Francis Bacon and his secret society - Grand Lodge of Colorado

a
302 FMAtfClS BACON
such mystifications are kept up the thing concealed is pretty
sure to be something simple and easy to master when once it is
And there must be means of reaching it, because how
reached.
can it be known that these subjects of inquiry are either instructive
or worthy of pursuit unless some one has studied and
pursued them, and discovered whither they tend ?
Further effort, stimulated by reflections of this kind, have
not been altogether unrewarded, and, although much remains
to be cleared up, we trust that, regardless of scratches, we may
have broken such a gap into the matter as to secure an easier
passage for successors.
In A Chronology of Paper and Paper-making, ] there is the
following entry:
"1716 — John Bagford, the most extraordinary connoisseur of
paper ever known, died in England. His skill was so
great that it is said that he could, at first sight, tell
the place where, and the time when, any paper was
made, though at never so many years' distance. He
prepared materials for . History of Paper-Making,
which are now in the British Museum, numbered 5891
to 5988. "2
One hundred and eight volumes by this extraordinary connoisseur
ofpaper ! The hint did not remain unheeded, and it was
1 Joel Munsell, 4th edition, 1870 ; 5th edition, 1878.
2 These form, in fact, part of the Harleian collection. For some reason the
Bagford portion has recently been divided. The bulk of itnow reposesin charge of
the librarians of the rare old printed books, "Large Room," British Museum.
The MS. portions are in the MS. department, where, until lately, the whole
collection were bound together. Most of the folios are scrap-books, containing
thousands of book plates and wood cuts, large and small. Of these we shall
have to speak by and by. Some were moved from the collection by order of
the chief librarian in 1814 and in 1828. These extracts, "transferred to the
portfolios of the Print Room," are not to be found. There is said to be no record
of them. Similarly, the evidences of John Bagford's extraordinary knowledge
of paper are absent from these collections. Some folios are made up of
paper bearing six or eight different water-marks, and there are MS. notes of
printers, which may lead to further knowledge. But the whole collection gives
the impression that it has been manipulated for purposes of concealment, rather
than to assist students, and the authorities at the British Museum in no way
encourage the idea that information on paper-marks is procurable from this
source.