n declared a
most earnest desire of walking with me (though I was
diverted from going) to Guy's Cliff by Warwick, when I was
printing that most rare book called, _Joannis Rossi
Antiquarii Warwicensis Historia Regum Angliae_. And I am apt
to think that he would have shewed as hearty an inclination
of going to Stening in Sussex, that being the place
(according to Asser's Life of Aelfred the Great) where K.
Ethelwulph (father of K. Alfred) was buried, though others
say it was at Winchester," &c. "Mr. BAGFORD was as
communicative as he was knowing: so that some of the chief
curiosities in some of our best libraries are owing to him;
for which reason it was that the late _Bishop of Ely_, Dr.
MORE (who received so much from him), as an instance of
gratitude, procured him a place in the Charter-House. I wish
all places were as well bestowed. For as Mr. Bagford was,
without all dispute, a very worthy man, so, being a despiser
of money, he had not provided for the necessities of old
age. He never looked upon those as true philosophers that
aimed at heaping up riches, and, in that point, could never
commend that otherwise great man, Seneca, who had about two
hundred and fifty thousand pounds sterling, at use in
Britain; the loan whereof had been thrust upon the Britains,
whether they would or no. He would rather extol such men as
a certain rector near Oxford, whose will is thus put down in
writing, by Richard Kedermister, the last abbot but one of
Winchcomb (_Leland Collect._ vol. vi., 168), in the margin
of a book (I lately purchased) called _Hieronymi Cardinalis
Vitas Patrum_, Lugd. MCCCCCII. 4to. Nihil habeo, nihil
debeo, benedicamus Domino. Testamentum cujusdam rectoris,
juxta Oxoniam decedentis circiter annum salutis, 1520." "Nor
was Mr. Bagford versed only in our own old writers, but in
those likewise of other countries, particularly the Roman.
His skill in that part of the Roman history that immediately
relates to Britain is sufficiently evident from his curious
letter, printed at the beginning of Leland's Collectanea.
That he might be the better acquainted with the Roman
stations, and the several motions of the soldiers from one
place to another, he used to pick up coins, and would, upon
occasion, discourse handsomely, and very