GED, WILLIAM, the inventor of stereotyping, was a goldsmith in Edinburgh, where he first practised his great improvement in the art of printing in 1725. In July 1729 he assumed as partner William Fenner, stationer, London. Subsequently Mr. John James, architect at Greenwich, with his brother Thomas James, a letter-fonder, and Mr. James Ged the inventor’s son, became partners; and in 1730 they applied to the university of Cambridge for printing Bibles and Common-Prayer books by blocks instead of common tyes, when a lease was sealed to them April 23, 1731. Only two Prayer-books, however, were finished, after a large sumof money had been expended, and the attempt being relinquished, the lease was given up in 1738. Ged imputed this failure to the vilainy of the pressmen and the ill treatment of his partners, particularly Fenner, whom John James and he were advised to prosecute, but declined doing so. In 1733 he returned to Scotland, and at the request of his friends, who were anxious to see a specimen of his invention, published, in 1744, a stereotyped edition of Salust, which his daughter says was printed in 1736. Ged died in very indifferent circumstances, on October 19, 1749, after his utensils had been sent to Leith to be shipped for London, where he intended to enter into trade as a printer with his son James. The latter had engaged in the Rebellion of 1745 as a captain in the duke of Perth’s regiment, and being taken at Carlisle, was condemned, but on his father’s account, by Dr. Smith’s interest with the duke of Newcastle, was pardoned and set at liberty in 1748. He afterwards worked for some time as a journeyman, and then commenced business on his own account; but being unsuccessful, he went out to Jamaica, where he younger brother, William, was estqablished as a printer, but died soon after. The process of stereotyping is now in very general use, being applied to such works as are likely to have a large circulation.