English Book Collectors Part 7

Edward Stillingfleet, Bishop of Worcester, was the seventh son of Samuel Stillingfleet of the family of Stillingfleet of Stillingfleet, Yorks.h.i.+re. He was born at Cranborne in Dorsets.h.i.+re on the 17th of April 1635, and received his early education in the grammar schools of Cranborne and Ringwood. In his fifteenth year he was admitted into St.

John's College, Cambridge, where he obtained a Fellows.h.i.+p in 1653. For several years after leaving college he was engaged as a private tutor, first in the family of Sir Roger Burgoyne of Wroxall in Warwicks.h.i.+re, and afterwards in that of the Hon. Francis Pierrepoint of Nottingham, during which period he was ordained by Ralph Brownrig, the deprived Bishop of Exeter. In 1657 he was presented by Sir R. Burgoyne to the rectory of Sutton, Bedfords.h.i.+re, and in 1665 the Earl of Southampton gave him the rectory of St. Andrew's, Holborn. He was also appointed Preacher at the Rolls Chapel, and shortly afterwards Reader of the Temple, and Chaplain in Ordinary to Charles II. In 1667 he was collated to a Canonry in St. Paul's, London; in 1669 he became a Canon 'in the twelfth prebend' in Canterbury Cathedral; in 1677 Archdeacon of London; in 1678 Dean of St. Paul's; and on the 13th of October 1689 he was consecrated Bishop of Worcester. He died at his residence in Park Street, Westminster, on the 27th of March 1699, and was buried in Worcester Cathedral, where a monument was erected to his memory by his son, with a Latin epitaph by Richard Bentley, who had been one of his chaplains.

Bishop Stillingfleet collected 'at a vast expence of time, pains and money' a very choice and valuable library, which contained a considerable number of ma.n.u.scripts, and upwards of nine thousand five hundred printed volumes, besides many pamphlets. It is stated that there were over two thousand folios in it, and that it cost the Bishop six thousand pounds. Evelyn in a letter to Pepys, dated August 12th, 1689, writes: 'The Bishop of Ely[49] has a well stor'd library; but the very best is what Dr. Stillingfleete, Deane of St. Paule's, has at Twicknam, ten miles out of towne.' After Stillingfleet's death his library was offered for sale. Entries in Evelyn's diary[50] show that great efforts were made to persuade William III. to buy it, but they evidently failed, as the historical ma.n.u.scripts were purchased by Robert Harley (afterwards Earl of Oxford), while the remainder of the collection was acquired by Narcissus Marsh, Archbishop of Armagh, who bought the books for a public library in Dublin which he had founded. He is said to have paid two thousand five hundred pounds for them. Stillingfleet, who on account of his handsome person was nicknamed 'the beauty of holiness,'

was the author of _Origines Britannicae, or Antiquities of the British Churches_, and many controversial works. His collected works were printed in 1710 in six volumes folio, and a volume of his miscellaneous works was published in 1735 by his son, the Rev. James Stillingfleet, Canon of Worcester.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 49: John Moore, Bishop of Ely, whose library was purchased by King George I., and presented by him to the University of Cambridge.]

[Footnote 50: '_April 29, 1699._--I dined with the Archbishop, but my business was to get him to persuade the King to purchase the late Bishop of Worcester's library, and build a place, for his own library at St.

James's, in the Parke, the present one being too small.'

'_May 3, 1699._--At a meeting of the Royal Society I was nominated to be of the Committee to wait on the Lord Chancellor to move the King to purchase Bp. of Worcester's library.']

JOHN MOORE, BISHOP OF ELY, 1646-1714

John Moore, Bishop successively of Norwich and Ely, who was born at Sutton-juxta-Broughton, Leicesters.h.i.+re, in 1646, was the eldest son of Thomas Moore, an ironmonger at Market Harborough. He was educated at the Free School, Market Harborough, and at Clare College, Cambridge, where he obtained a fellows.h.i.+p in 1667. Having taken holy orders, he was collated in 1676 to the rectory of Blaby in Leicesters.h.i.+re; and in 1679, through the influence of Heneage Finch, Earl of Nottingham, who, in 1670, had appointed him his chaplain, he was installed canon in Ely Cathedral. In 1687 he was presented by the dean and chapter of St.

Paul's to the rectory of St. Austin, London, and in 1689 he obtained the rectory of St. Andrew's, Holborn, which he held with his canonry at Ely until 1691, when he was consecrated Bishop of Norwich. He remained in that see until 1707, in which year he was translated to the more valuable bishopric of Ely. Moore died on the 31st of July 1714, from the effects of a cold which he caught while presiding at the trial of Dr.

