[Enemies of Books by William Blades]@TWC D-Link bookEnemies of Books CHAPTER IX 2/12
These he sorted out into nationalities and towns, and so, with a lot of hand-bills, manuscript notes, and miscellaneous collections of all kinds, formed over a hundred folio volumes, now preserved in the British Museum.
That they are of service as materials in compiling a general history of printing cannot be denied, but the destruction of many rare books was the result, and more than counter-balanced any benefit bibliographers will ever receive from them.
When here and there throughout those volumes you meet with titles of books now either unknown entirely, or of the greatest rarity; when you find the Colophon from the end, or the "insigne typographi" from the first leaf of a rare "fifteener," pasted down with dozens of others, varying in value, you cannot bless the memory of the antiquarian shoemaker, John Bagford.
His portrait, a half-length, painted by Howard, was engraved by Vertue, and re-engraved for the Bibliographical Decameron. A bad example often finds imitators, and every season there crop up for public sale one or two such collections, formed by bibliomaniacs, who, although calling themselves bibliophiles, ought really to be ranked among the worst enemies of books. The following is copied from a trade catalogue, dated April, 1880, and affords a fair idea of the extent to which these heartless destroyers will go:-- "MISSAL ILLUMINATIONS. FIFTY DIFFERENT CAPITAL LETTERS _on_ VELLUM; _all in rich Gold and Colours.
Many 3 inches square: the floral decorations are of great beauty, ranging from the XIIth to XVth century.
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