e 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 Manuscripts, 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 manuscripts 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 manuscript
pieces are contained in thirty-six folios; the printed pieces in
sixty-three folios, twenty-one quartos, and nine octavos. Among the more
important manuscripts 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 passed 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 documents
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 quantity of engravings of towns, costumes,
trades, furniture, etc.;