How the Doctor has authenticated "the sudden fancy," I know not, but the apotheosis has passed. In three successive days, in the month of August, 1837, all Mentz congregated to worship the statue, by Thorwaldsen, of their ancient citizen in the square that henceforward bears his name. A chorus of 700 voices resounded the laud of the German printer; the flags in the regatta waved to his honour; and the festival rejoiced the city: and when the figure of Gutenberg was unveiled, the artillery, the music, and the people's voices, blending together, seemed to echo in the skies. [7] Dr. Cotton's curious "Typographical Gazetteer," art. OXONIA. Of a class of the earliest printed books, having no printer's name, he observes, "These may have been printed by Corsellis, or any one else." [8] Atkyns on the "Original and Growth of Printing." This quarto pamphlet is highly valued among collectors for Loggan's beautiful print of Charles the Second, Archbishop Shelden, and General Monk. Dr. Middleton refuted this ridiculous tale of an ideal printer, one Corsellis, in his "Dissertation on the Origin of Printing in England," first published 1735, and which now may be seen in his works. [9] The fourth day of the "Bibliographical Decameron" of Dr. Dibdin exhibits an ample view of the pending controversies on the "Origines Typographicæ." Every bibliographer has his favourite hero. The reader will observe that I have none! And yet possibly my tale may be the truest. THE FIRST ENGLISH PRINTER. The ambitious wars of a potent aristocracy inflicted on this country half a century of public misery. Our fields were a soil of blood; and maternal England long mourned for victories she obtained over her own children--lord against lord, brother against brother, and the son against the father. Rival administrations alternately dispossess each other by sanguinary conflict; a new monarch attaints the friends of his predecessor; conspiracy rises against conspiracy--scaffold against scaffold; the king is re-enthroned--the king perishes in the Tower; York is triumphant--and York is annihilated. Few great families there were who had not immolated their martyrs or their victims; and it frequently occurred that the same family had fallen equally on both sides, for it was a war of the aristocracy with the aristocracy: "Save the commons and kill the captains," was the general war-cry. The distracted people were perhaps indifferent to the varying fortunes of the parties, accustomed as they were to behold after each battle the heads of lords and knights raised on every bridge and gate.