'July 19, Died Mr. Joseph Crabb, Under-keeper of the Bodleian Library,
having kept in ever since this day sennight. He died of a rheumatism,
occasion'd by a careless sort of life. He was, however, an honest
harmless man. He was buried on Monday night following (between 7 and 8
o'cl.) in Haly-well Churchyard, very privately. Upon his coffin was
put, _I. C. ag. 38. 1712_; but I heard him say some time since he was 39
years old[173].' He is described in the following caustic terms by Zach.
Conr. Uffenbach, in a letter written in 1713, and printed in his
_Commercium Epistolicum_[174]:--
'Alteri [præfecto Bibliothecæ], nomine Crab, caput vacuum cerebro
est, lepidum alias, dignusque homo quem ridiculo illo encomio, quo
tamen multi serio egregios viros onerarunt, ornetur, vociteturque
Helluo, non librorum tamen sed præmiorum, quæ ab exteris
Bibliothecam hanc invisentibus avide excipit, statimque cauponibus
reddit pro liquore, ad guttur colluendum purgandumque a pulvisculo,
qui librorum tractationem velut umbra aut nebula comitari solet.
Quamvis non ejus, sed tertii infimique Bibliothecarii, hoc sit
muneris, ut libros in loculos reponat, quævis in ordinem redigat
atque emundet.'
The date of Crabb's appointment has not been ascertained, but it must
have been previous to 1699, as on Nov. 8 of that year an order appears
in the Visitors' Book for an extra payment to him of £10[175]; other
additional payments of £5 and 50_s._ are made to him annually until
1710. Two vols. of an index to texts of printed sermons, ending about
the year 1708, (now Bodl. MSS. 47 and 657,) which were, doubtless,
intended to form a continuation of Verneuil's little book, are said in
an old entry in the Catalogue to be by 'Mr. Crabb.' The following brief
account of him is given in Rawlinson's MSS. collections for a
continuation of Wood's _Athenæ_:--
'Joseph Crabb, son of Will. Crabb, clerk, born at Child-Ockford in
Dorsetshire on ---- 1674; educated in grammar learning at ----;
matriculated as a member of Exeter College, 18 July 1691; took the
degree of B.A. 17 Oct. 1695; became Sub-librarian at the public
library; removed to Gloucester Hall, where he became M.A., 4 July
1705, and died ----.'
Rawlinson goes on to attribute to him (as his solitary claim to a place
in the _Athenæ_) a _Poem on the late Storm_, Lond. 1704, fol., but this
was written (as well as a Latin poem _In Georgium reducem_, Lond. 1719,
fol.) by John Crabb, Fellow of Exeter College (B.A., Oct. 15, 1685;
M.A., June 19, 1688), who was also a Sub-librarian at an earlier period,
but the date of whose entrance into office as well as of quittance is
not known. The latter became Rector of Breamore, Hants, in 1709, where
he died in 1748 at the age of eighty-five. He is remarkable for having
married four wives, all of whom lie buried with him in his church. The
third of these, Grace Shuckbridge, became his wife when he was aged
seventy-six and she was forty-nine; the last (who survived until March
13, 1777) was thirty-six when she took him, at the age of eighty-one,
for better or worse. There is a handsome marble tablet to his memory on
the north wall of the Chancel of Breamore Church, bearing the following
inscription, and surmounted by his arms (_scil._, on a field gules a
chevron between two fleur-de-lis above and a crab displayed below or;
crest, a demi-lion rampant or) painted in their proper colours:--
'H. S. E. Reverend. Johan. Crabb, A. M. è Coll. Exon quondam Socius
Oxon., Bibliothecæ Bodleianæ Sub-Librarius, et a sacris olim Episc.
Fowler, hujus Parochiæ Minister residens amplius XXXVIII ann. Vir
doctus, pius, generosus, in Ecclesiâ Orthodoxus, in Republicâ
fidelis, et omnibus liberalis. Author Georgianæ et aliorum Carminum
celebrium latine et anglice, Obiit tandem XIII Id. Martii, Anno
ætat. suæ LXXXV., Æræ Christianæ MDCCXLVIII[176].'
On July 22, Thomas Hearne was appointed Second-keeper by Dr. Hudson, in
the room of Crabb, while still retaining his post as Janitor, 'with
liberty allow'd him of being keeper of the Anatomy schoole, or Bodleian
repository, on purpose to advance the perquisites of the place, which
are very inconsiderable[177],' but with the proviso that the salary of
the janitor's place should go to an assistant officer. By this
arrangement Hearne retained the keys, so that he could go in and out
when he pleased[178].
'Sept. 16, Dr. Hudson told me to-day that some have complain'd that
books in the Publick Library are not so easily come at as usual. I am
glad there is such a complaint. I am afraid the complainers are such as
us'd to steal books from the Library, and, upon that account, are
concern'd that they are more strictly look'd after than formerly[179].'
[173] Hearne's _MS. Diary_, xxxvii. 180.
[174] 1753, p. 182. For the reference to this passage the author is
indebted to Dibdin's _Bibliogr. Decam._ iii. 281. The same volume of
Uffenbach's contains some criticisms on Bernard's Catalogue of the MSS.,
chiefly with relation to the Barocci collection, with extracts from the
additional entries in the Reg. Benef.
[175] This was granted at Hyde's urgent request, 'in regard of his great
pains in entering books in the Catalogue, and of the smallness of his
place.' _Letter from Hyde to Hudson_, in Walker's _Letters_, i. 174.
[176] For the above particulars of John Crabb's history subsequent to
his leaving Oxford the author is indebted to his friend the Rev. J. H.
Blunt, lately the Curate in charge of the parish of Breamore, who
mentions, with reference to Crabb's connubial experiences, the parallel
case of Bishop John Thomas, Bishop of the adjoining diocese of
Salisbury, 1757-61, and afterwards of Winchester. At his fourth wedding
that prelate had the good taste and feeling to present his friends with
memorial rings inscribed with the couplet:--
'If I survive
I'll make them five.'
But the lady did not afford him the wished-for opportunity.
[177] Hearne's _MS. Diary_, xxxvii. 191.
[178] _Life_, 1772, p. 14.
[179] _MS. Diary_, xxxix. 120.