Add MS 54785

HISTORY OF TYPOGRAPHY: a text based on work by John Bagford and Richard Smith, copied by William Herbert from Cambridge University Library MS. Dd. xi. 91; Sept. 1782. Autograph. The treatise falls into two parts, described below. 'P. & S. 7 June/61 £3. 16. 0' in pencil, with remains of a red seal, front end-paper (f. iv). Other pencil markings, including the word 'Printing' are erased on this end-paper. The MS. was formerly in the Patent Office Library, see Add. 54784. With the volume (f. v) is a slip cut from a Patent Office catalogue, with the number '782**' and the Patent Office press-mark 'AI 49**', both in pen. Transferred from the Department of Printed Books, March 1969.

Paper; ff. vii+120. Contemporary foliation continued as pagination 1-47 through ff. 2-45v. Pencil foliation 1-65 through ff. 48-120. 203 x 155mm. Contemporary binding, boards covered in marbled paper. Brown leather spine, titled in capitals 'Bagford & R. Smith on Printing – MS.' Patent Office press-mark labels on spine 'AI' '49' (ff. i, ii).

Contents:

1. ff. 1-45v. Herbert states (f. vii) that the first part of the treatise is the work of John Bagford (b.1650, d.1716). Bagford published broadsheet Proposals for an extensive history of typography based on his own bibliographical collections, circa 1707; see BL Printed Books, Bagford Collection, Harley 5995, 250, 252, 254. See also Bagford's 'An Essay on the Invention of Printing' communicated to the Royal Society with remarks by Humfrey Wanley, Philosophical Transactions, xxv (1707), pp. 2397-2410. Also included are: an account of the state of the press in the University of Oxford 'as it now stands'; 9 January 1680. f. 40;- an account of damage suffered by stationers in London in the Great Fire; 1667. ff. 41-42;- list of plates, etc., sold by John Overton at the White Horse without Newgate; n.d. f. 43;- list of copy books, and of writing masters of the 16th-17th cent. in London, often with addresses and dates; aft. 1692. ff. 43v-45v. There is a contemporary index to this part of the MS. (f. 1).

2. ff. 48-120. The second part of the treatise is abridged from a work entitled 'Of the Art of Printing', ascribed to Richard Smith (b.1590, d.1675), see ff. 48, 120. For a 17th-cent. copy of this work see Sloane MS. 772, where Smith's authorship is attested by Edward Bernard. A memorandum (f. 48) refers to an original in Smith's autograph in the hands of 'Mr. Fleetwood'.