Note 368 — The Drawing Room. (continued 2)

The former bibliomaniacal triumvirate is noticed at p. 217, ante. We will now discuss the merits of the above, seriatim. And first of John Bagford, "by profession a bookseller; who frequently travelled into Holland and other parts, in search of scarce books and valuable prints, and brought a vast number into this kingdom, the greater part of which were purchased by the Earl of Oxford. He had been in his younger days a shoemaker; and for the many curiosities wherewith he enriched the famous library of Dr. John More, Bishop of Ely, his Lordship got him admitted into the Charter House. He died in 1716, aged 65; after his death, Lord Oxford purchased all his collections and papers for his library: these are now in the Harleian collection in the British Museum. In 1707 were published, in the Philosophical transactions, his Proposals for a General History of Printing."—Bowyer and Nichol's Origin of Printing, pp. 164, 189, note. It has been my fortune (whether good or bad remains to be proved) not only to transcribe, and cause to be reprinted, the slender Memorial of Printing in the Philosophical Transactions, drawn up by Wanley for Bagford, but to wade through forty-two folio volumes, in which Bagford's materials for a History of Printing are incorporated, in the British Museum: and from these, I think I have furnished myself with a pretty correct notion of the collector of them. Bagford was the most hungry and rapacious of all book and print collectors; and, in his ravages, he spared neither the most delicate nor costly specimens. He seems always to have expressed his astonishment at the most common productions; and his paper in the Philosophical Transactions betrays such simplicity and ignorance that one is astonished how my Lord Oxford, and the learned Bishop of Ely, could have employed so credulous a bibliographical forager. A modern collector and lover of perfect copies, will witness, with shuddering, among Bagford's immense collection of title-pages in the Museum, the frontispieces of the Complutensian Polyglot, and Chauncy's History of Hertfordshire, torn out to illustrate a History of Printing. His enthusiasm, however, carried him through a great deal of laborious toil; and he supplied in some measure, by this qualification, the want of other attainments. His whole mind was devoted to book-hunting; and his integrity and diligence probably made his employers overlook his many failings. His handwriting is scarcely legible, and his orthography is still more wretched; but if he was ignorant, he was humble, zealous, and grateful; and he has certainly done something towards the accomplishment of that desirable object, an accurate general history of printing. The preceding was inserted in the first edition of this work. It is incumbent on me to say something more, and less declamatory, of so extraordinary a character; and as my sources of information are such as do not fall into the hands of the majority of readers, I trust the prolixity of what follows, appertaining to the aforesaid renowned bibliomaniac, will be pardoned—at least by the lover of curious biographical memoranda. My old friend, Tom Hearne, is my chief authority. In the preface to that very scarce, but rather curious than valuable, work, entitled Guil. Roper Vita D. Thomæ Mori, 1716, 8vo., we have the following brief notice of Bagford: §. ix. "Epistolas et Orationes excipit Anonymi Scriptoris chronicon; quod idcirco Godstovianum appellare visum est, quia in illud forte fortuna inciderim, quum, anno mdccxv. una cum Joannæ Bagfordio, amico egregio ad rudera Prioratûs de Godstowe juxta Oxoniam animi recreandi gratia, perambularem. De illo vero me prius certiorem fecerat ipse Bagfordius, qui magno cum nostro mœrore paullo post Londini obiit, die nimirum quinto Maij anno mdccxvi. quum jam annum ætatis sexagessimum quintum inplerisset, ut è litteris intelligo amici ingenio et humanitate ornati Jacobei Sothebeii, junioris, qui, si quis alius, è familiaribus erat Bagfordii. Virum enimvero ideo mihi quam maxime hâc occasione lugendum est, quod amicum probitate et modestia præditum amiserim, virumque cum primis diligentem et peritum intercidisse tam certum sit quam quod certissimum. Quamvis enim artes liberales nunquam didicisset, vi tamen ingenii ductus, eruditus plane evasit; et, ut quod verum est dicam, incredibile est quam feliciter res abstrusas in historiis veteribus explicaverit, nodosque paullo difficiliores ad artis typographicæ incunabula spectantes solverit et expedierit. Expertus novi quod scribo. Quotiescunque enim ipsum consului (et quidem id sæpissime faciendum erat) perpetuo mihi aliter atque exspectaveram satisfecit, observationis itidem nonnunquam tales addens, quales antea neque mihi neque viris longe doctioribus in mentem venerant. Quidni itaque virum magnum fuisse pronunciarem, præcipue quum nostra sententia illi soli magni sint censendi, qui recte agant, et sint vere boni et virtute præditi?"—Præf. pp. xxi., ii. In Hearne's perface to Walter Hemingford's history, Bagford is again briefly introduced: "At vero in hoc genere fragmenta colligendi omnes quidem alios (quantum ego existimare possum) facile superavit Joannes Bagfordius, de quo apud Hemingum, &c. Incredibile est, quanta usus sit diligentia in laciniis veteribus coacervandis. Imo in hoc labore quidem tantum versari exoptabat quantum potuit, tantum autem re vera versabatur, quantum ingenio (nam divino sane fruebatur) quantum mediocri doctrina (nam neque ingenue, neque liberaliter, unquam fuit educatus) quantum usu valuit," p. ciii. The reader here finds a reference to what is said of Bagford, in the Hemingi Wigornensis Chartularium; which, though copious, is really curious and entertaining, and is forthwith submitted to his consideration. "It was therefore very laudable in my friend, Mr. J. Bagford (who I think was born in Fetter-lane, London) to employ so much of his time as he did in collecting remains of antiquity. Indeed he was a man of a very surprising genius, and had his education (for he was first a shoe-maker, and afterwards for some time a book-seller) been equal to his natural genius, he would have proved a much greater man than he was. And yet, without this education, he was certainly the greatest man in the world in his way. I do not hear of any monument erected to his memory, but 'twas not without reason that a worthy gentleman, now living in London, designed the following epitaph for him: