Annals of the Bodleian Library, Oxford, A.D. 1598-A.D. 1867 Part 14

'Alteri [praefecto Bibliothecae], nomine Crab, caput vacuum cerebro est, lepidum alias, dignusque h.o.m.o quem ridiculo illo encomio, quo tamen multi serio egregios viros onerarunt, ornetur, vociteturque h.e.l.luo, non librorum tamen sed praemiorum, quae 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, quaevis 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 _Athenae_:--

'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 _Athenae_) 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. e Coll. Exon quondam Socius Oxon., Bibliothecae Bodleianae Sub-Librarius, et a sacris olim Episc.

Fowler, hujus Parochiae Minister residens amplius x.x.xVIII ann. Vir doctus, pius, generosus, in Ecclesia Orthodoxus, in Republica fidelis, et omnibus liberalis. Author Georgianae et aliorum Carminum celebrium latine et anglice, Obiit tandem XIII Id. Martii, Anno aetat. suae Lx.x.xV., aerae Christianae 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 a.s.sistant 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_, x.x.xvii. 180.

[174] 1753, p. 182. For the reference to this pa.s.sage 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_, x.x.xvii. 191.

[178] _Life_, 1772, p. 14.

[179] _MS. Diary_, x.x.xix. 120.

A.D. 1713.

The learned and munificent Narcissus Marsh, Archbishop successively of Cashel, Dublin, and Armagh, on his death, Nov. 2, in this year, bequeathed to the Library a very large and valuable gathering of Oriental MSS., which had been chiefly procured for him in the East by Huntington, and at the sale of Golius' library, at Leyden, in October, 1696, by Bernard. The collection numbers at present 714 volumes, but probably some of these may have been books added for convenience' sake from other sources. Many of them bear the motto of some former owner (_qu._ Golius?), somewhat like in form to Selden's, but better in spirit, 'pa?ta?? t?? a???e?a?.' It is strange that no notice of this liberal gift is found in any of the Library Registers, and it is only from a pa.s.sing mention in Hearne's preface to Camden's _Elizabeth_ (p. lxvi.) that we find it was a death-bed legacy, and consequently learn the date of its acquisition. Hearne there says that the books were placed in the Library 'in tenebris;' and this expression was made one of the subjects of complaint against him when prosecuted in 1718 in the Vice-Chancellor's court on account of that preface. He then replied that the expression was correct, for that they were placed in a dark corner to which access was only had through a trap-door, but that he himself had put them there for want of a better place. He had wished to deposit them in one of the rooms in the Picture Gallery, but Dr. Hudson kept that for his own purposes[180].

At this period every stranger admitted to read in the Library had to pay nine shillings in fees, of which 1_s._ went to the Head Librarian, 3_s._ 6_d._ to the Second Librarian, 1_s._ 6_d._ to the Janitor, 2_s._ to the Registrar (for an order for admission, but in the Long Vacation this fee went to the Second Librarian), and 1_s._ to the Proctor's man[181]. In 1720 the fee to be received from every visitor not qualified to read was fixed at one penny, to be paid to a porter who was then first appointed to the charge of the Picture Gallery. It subsequently rose by a silent custom to the large sum of a shilling; but some few years ago the Curators fixed the charge to visitors at threepence each, unless accompanied, and in consequence _franked_, by some member of the University in his academic dress. Since this moderate sum has been fixed, the number of ordinary sight-seeing visitors has, naturally, much increased[182].

The suppression, by an order of the Heads of Houses, dated March 23, 1712/3, of Hearne's edition of Dodwell's tract _De Parma Equestri Woodwardiana_, was attributed by Hearne himself to (as the remote occasion) an incident connected with his office in the Library, which is related very fully by himself in vol. xliv. of his _MS. Diary_. On Feb.

20, Mr. Keil, the Savilian Professor of Geometry, brought to the Library an Irish gentleman named Mollineux, recommended by Sir Andrew Fountaine, to whom he requested Hearne to show the curiosities of the place. As Keil was 'a very honest gentleman,' Hearne little suspected that his friend was possessed with the 'republican ill principles' and 'malignant temper' of Whiggism, and consequently was not very guarded in his talk.

After showing him various MSS. and coins, he took the visitor into the Anatomy School[183], where all kinds of odds and ends were preserved; amongst which was (as Hearne gravely notes in another place) a calf which, being born in the year of the Union, 1707, had (it is to be presumed in consequence thereof) two bodies and one head. What followed during the exhibition of this museum is worth relating in the diarist's own words:--

'I mentioned a picture engraved and hanging there with horns and wings, and underneath, _uxor ejus ad vivum pinxil_. This picture many had said was Benjamin Hoadley, the seditious divine of London; but, for my part, I gave no other description of it than this, that 'twas the picture of one of the greatest Presbyterian, republican, antimonarchical, Whiggish, fanatical preachers living in England.

And this description was enough to exasperate him. And yet, for all that, he did not discover any pa.s.sion, nor give the least hint that he was a Whig himself. Neither did he give any hint of it afterwards till I came to mention a tobacco stopper tipped with silver, and given to me by a reverend divine, who had informed me that it was made out of an oak that lately grew in St. James's Park, but was destroyed by the D. of M. for the great house he was building near St. James's, and that the said oak came from an acorn that was planted there by King Charles II, being one of those acorns that he had gathered in the Royal Oak, where he was forced to shelter himself from the fury of the rebells after the fight at Worcester.