Bentley, Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, who was charged with encroaching on the privileges of the fellows of that inst.i.tution. He was buried in Ely Cathedral, where a monument was erected to his memory.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BOOK-PLATE PLACED IN BOOKS FROM BISHOP MOORE'S LIBRARY GIVEN BY GEORGE I. TO THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE.]

Bishop Moore, who is called by Dibdin 'the father of black-letter collectors in this country,' was a great and generous patron of learning, and formed a magnificent library, which at the time of his death contained nearly twenty-nine thousand printed books and seventeen hundred and ninety ma.n.u.scripts. John Bagford was the princ.i.p.al a.s.sistant in its collection, and in return for his services the Bishop procured him a place in the Charterhouse. The library, which was kept in the episcopal residence in Ely Place, Holborn, where it occupied 'eight chambers,' is mentioned in _Notices of London Libraries_, by John Bagford and William Oldys, where it is stated that 'Dr. John Moore, the late Bishop of Ely, had also a prodigious collection of books, written as well as printed on vellum, some very ancient, others finely illuminated. He had a _Capgrave's Chronicle_, books of the first printing at Mentz, and other places abroad, as also at Oxford, St.

Alban's, Westminster, etc.' John Evelyn, Bishop Burnet, and Ralph Th.o.r.esby also write in terms of high praise of the excellence and great extent of the collection. Richard Gough, the antiquary, states that 'the Bishop formed his library by plundering those of the clergy in his diocese. Some he paid with sermons or more modern books; others only with quid illiterati c.u.m libris'; but there appears to be little, if any, truth in this accusation. Moore, who was anxious that his library should not be dispersed after his death, offered it, in 1714, to Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford, for the sum of eight thousand pounds; but the negotiation failed in consequence, it is said, of the Bishop 'insisting on being paid the money in his lifetime, though Lord Oxford was not to have the books till the Bishop's death.' After Moore's decease the collection was sold for six thousand guineas to George I., who gave it, on the suggestion of Lord Townsend, to the University of Cambridge. A special book-plate, designed and engraved by John Pine, was placed in the volumes. At the same time that the king sent these books to the University he despatched a troop of horse to Oxford, which occasioned the two well-known epigrams attributed to Dr. Tripp and Sir William Browne--

'Contrary methods justly George applies To govern his two universities, To Oxford sent a troop of horse;--for why?

That learned body wanted Loyalty.

To Cambridge he sent books, as well discerning, How much that loyal body wanted learning.'

The reply by Sir W. Browne runs--

'Contrary methods justly George applies To govern his two universities, And so to Oxford sent a troop of horse, For Tories hold no argument but force; To Cambridge Ely's learned books are sent, For Whigs admit no force but argument.'

This is not the only version of these epigrams, but the Rev. Cecil Moore in his Memoir of the Bishop considers it to be the correct one.

Moore's diaries, letters, and private accounts are also preserved in the Cambridge University Library. A volume containing his printed sermons was published in 1715, and a second issue in two volumes in 1724. Both series were edited by the Rev. Samuel Clarke, D.D.

JOHN BAGFORD, 1650?-1716

John Bagford was born about 1650. The exact date of his birth is unknown, and he does not appear to have been acquainted with it himself, for a short time before his death he informed Mr. James Sotheby that he was either sixty-five or sixty-six years of age, he could not tell which. According to the belief of Thomas Hearne, the antiquary, he was born in Fetter Lane, London, and he was no doubt for some time a shoemaker, for in a very curious and entertaining little treatise on the _Art of Shoemaking and Historical Account of Clouthing of ye foot_, which is believed to have been written by him, and is now preserved among the Harleian ma.n.u.scripts in the British Museum, the writer states that he was brought up to the 'craft of shoemaking.' This trade, however, he soon abandoned for a more congenial occupation, and he became a collector of books on commission for booksellers and amateurs.

In pursuance of this work he made several journeys to the Continent, and acquired a great knowledge of books, prints, and literary curiosities.

He was specially employed by Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford, Sir Hans Sloane, and John Moore, Bishop of Ely, who appear to have greatly appreciated his judgment, diligence, and honesty; and the last-named collector procured him, as some recompense for his services, admission into the Charterhouse. Nothing is known of Bagford's parents, and little of his domestic life, but he appears to have been married, for on the back of a leaf in one of the volumes of his collections we find the following memorandum in Bagford's writing: 'John, son of John and Elizabeth Bagford, was baptized 31st October 1675, in the parish of St.

