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 concern[187].'
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 due[188]. 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, 1735[189], 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 Ely[190]. 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 MSS[191].
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 antiquary[192].
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 15_s._ 6_d._,
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.
[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.