INVENTION OF PRINTING.
[Our Correspondent, W.M. of the Regent's Park, should read the following announcement, which supersedes the necessity of printing his communication. At least, we do not feel ourselves justified in doing so, without reference to the undernamed German work.]
It is proposed to erect a monument in Mentz, by public subscription and support of all nations, to Gutenberg, the great inventor of the art of printing, and to celebrate the immortal discovery in a grand and becoming style. The erection is to take place in 1836, being the fourth centenary anniversary of the great achievement, for it is capable of historic proof that Gutenberg communicated his discovery of movable letters to some friends at Strasburg in 1436, to which city he had retired on account of some disturbances in his native place: vide Schaab's Geschichte der Erfinding der Buchdruckerkunst, Mainz, 1831, 3 vols. 8vo. The subscriptions and support, in particular, of printers, booksellers, authors and literary bodies, is solicited. Kings and princes, in behalf of the best interests of their subjects and of civilization, it is hoped, will not be backward to support so noble a design. The public will be informed, from time to time, by means of the daily papers and journals, of the progress of the subscription, for which the smallest sums will be received, and the names of the donors entered in a book kept by the Corporation of Mentz, to which all communications are requested to be addressed.—Foreign Quarterly Review.