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 invention, sacrificing everything to his new idea. As the prospect of success opened before him, he abandoned his curacy, and devoted himself to the art of stocking-making by machinery. This is the version of the story given by Henson on the authority of an old stocking-maker, maker, who died in Collins's Hospital, Nottingham, aged ninety-two, and was apprenticed in the town during the reign of Queen Anne. It is also given by Deering and Blackner as the traditional account in the neighbourhood, and it is in some measure borne out by the arms of the London Company of Frame-Work Knitters, which consists of a stocking-frame without the wood-work, with a clergyman on one side and a woman on the other as supporters.

Whatever may have been the actual facts as to the origin of the invention of the stocking-loom, there can be no doubt as to the extra-