Anne, Blackfriars.' This son seems to have become a sailor in the Royal Navy, for in another volume in 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 Middles.e.x, 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 reconst.i.tuted 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: JOHN BAGFORD.]

During his researches for his employers Bagford ama.s.sed two great collections: one consisting of ballads, now known as the 'Bagford Ballads'; the other being a vast collection of leaves from ma.n.u.scripts, t.i.tle-pages and fragments of books, specimens of paper, book-plates, engravings, bindings, catalogues, advertis.e.m.e.nts, 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 t.i.tle-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 t.i.tle-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 t.i.tle-pages from rare books of all sizes'; and Dr. Dibdin in _Bibliomania_ states that he 'was the most hungry and rapacious of all book and print collectors.' The testimony of Hearne (who knew Bagford well, and who was also amply qualified to judge both of his merits and demerits), however, is very different. He writes: 'It was very laudable in my Friend, Mr. John 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 very surprising genius, and had his education (for he was first a shoemaker, and afterwards for some time a bookseller) 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.... 'Tis very remarkable, that, in collecting, his care did not extend itself to Books and to the fragments of Books, only, but even to the very Covers, and to the Bosses and Clasps; and all this, that he might, with the greater ease, compile the History of Printing, which he had undertaken, but did not finish. In this n.o.ble Work he intended a Discourse about Binding,...

and another about the Art of making paper, in both of which his observations were very accurate.'

A great number of the t.i.tle-pages and fragments collected by Bagford are evidently taken from books which could be purchased in his day for a few s.h.i.+llings, many of them probably for a few pence; while it is possible that some may have been salvage from the Great Fire of 1666, when we know immense quant.i.ties of books were burnt or damaged. The collections, it is true, contain fragments of the Gutenberg Bible, various Caxtons, and other rare books, but there is no reason to think that these were abstracted from complete copies; it is much more likely that they were odd leaves which Bagford had picked up, while the leather stains on some of the most valuable show that they once formed part of the padding of old bindings. Many of the books were probably acquired by Bagford when he took part in the book-hunting expeditions of the Duke of Devons.h.i.+re, the Earls of Oxford, Sunderland, and other collectors, who amused themselves every Sat.u.r.day during the winter in rambling through various quarters of the town in search of additions to their libraries. After Bagford's death Hearne was very anxious to obtain his collections, as he wished to publish 'a book from them, for the service of the public, and the honour of Mr. Bagford,' but much to his chagrin he was forestalled by Wanley, Lord Oxford's librarian, who acquired them for his employer's library, and they formed part of the Harleian Ma.n.u.scripts, etc., purchased in 1753 for the British Museum. Wanley, however, does not appear to have secured the whole of Bagford's papers, as the Sloane collection contains four volumes of ma.n.u.scripts and printed matter which belonged to him, and the Bodleian Library possesses some Indulgences which he acquired and gave to Hearne.

The Bagford collections in the British Museum consist of one hundred and twenty-nine[51] volumes, including three of ballads. The ma.n.u.script pieces are contained in thirty-six folios; the printed pieces in sixty-three folios, twenty-one quartos, and nine octavos. Among the more important ma.n.u.scripts are Bagford's Commonplace Book; his Book of Accounts; his Account of Public and Private Libraries; Collections in reference to Printing; Names of old English Printers, with lists of the works which pa.s.sed through their hands; an Account of Paper; Patents granted to Printers in England; Observations on the History of Printing; Lives of famous Engravers, etc. The collection also contains a large number of fragments of early Bibles, Service Books, Decretals, Lives of Saints, etc. These are almost entirely of vellum, and some of them are as early as the eighth century.

Among the printed fragments is a leaf from the Gutenberg Bible,[52]

portions of the _Recuyell of the Histories of Troy_, the _Polychronicon_, the _Book of Fame_, and many other books from the presses of Caxton, Machlinia, Rood and Hunte, Pynson, Wynkyn de Worde, and other early printers, both English and foreign.

