and applied as the cathedral of the newly-erected see. During successive centuries it was still gaining additions of architectural splendour, and there are few ecclesiastical edifices in England which will so completely demonstrate the precise style by which each æra of Gothick in this kingdom, in its deviations and varieties, is marked.

No cathedral in this kingdom has cloisters of equal beauty, or now seen in a state of equal perfection. In general, from the observations which I had opportunities of making on the continent, this kind of building in particular is extremely inferior. Almost every convent has its cloisters, and those annexed to the great churches are probably the best, but they are chiefly plain unornamented inclosures, for the

purpose

purpose of exercise and devotion. The most extensive I saw, which were those at Pisa, while the contiguous buildings are in a style of the finest Lombard Gothic, are in a great measure void of architecturaļ embellishment, which deficiency is supplied by the works of Ghiotto and his scholars. Less frequently, indeed, the walls are covered with fresco painting, of which the most celebrated instances are of that at Florence, in the monastery of the Annunciata, where is the Madonna Del Sacco, by Andrea del Sarto, and that of the Carthusians at Paris, where Le Sueur has so admirably described the death of St. Bruno.

The fifteenth century, in which the Gothic attained to its greatest perfection, and hastened to its decline, was the era of many of the most beautiful towers now remaining. In point of symmetry this at Gloucester may contend with those at Canterbury, York, and Wells, if not for height and ornament. Its open battlements and pinnacles are still richer than of those above-mentioned, which must be seen by moonlight, that the full effect of their elevation and magnificence may be felt to the greatest advantage. That at Taunton is of the same era, and extremely like it, particularly in the finishing.

There is little analogy between the towers on the continent and those of our own country; for those at Pisa and Florence have neither battlement nor pinnacle; and those in France and Germany, placed on each side of the western front, are incrusted with minute particles, and drawn up to a conic form, as if intended to have been finished with a spire. We may therefore claim this excellence of the Gothic style as peculiarly English. A circumstance much to be regretted is the frequent demolition of the statuary which added so much to the external enrichment of ecclesiastical buildings. Being usually made of marble on the continent, at least in Italy, they have alike escaped the decomposition occasioned by climate, and the rage of fanatics.

As to the interior of Gloucester cathedral, every spectator will be satisfied with its neatness and appropriate solemnity. There are yet several alterations which will immediately occur to the man of taste, as tending to increase the characteristic simplicity and uniforinity of the whole. The first object to be removed is the skreen, so capriciously designed by Kent, which is more Chinese than Gothic. After what has been done at Salisbury and Windsor, we may readily conjecture with what advantage the same judgment and taste might be employed in other churches, which have suffered in nearly an equal degree from what has been called "beautifying," as from barbarous mutilation.

Of monumental sculpture there are three very interesting specimens. When Edward the Second was murdered at Berkeley castle, none of the adjacent monasteries would receive the royal corpse excepting Gloucester. His son and successor determined to do honour to that inglorious prince, by erecting a tomb to his memory. It now stands

near the high altar, and is the most ancient piece of sculpture in England which exhibits such perfection of art. Cavallini had been brought into England by Edward the First, and it is probable that he

established

established a school of sculpture here, yet perhaps none of his pupils were competent to such a performance. By Rysbrack, who visited; this monument with professional veneration, it was supposed to have been finished by some sculptor of those who flourished in that age in the north of Italy. In the street at Verona are three canopied tombs of the Scaligeri, which very nearly resemble this, both in form and workmanship.

Another worthy observation is a table tomb, upon which are extended the recumbent figures of Alderman Blackleach and his wife, dated 1639, in white marble, and apparently very accurate copies from portraits by Vandyke. As they are of much better execution than any of those acknowledged by Nicholas Stone, a conjecture may be allowed that they are the work of Francesco Fanelli, whose statues in bronze at St. John's-college, Oxford, and in Westminster Abbey, were justly admired in the reign of Charles the First, during which he left Florence to find employment in England.

The third is a groupe by Flaxman, which claims attention, although not without its defects, as one of the earliest efforts of a genius in sculpture, whose subsequent advancement in his art will do honour to the English nation. Several monuments which have been lately placed in the cathedral at Chichester are increasing proofs of his genius and taste. His classic simplicity may in time command as general approbation as the theatrical groupes of Rysbrack and Roubiliac, beautifully as they are executed..

In point of comparison, the cathedrals in England admit of one much nearer to each other than to any in the Netherlands and Germany. Those of Brussels and Ratisbon are the most like our own. At Bruges, Aix la Chapelle, and Vienna, although in the ground plans a similar distribution may be observed, yet the arcades and the ornamental particles of the architecture are essentially different. The central cupola of the cathedrals in Italy form alone a wide discrimination from those in France and England. But a material circumstance, which increases the dissimilitude in the eye of the English traveller, is the introduction of so many objects which belong to the Romish worship, and which having taken place in different æras, are peculiar to each of them. Such accumulation of painting and sculpture not in unison with the architecture, creates a splendid confusion.

Leaving Gloucester for Cheltenham, the country wears the appear ance of a cultivated vicinity to a large town. At the third stone, the romantic hill of Churchdown spreads more, losing its conic shape; and with the little white church on the summit, placed there by labo rious piety in lieu of a more ancient cross, is a pleasing object. In the great distance on the other side, the Malvern mountains rise in majestic elevation, and in a series continued for many miles. As they are totally bare of wood, they acquire a delicate blue tint, which changes by degrees of approach into a russet hue, but their outline is still picturesque, as the points are neither too spirally drawn, nor are the ridges too much extended in right lines.

The