A.D. 1715
We learn from Hearne’s MS. Diary [vol. liii.] that differences between him and Dr. Hudson (of which he makes frequent mention) increased during this year. He was reported to the Vice-Chancellor in April for absence from the Library through his duties as Bedel, by reason of which readers had difficulty in obtaining books lodged above stairs. To this complaint his reply was that he was not bound, as Second Librarian, exclusively to do such ‘drudgery,’ but that Dr. Hudson was himself obliged by statute to deliver out such books as were under lock-and-key, and books in quarto and octavo, either personally or by his own special deputy. At the same time a complaint was made against him by three Bachelors of Arts of Queen’s College, for refusing books to them which were out of the faculty of Arts prescribed to them by the statutes of the Library. Hearne’s only reply to the Vice-Chancellor in this case was the asking whether they had, also in accordance with the Statutes, come to the Library in their hoods, if under two years’ standing; at which ‘he smiled.’ It appears, therefore, that this requirement had already become obsolete. Dr. Hudson, however, regarded the matter more seriously, and threatened that Hearne should be turned out of both his places.
April 15. (Good Friday!) ‘This morning Dr. Hudson went out of town, and that pert jackanapes Bowles (who is Dr. Hudson’s servitor) came to tell me that he is gone, and that the sweeper of the Library being dead, I must not admitt any one to sweep the Library as formerly. I returned answer I had nothing to do in that case. In the afternoon I was at study in the Library, and Bowles brings up a woman and girl, and set them to sweeping, and left them there, tho’ this should not have been, they being not sworn nor admitted as sweepers. Indeed all things are now done very irregularly in the Library by the permission of Dr. Hudson, and by the impudence of this pert, silly servitour, and I am afraid much mischief is done withall. The whole Library and galleries and studies and the Anatomy School used to be swept this day; they began about eight, and had not done till four or five in the afternoon. But now the Library only below stairs was swept over, and that very slightly, and all things were left in a bad condition, to my very great concern187.’
At the visitation on Nov. 8, the Curators passed a resolution that the places of Under-librarian and Bedel were inconsistent, and that on S. Thomas’ day Hudson should be at liberty to appoint some other person to Hearne’s office. Hereupon Hearne immediately, without a moment’s delay, resigned both the offices of Architypographus and Superior Bedel of Civil Law, and claimed to remain in the Library; but Hudson had fresh locks put on the doors, of which Bowles kept the keys, so that Hearne was unable to go in and out as before. However, he continued to execute his office whenever the Library was open until Jan. 23, 1716, when the Act which imposed a fine of £500, with other penalties, upon any one who held any public office without having taken the Oaths, came into operation. Then at once, all worldly interests, all affection for the old place of his studies and his care, gave way to the honest and unwavering dictates of his conscience; the Non-juror withdrew, and, with singularly hard measure, in spite of his representations, his place was ordered by the Curators to be filled up at Lady-Day, not on the ground of his own retirement, but on that of neglect of duty! His successor was Rev. John Fletcher, M.A., Chaplain, and afterwards Fellow, of Queen’s College. Hearne states that his salary was, with great unfairness, withheld from him for the whole half-year preceding Lady-Day, together with some fees which were due188. But to the end of his life he maintained that he was still, de jure, Sub-librarian, and, with a quaint pertinacity, regularly at the end of each term and half-year, up to March 30, 1735189, continued to set down, in one of the volumes of his Diary, that no fees had been paid him, and that his half-year’s salary was due.
On Hearne’s announcing John Ross’s Historia Angliæ for publication in this year, W. Whiston forwarded to him a MS. of a Latin historical poem entitled Britannica, written in 1606 by an author of the same names as the forth-coming historian, with the following note inserted:—
‘This book was written, as I think, by my great uncle, Mr. John Rosse, rector of Norton-juxta-Twycross in Leicestershire, where I was myself born. If it may be of any use to Mr. Hern at Oxford in his intended edition of this or some other work of the same author now advertis’d, or may be thought worthy of a place in the publick library of that University, it is hereby freely given thereto by
‘WILLIAM WHISTON.
‘London, December 12, 1715.’
Hearne adds that (of course) the author was altogether different from the Ross of his editing, and that the poem had been printed at Frankfort in 1607, as he learned from a MS. Catalogue of Mr. Richard Smith’s books lent him by Bp. Fleetwood of Ely190. The MS. is now numbered, Bodley 573.
A learned tailor of Norwich was in this year recommended by Dr. Tanner, then Chancellor of Norwich Cathedral, for the Janitor’s place in the Library should it be vacant. Although but a journeyman tailor of thirty years of age, who had been taught nothing but English in his childhood, Henry Wild had contrived within seven years to master seven languages, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Chaldee, Syriac, Arabic and Persian, to which Tanner adds, in another letter to Dr. Rawlinson, Samaritan and Ethiopic. The application appears to have been unsuccessful so far as the holding office in the Library was concerned; but Wild found some employment in the Library for a time in the translating and copying Oriental MSS191. He removed to London about 1720, and died in the following year, as we learn from an entry in Hearne’s MS. Diary, (xcii. 128-9,) under date of Oct. 29, 1721, where we read:—
‘About a fortnight since died in London Mr. Henry Wild, commonly called, the Arabick Taylour. I have more than once mentioned him formerly. He was by profession a taylour of Norwich, and was a married man. But having a strange inclination to languages, by a prodigious industry he obtain’d a very considerable knowledge in many, without any help or assistance from others. He understood Arabick perfectly well, and transcrib’d, very fairly, much from Bodley, being patroniz’d by that most eminent physician, Dr. Rich. Mead. He died of a feaver, aged about 39. He was about a considerable work, viz. a history of the old Arabian physicians, from an Arabick MS. in Bodley. The MS. was wholly transcrib’d by him a year agoe, but what progress he had made for the press I know not.’
Five MSS., including the Leiger Book of Malmesbury Abbey, together with a large number of printed books, were given on May 7, by William Brewster, M.D. of Hereford, a well-known antiquary192.
A thick quarto volume (1052 pages) containing a Latin treatise by Adam Zernichaus on the controversy between the Eastern and Western Churches, concerning the Procession of the Holy Ghost, was forwarded to the Library through Sir Robert Sutton, ambassador at Constantinople, by Chrysanthus, Patriarch of Jerusalem, nephew and successor of Dositheus, an autograph Greek epistle from whom, occupying seven pages, is prefixed. At the end is a list of eleven German scribes who were employed upon the transcription of the volume, with the payments they severally received. It appears from the Benefaction Register that the volume was not actually received at the Library until 1722; and in 1731, an entry in the catalogue records that the MS. ‘was restored to Sir Robert Sutton, by order of the Vice-Chancellor;’ but no reason or explanation is given. For more than a century the Patriarch’s gift was consequently lost from the place of its destination; but in Dec. 1864, having turned up for sale among the well-known stores of Mr. C. J. Stewart, it was secured by the Librarian at the cost of £5 15s. 6d., and is once more to be found in its legitimate quarters, numbered MS. Addit. Bodl. ii. c. 9. Chrysanthus also gave, in 1725, a copy of Dositheus’ History of the Patriarchate of Jerusalem, which was printed, in Greek, in 1715.
Notes
187 Hearne’s MS. Diary, liii. 124, 5.
188 Life, 1772, pp. 18-20.
189 He died on June 10, in that year.
190 This catalogue was sold at the auction in 1855 of the MSS. of Dr. Routh, who had bought it at Heber’s sale.
191 Letters by Eminent Persons, i. 271, 300. [On p. 270 for Turner, read Tanner.]
192 Hearne’s MS. Diary, liii. 148.