chased them for the object of bringing out a magnificent edition of Voltaire's works under the editorship of Beaumarchais, the French clockmaker's son who came to such celebrity as a musician, humourist, and writer, especially as the author of the "Barber of Seville." The versatility of these three apprentices to mechanical trades—Benjamin Franklin, John Baskerville, and Peter Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais-and the simultaneous attraction of their genius to the art and power of the Press, are interesting coincidences, and all the more so in their being aware of it at the time, though belonging to different countries. Indeed. Franklin was one of the circle of friends and correspondents whom Baskerville drew around him. One can hardly refrain from a feeling of regret, however, that no printer in his own country had the mind and means to purchase the beautiful types on which he had expended so many years and such a fortune in elaborating. And this regret may well be deepened by the circumstance that the same type that produced "The Baskerville Bible" should next be employed to give additional attraction to the works of Voltaire.
Five years after the death of Baskerville, in 1775, a man of still greater celebrity as a luminary of science and philosophy, took up his residence in Birmingham, and soon made a great reputation and a great movement in philosophical and
