sweetly in the ears of the growers of cotton wool as do those of Hargreaves, Cartwright, Crompton and Arkwright, in the ears of its manipulators. Though the ginner’s is usually a distinct calling from the planter’s, the intimacy of their relationship is such as to give the same melody and the same fragrance to the eulogiums conferred by either. But while the Arkwrights and their spinning-frames are elements in the affairs of the manufacturers, the producers and cleaners stick to the Whitneys and their ginning devices. In preparation for transmission to England the cotton after ginning is tightly packed in bags. In this state it arrives at the port of Liverpool, and is immediately warehoused by the brokers, a class of middlemen, whose business it is to negotiate sales to the manufacturers of Manchester. Once deposited at the factory, the reception it meets with begins with a sound thrashing. After beating it out, it is more carefully cleaned by an instrument known as the Scutcher. Then—to pursue its treatment under the hands of the manufacturer—it is carded, the effect of which, without staying to examine the details of the operation, is to abstract the shorter fibres and arrange those of uniform length which remain, in united parallels, upon which much of the success of subsequent manipulations depends. In this state the cotton now called “sliver,” undergoes a drawing process, and is afterwards still further attenuated, and at the same time slightly twisted by the “roving” or “slubbing” machine, when at last it is ready for spinning into yarn, through the agency of the mule for weft, and that of the throstle for twist. Weaving which so wonderfully conjoins in close and compact intimacy these filamentous creations of the spinning-frame, consists of twist for the warp, or lengthway, of the cloth, and weft for the thread with which this is traversed—a strange and better sort of playing at cross purposes, the issue of which is the strength of union. This weaving into piece goods as the diversities of cloth are styled, can be performed either by the hand or the power-loom, though it is needless to say in these days of Archimedean genius the latter is practically by far the more common alternative. After the web has been thus constructed, bleaching succeeds; after bleaching, dyeing; and upon dyeing follows printing; a description of which to be at all intelligible, or to do justice to so curious and elaborate a subject, would involve more time and space than either the reader or myself would deem allowable.
And now for a brief inspection into some of the chief marvels which from time to time have sprung up in aid of the cotton manufacture. I am not going to enumerate any large proportion of them, for their number is indeed legion.
Since 1800, no fewer than 1,440 patents, or thereabout, have been taken out, to say nothing of the standard inventions of our venerable fathers of spinning and weaving some years previously. Upon the principle, therefore, that every little helps, we may infer that by this time the several arts included in this complex branch of industry have attained to a considerable amount of perfection. It will be all that is required for the present purpose to touch lightly upon the most conspicuous and notable of these discoveries, and to exhibit their agglomerated results, as seen in the present condition of this great national pursuit.
A PRIMA DONNA.
The old King’s Theatre in the Haymarket was destroyed by fire on the 17th of June, 1789. The singers were engaged in a night rehearsal: for the performances of the following evening were intended to be devoted to the benefit of Signor Ravelli, the acting manager of the then proprietor, Mr. William Taylor. The fire began a few minutes before ten o’clock, and spread almost instantaneously throughout the building. In a few hours the roof had fallen in, and the theatre was totally destroyed. Madame Ravelli, a chief singer, was saved by the daring of the firemen at the risk of their own lives. Pietro Carnivalli, an Italian, dying at Bristol a year afterwards, confessed on his death-bed that he had set the building on fire in revenge for some neglect on the part of Ravelli, who was said to have been a monk in Spain, and was known by the name of Don Antonio. Carnivalli was leader of the band, and his wife had been a singer at the King’s Theatre.
A new theatre—the present edifice now known as Her Majesty’s Theatre—was built during 1790, the first stone being laid by the Earl of Buckingham, Michael Novosielski being the architect. The internal arrangements, however, received their present form in 1799, when much remodelling and many improvements were made under the auspices of Signor Marinari, an ingenious architect and scene painter. The new opera house opened on the 26th of March, 1791; but the entertainments consisted in the first instance of music and dancing simply, as no licence for performances of a dramatic character could be obtained on the ground that the theatre at the Pantheon in Oxford Street already held such a privilege, and that one Italian opera-house was sufficient. The history of Italian opera in England is a catalogue of rival managements, insolvencies, and fires. Each theatre was styled the “King’s,” and both struggled on in a ruinous opposition, one with a licence and the other without. In 1792, however, the antagonism ended. The Pantheon was burnt to the ground on the 14th of January in that year, and the fire was attributed to the act of an incendiary. The King’s Theatre in the Haymarket obtained its licence under certain conditions, one of these being that a sum of 30,000l. should be paid to the lessee of the Pantheon to compensate in a measure for his losses; and for a long time Italian opera in England could be heard nowhere but at Michael Novosielski’s house in the Haymarket.
It was at this theatre, on Tuesday, the 8th of April, 1834, that a young lady made her first appearance in England in the character of Ninetta, the heroine of Rossini’s opera “La Gazza Ladra.” Her name was Giulia Grisi. Two years before, a sister of the singer, Giudetta Grisi, had made a successful début, on the same boards, in the opera of “La Cenerentola.” For her Bellini had composed the music of Romeo, in his opera “I Capuletti.” She possessed a mezzo-soprano voice of