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Buttressed as it is at each extremity by lofty mountains, while the water flows in full tide beneath it, its aspect, as it is seen rising into the air, may well be conceived to be particularly striking and grand.

This bridge, which is looked upon as a wonder to this day, spread the fame of Edwards over all the country. He afterwards built many other bridges in South Wales, several of which consisted also of single arches of considerable width, although in no case approaching to that of the arch over the Taff. One which

he erected over the Tawy, near Swansea, had a span of eighty feet-another at Llandovery, in Carmarthenshire, was eighty-four feet wide-and a third, Wychbree bridge, over the Tawy, was of the width of ninety-five feet. All the bridges which Edwards built after his first attempt have their arches formed of segments of much larger circles than he ventured to try in that case; and the roads over them are consequently much flatter,—a convenience which amply compensates for their inferiority in point of imposing appearance. He found his way to this improvement entirely by his own experience and sagacity; as indeed he may be said to have done to all the knowledge he possessed in his art. Even his principles of common masonry, he used himself to declare, he had learned chiefly from his studies among the ruins of an old Gothic castle in his native parish. In bridge building, the three objects which he always strove to attain in the highest possible degree were, first, durability; secondly, freedom for the passage of the water under the bridge; and lastly, ease of traffic over it.

In commencing architect, Edwards did not abandon the business of his forefathers. He was likewise a farmer to the end of his life. Nay, such was his unwearied activity, that, not satisfied with his week-day labors in these two capacities, he also officiated on Sundays as pastor to an Independent congregation, having been regularly ordained to that office when he was about thirty years of age, and holding it till his death. He accepted the usual salary from his congregation, considering it right that they should support their minister; but, instead of putting the money into his own pocket, he returned it all, and often much more, in charity to the poor. He always preached in Welsh, although early in life he had also made himself acquainted with the English language, having embraced the opportunity of acquiring it under the tuition of a blind old schoolmaster in whose house he once lodged for a short time while doing some work at the county town of Cardiff. He is said to have shown all his characteristic assiduity of application in this effort, and to have made a correspondingly rapid progress. This ingenious and worthy man died in 1789, in the seventieth

year of his age, leaving a family of six children, of whom his eldest son David became also an eminent architect and bridge. builder, although he had had no other instruction in his profession than what his father had given him.

RICHARD ARKWRIGHT.

WE now propose to give, in the memoir of the celebrated Richard Arkwright, some account of an individual, whose rise from a very humble origin to affluence and distinction was the result of his persevering attention to the improvement of the machinery employed in one of the most important branches of manufactures, and whose name is intimately connected with the recent history of the commercial greatness of his native country. This illustrious individual, persecuted and calumniated as nearly all the signal benefactors of corrupt humanity have ever been, was raised up by providence from an obscure rank in life to vindicate the natural equality of man.

Arkwright was born on the 23d of December, 1732, at Preston, in Lancashire. His parents were very poor, and he was the youngest of a family of thirteen children; so that we may suppose the school education he received, if he ever was at school at all, was extremely limited. Indeed, but little learning would probably be deemed necessary for the profession to which he was bred,that of a barber. This business he continued to follow till he was nearly thirty years of age; and this first period of his history is of course obscure enough. About the year 1760, however, or soon after, he gave up shaving, and commenced business as an itinerant dealer in hair, collecting the commodity by travelling up and down the country, and then, after he had dressed it, selling it again to the wig-makers, with whom he very soon acquired the character of keeping a better article than any of his rivals in the same trade. He had obtained possession, too, we are told, of a secret method of dyeing the hair, by which he doubtless contrived to augment his profits; and perhaps, in his accidental acquaintance with this little piece of chemistry, we may find the germ of that sensibility he soon began to manifest to the value of new and unpublished inventions in the arts, and of his passion for patent rights and the pleasures of monopoly.

It would appear that his first effort in mechanics, as has hap

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pened in the case of many other ingenious men, was an attempt to discover the perpetual motion. It was in inquiring after a person to make him some wheels for a project of this kind, that in the latter part of the year 1767, he got acquainted with a clockmaker of the name of Kay, then residing at Warrington, with whom it is certain that he remained for a considerable time after closely connected. From this moment we may date his entrance upon a new career. The manufacture of cotton cloths was introduced into Great Britain only towards the end of the seventeenth century; although stuffs, improperly called Manchester cottons, had been fabricated nearly three centuries before, which, however, were made entirely of wool. It is generally thought that the first attempt at the manufacture of cotton goods in Europe did not take place till the end of the fifteenth century, when the art was introduced into Italy. Before this, the only cottons known had been imported from the East Indies.

The English cottons, for many years after the introduction of the manufacture, had only the weft of cotton; the warp, or longitudinal threads of the cloth, being of linen. It was conceived to be impracticable to spin the cotton with a sufficiently hard twist to make it serviceable for this latter purpose. Although occasionally exported, too, in small quantities, the manufactured goods were chiefly consumed at home. It was not till about the year 1760 that any considerable demand for them arose abroad.

But about this time the exportation of cottons, both to the continent and to America, began to be carried on on a larger scale, and the manufacture of course received a corresponding impulse. The thread had hitherto been spun entirely, as it still continues to be in India, by the tedious process of the distaff and spindle, the spinner drawing out only a single thread at a time. But as the demand for the manufactured article continued to increase, a greater and greater scarcity of weft was experienced, til, at last, although there were 50,000 spindles constantly at work in Lancashire alone, each occupying an individual spinner, they were found quite insufficient to supply the quantity of thread required. The weavers generally, in those days, had the weft they used spun for them by the females of their family; and now "those weavers," says Mr. Guest, in his History of the Cotton Manufacture, "whose families could not furnish the necessary supply of weft, had their spinning done by their neighbors, and were obliged to pay more for the spinning than the price allowed by their masters; and even with this disadvantage, very few could procure weft enough to keep themselves constantly employed. It was no uncommon thing for a weaver to walk three or four miles in a morning, and call on five or six spinners, before

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