afforded his genius a fine scope in forming letters of every form and size on the great white sheets of marble. At any rate, he is soon found in Birmingham teaching as a writing-master the art he had acquired. It was probably just about the same time that the boy Ben. Franklin left off cutting candle-wicks for his father, and became an apprentice to his elder brother in Boston as a type-setter. Baskerville was not contented to confine his time and talent to the instruction of boys in writing. By dint of practising in scroll works and in the diversified emblems and imagery of monumental carving, he had acquired a taste and genius for more ambitious designs for ornamentation. The canvas on which he exhibited them for public use and admiration was papier-maché trays. If he did not invent this material, he became to it what Wedgwood was to the ware that bears his name. He accumulated a large fortune by the manufacture of these novel and beautiful articles; built a mansion, and settled down to the enjoyment of literature and the fine arts with a relish which his pursuits had stimulated and fostered. But his ambition and genius for the formation of beautiful letters, which his early lessons on monumental marble had developed, now took wider scope and higher flight. The celebrated letter-founder, William Caslon, had won a world-wide reputation for the beautiful type he produced at his foundry
