The long-entertained idea of resigning the Librarianship was at length
carried out by Dr. Thomas Hyde in this year, for the reasons given in
the following letter, which was addressed by him to the
Pro-Vice-Chancellor, probably Dr. Charlett. It is here printed from a
copy sent by Hyde to Wake, then Rector of St. James, Westminster, and
preserved amongst the Wake Correspondence in the library of Ch. Ch.:--
'March 10, 1700/01,
'CHRIST CHURCH, OXON.
'SIR,--I being a little indisposed by the gout, acquaint you thus by
letter, that what I long agoe designed (as you partly knew) I am now
about to put in execution. That is to say, I shall shortly lay down
my office of Library-keeper, about a month hence, which resolution I
do now declare, and I do hereby give you timely and statuteable
notice of the same as Pro-Vice-Chancellor, entreating that, as the
Statute requires, you will in two days order Mr. Cowper to draw a
Programma to be set up at the Schools to the sence of the enclosed
paper, he best knowing forms and lawyers' Latin.
'Among the Bodleian Statutes in the Appendix, in the Statute _de
causis amovendi aut libere recedendi_, you will find that upon the
Library-keeper's notice thus given, you are in two days' time to fix
up the programma preparatory to make it known that about a month
hence (which is about the end of this term) that office will be
actually resigned and void.
'My reasons for leaving the place are two, viz. one is because (my
feet being left weak by the gout) I am weary of the toil and
drudgery of daily attendance all times and weathers; and secondly,
that I may have my time free to myself to digest and finish my
papers and collections upon hard places of Scripture, and to fit
them for the press[158]; seing that Lectures (though we must attend
upon them) will do but little good, hearers being scarce and
practicers more scarce.
'I should have left the Library more compleat and better furnish'd
but that the building of the Elaboratory[159] did so exhaust the
University mony, that no books were bought in severall years after
it. And at other times when books were sometimes bought, it was (as
you well know) never left to me to buy them, the Vice-Chancellor not
allowing me to lay out any University mony. And therefore some have
blamed me without cause for not getting all sorts of books.
'Before the Visitations I did usually spend a month's time in
preparing a list of good books to offer to the Curators; but I could
seldom get them bought, being commongly (_sic_) answered in short,
that they had no mony. Nay, I have been chid and reproved by the
Vice-Chancellor for offering to put them to so much charge in buying
books. These things at last discouraged me from medling in it. But,
however, I leave the Library three times bigger than I found
it[160], and furnished with a Catalogue of which I found it
destitute. I wish the University a man who may take as much pains
and drudgery as I have done whilst I was able to do it.
'I entreat you with all speed to cause the Register to put up the
programma signed with your name, that so things may be regularly and
statutably dispatched in order, until the time of actuall
resignation shall come.
'In the mean time I remain,
'Your humble servant,
'THOMAS HYDE.'
John Hudson, M.A., of Queen's, afterwards D.D. and Princ. of St. Mary
Hall, was elected in Hyde's room; he was opposed by J. Wallis, M.A., of
Magd., the Laudian Professor of Arabic, but was chosen by 194 votes to
173[161]. A letter to him from Hyde on his election, with advice about
the entering of Sir H. Sloane's books in the Register, the augmentation
of Mr. Crabbe's salary, the Catalogues and the Statutes, is printed in
[Walker's] _Letters by Eminent Persons_, i. 173. He had previously, in
1696-98, given seventy books to the Library, and in 1705-10 he added
nearly 600. Hyde did not long survive his resignation, dying before one
year had elapsed, on Feb. 18, 1702. He was buried at Handborough, near
Oxford.
In this year Thomas Hearne, the famous antiquary, was appointed Janitor,
or Assistant, in the Library. He tells us in his _Autobiography_ (p. 10)
that, from the time of his taking the degree of B.A. in Act term, 1699,
'he constantly went to the Bodleian Library every day, and studied there
as long as the time allowed by the Statutes would admit,' and that the
fact of this his 'diligence being taken notice of by all persons that
came thither, and his skill in books being likewise well known to those
with whom he had at any time conversed,' occasioned Hudson's appointing
him to be an Assistant immediately upon his own election as Librarian.
It appears, from the Visitors' Book, that a payment of £10 was made to
him in this year, and that, in the next year, £30 were voted to him for
his assistance in making an Appendix to the Catalogue of printed
books[162], and for enlarging and correcting the Catalogues of MSS. and
Coins. Extra payments of 50_s._ were also made to him in 1704 and 1706,
and of 20_s._ in 1709.
_The Bodley Speech._ See 1682.
[158] These were left in MS. at Hyde's death, and have never been
published.
[159] _i.e._ the Ashmolean Museum.
[160] Hyde was greatly mistaken here, as a calculation made by Hearne in
1714 (_q.v._) showed that the Library had then little more than doubled
since 1620.
[161] _Reliqq. Hearn._ ii. 616.
[162] For an account of Hearne's Appendix, see 1738.