The maps in the collection are especially important and interesting, including a very rare one sometimes found in Hakluyt's _Navigations and Discoveries of the English Nation_, printed in the years 1599 and 1600, and worth at least two hundred pounds;[53] and the even more valuable celestial and terrestrial planispheres by John Blagrave of Reading, which are believed to be unique. There are also some rare doc.u.ments relating to the Post Office; a number of early book-plates; some fine specimens of English, French, and German stamped bindings of the sixteenth century; several volumes of Chinese, marbled, and other papers; early almanacks; a quant.i.ty of engravings of towns, costumes, trades, furniture, etc.; curious advertis.e.m.e.nts of tobacco, tea, quack medicines, etc.; specimens of fine writing; and many other miscellaneous papers of much interest.

Bagford was the author of a letter on the antiquities of London, prefixed to the first volume of Hearne's edition of Leland's _Collectanea_; and also of an _Account of London Libraries_, first printed in 1708 in _The Monthly Miscellany, or Memoirs for the Curious_. This little brochure was continued by Oldys, and the complete work published by Mr. James Yeowell in 1862. _The Essay on the Invention of Printing, by Mr. John Bagford_, in vol. XXV. of the _Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society_, was, Dibdin says, drawn up by Wanley. The collection of ballads has been edited by the Rev. J.W.

Ebsworth for the Ballad Society.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 51: It is somewhat doubtful whether a few of these belonged to Bagford.]

[Footnote 52: Probably given to Bagford by Michael Maittaire, the collector, who possessed a very imperfect copy of the Gutenberg Bible, which sold for fifty s.h.i.+llings at the sale of his library.]

[Footnote 53: This is believed to be the map alluded to by Shakespeare in Act. iii. Sc. 2 of _Twelfth Night_, where he makes Maria say of Malvolio: 'He does smile his face into more lines than there are in the new map, with the augmentation of the Indies.']

THOMAS HERBERT, EIGHTH EARL OF PEMBROKE, 1656-1733

Thomas Herbert, eighth Earl of Pembroke, who was born in 1656, was the third son of Philip, the fifth Earl. By the deaths of his elder brothers, the sixth and seventh Earls, he succeeded to the t.i.tle in 1683, and from that time to his death in 1733 he held many of the highest appointments in the State. He was one of the representatives of England at the treaty of Ryswick, and he carried the Sword of Justice at the coronations of William and Mary, Anne, George I. and George II. He was also President of the Royal Society in 1689-90.

Many of the Earls of Pembroke were men of culture and patrons of learning. In 1629 William, the third Earl, gave to the University of Oxford, of which he was Chancellor, a very valuable series of Greek ma.n.u.scripts collected by Giacomo Barocci, a gentleman of Venice; and in 1649 his brother Philip, the fourth Earl, gave to the same University, of which he was also Chancellor, a splendidly bound copy of the Paris Polyglot Bible, printed in 1645 in nine volumes. These two brothers are 'the incomparable pair of brethren' to whom the first folio of Shakespeare is dedicated. There had been for several generations a library at Wilton House, Salisbury, which Dibdin considered to be one of the oldest of private collections existing; but Thomas, the eighth Earl, added to it so large a number of rare books that it 'ent.i.tled him to dispute the palm even with the Lords Sunderland and Oxford.' Maittaire, in his _Annales Typographici_, calls the library a 'Bibliotheca exquisitissima,' and styles its owner 'Humanitatis politioris cultor et patronus.' Dibdin also states that Lord Pembroke spared no expense for books, and that he was 'a collector of everything the most precious and rare in the book-way.' The library was still further augmented by his successor Henry.

Dr. Dampier, Bishop of Ely, compiled a list in 1776 of the earlier printed works in the library, which Dibdin has reproduced in his _Decameron_. The books are one hundred and ninety-nine in number, of which one hundred and eighty-eight are of the fifteenth century. The list contains eight Caxtons, eighteen volumes printed by Jenson, and ten by the Spiras. Among the most notable of the incunabula are the _Rationale Divinorum Officiorum_ of Durandus, on vellum, printed by Fust and Schoeffer at Mentz in 1459; the _Catholicon_ of Balbus, printed at Mentz in 1460; _Cicero de Oratore_, printed by Sweynheym and Pannartz at the Monastery of Subiaco in 1465; Cicero's _Epistolae ad Familiares_, printed by Joannes de Spira at Venice in 1469; and the _Bokys of Hawkyng and Huntyng_, printed at St. Albans in 1486. The Caxtons are _The Recuyell of the Histories of Troy_; the first and second editions of _The Game of the Chesse_; the first edition of _The Dictes or Sayings of the Philosophers_, _Tully of Old Age_, _Chronicles of England_, the _Polychronicon_, and the _Liber Festivalis_.