n the same collections there is a power of
attorney, dated April 6, 1713, signed by John Bagford, Junior,
empowering his 'honoured father, John Bagford, Senior, of the parish of
St. Sepulchre, in the county of Middlesex, bookseller,' to claim and
receive from the Paymaster of Her Majesty's Navy his wages as a seaman
in case of his death. Bagford, who took great interest in all
descriptions of antiquities, was one of the little group of
distinguished men who reconstituted in 1707 the Society of Antiquaries.
He died, Dr. Birch informs us, at Islington on the 15th of May 1716, and
was buried in the graveyard belonging to the Charterhouse.

[Illustration: JOHN BAGFORD.]

During his researches for his employers Bagford amassed two great
collections: one consisting of ballads, now known as the 'Bagford
Ballads'; the other being a vast collection of leaves from manuscripts,
title-pages and fragments of books, specimens of paper, book-plates,
engravings, bindings, catalogues, advertisements, and various
interesting and curious pieces. With the aid of these materials Bagford
intended to write a history of printing, and in 1707 he published his
_Proposals for an Historical Account of that most universally celebrated
as well as useful Art of Typography_. The work, which was also to
contain a history of bookbinding, paper-making, etc., was, however,
never published, and it has been often stated that Bagford was quite
incompetent to carry out such an undertaking. This may possibly have
been the case, for although he was certainly a man of much ability, and
possessed an extensive knowledge of books, he had received but little
education. Several of his contemporaries, however, held a different
opinion, and among them Hearne, who repeatedly expresses in his works
his admiration of both Bagford's genius and his collections.

The method of compiling a history of printing from a collection of
title-pages appears to be both a clumsy and a costly one, but it seems
probable from entries in the diary of Oldys, and from Gough's memoir of
Ames, that that bibliographer wrote his _Typographical Antiquities_ with
the aid of similar materials.

Bagford has been subjected to very severe censure for mutilating books
for the purpose of forming his collection of title-pages. Mr. Blades, in
his work _The Enemies of Books_, accuses him of being 'a wicked old
biblioclast who went about the country, from library to library, tearing
away title-pages fro