Mr. Mollineux was at the other end of the room when this was shew'd, and the said story told; but hearing it he comes immediately to the tables, and expresses himself in words of this kind, viz. _that 'twas a bawble, and that an hundred such things were not worth the seeing_. Mr. Keil however thought otherwise, and said that he thought my collection was better than that in the Laboratory. Some mirth pa.s.sing after this, I went on with my description, and had not yet formed an opinion that Mr. Mollineux was a Whig; but finding that he was still inquisitive after other curiosities, and that he pretended to much skill in good ingraving and drawing, I produced the picture of a beautifull young man, over the head of which was ???O? ??S?????, and underneath, _Quid quaeritis ultra?_ I did not tell them whose picture it was, but said that I shew'd it them as a thing excellently well done, which they all allow'd and view'd it over and over, and seemed to be mightily taken with it, and Mr.

Mollineux in particular was pleased to say that 'twas admirably well done, and deserved a place amongst the most exquisite performances of this kind, at the same time asking how long I had had it, and whose picture I took it to be. To the former of which questions I reply'd, about a quarter of a year, to the latter that I did not pretend to tell who it was designed for. Yet Mr. Keil was pleased to laugh, and to tell Mr. Mollineux, _They are all rebells, Mr.

Mollineux, they are all rebells in this place_, speaking these words in a merry joking way, and not with any intent to do me an injury.

Mr. Mollineux took the words upon the picture down, which I did not deny him, not thinking that 'twas with a design to inform against me, as it afterwards proved. Yet from this time I began a little to suspect his integrity, and that he was not one of those good men I expected from Mr. Keil, whom I had always found to be a man of honesty.'

_Hinc illae lachrymae!_ Poor Hearne was reported to Dr. Charlett the same afternoon for showing the Pretender's Picture; a meeting of the Curators of the Library was threatened; but eventually the matter seemed to pa.s.s over by his being desired by the Vice-Chancellor to give up the key of the Anatomy School, in order that the determining Bachelors might meet there, by which change Hearne was mulcted of the fees which he obtained for showing the room, and was sometimes detained one hour, or two, later than usual in order to see to the locking up of the staircase on which it is situated. On March 23, however, he was summoned before the Heads of Houses for remarks made in his preface to Dodwell's above-mentioned tract, and, after a sharp discussion, in which reference was made to his exhibition of the portraits, he was ordered to suppress his preface, and re-issue the book without it; to which he consented. He was pressed to make a formal retractation of the pa.s.sages to which objection was made, but this he stiffly refused to do. He says in a letter to Sir Philip Sydenham that the only form of retractation or expression of sorrow he could have been prevailed on to sign (strongly resembling the famous apology of a middy to an insulted naval surgeon) would have been some such form as this:--'I, Thomas Hearne, A.M., of the University of Oxford, having ever since my matriculation followed my studies with as much application as I have been capable of, and having published several books for the honour and credit of learning, and particularly for the reputation of the foresaid University, am very sorry that by my declining to say anything but what I knew to be true in any of my writings, and especially in the last book I published, int.i.tuled, _Henrici Dodwelli de Parma Equestri Woodwardiana Dissertatio, &c_, I should incurr the displeasure of any of the Heads of Houses, and as a token of my sorrow for their being offended at truth, I subscribe my name to this paper, and permitt them to make what use of it they please[184].'

[180] Hearne's _MS. Diary_, vol. lxxi. May 20.

[181] _Ibid._ vol. xlvii. p. 89.

[182] In an account of a visit to Oxford by an American tourist, which appeared very recently in the _New York Times_, and was copied into English journals, written with the warm-hearted tone of one who could rightly appreciate the interest of the place, although (like most Transatlantic visitors) he spent but twenty-four hours in it, the following comment is made upon the smallness of this Bodleian fee:--'The gentleman [_i.e._ the present Janitor, Mr. John Norris] who showed me through this n.o.ble collection, and gave me the most interesting explanations, politely informed me that the charge was 3_d._ It went against my conscience to give a gentleman of his civility and erudition the price of a pot of beer, and I added a small testimonial, for which he seemed more than sufficiently grateful.'

[183] This was the room which is now attached to the Library under the name of the _Auctarium_.

[184] Hearne's _MS. Diary_, xlviii. 22. The retractation and apology which Hearne afterwards actually submitted to the Vice-Chancellor in court in 1718, when in trouble again for his preface to Camden's Elizabeth, was very similar in style to this. But he was not allowed to read it. _Ibid._ lxxi. 3 May.

A.D. 1714.

An evidence of the increased intercourse which sprang up between Denmark and England, in consequence of the marriage of Queen Anne, is probably to be found in the number of Danish readers who frequented the Library in the interval between her marriage and her death. Between the years 1683 and 1714, forty-nine Danes are entered in the _Liber Admissorum_, besides many from Sweden, Norway, and the North of Germany. The total number of foreigners admitted within the same period was no less than 244.

'In the year 1714 were in the Bodleian Library:--

30169 pr. vols.

05916 MSS. vols.

----- In all 36085.'

(Hearne's _MS. Diary_, vol. xci. p. 256.)

It is strange that, notwithstanding Selden's and Laud's large additions, the Library had therefore very little more than doubled since 1620.

It is recorded in vol. li. of the same Diary (p. 187) that the old series of portraits which were painted on the wall of the Picture Gallery was renewed in November of this year. These portraits, amounting in number to about 222, ran round the gallery, immediately under the roof; many of them were fancy-heads of ancient philosophers and writers, but besides these there were some real portraits of English writers and divines, up to the time of James I. A list of the whole series, as well as of the oil paintings in the Gallery, was printed by Hearne together with his _Letter containing an Account of some Antiquities between Windsor and Oxford_. Of the renovation of the wall-paintings he thus speaks in his preface to _Rossi Historia Regum Angliae_ (1716): 'Non possim quin bibliothecae Bodleianae Curatores laudem, qui pictori Academico [_i.e._ Wildgoose] in mandatis dederunt, ut veteres effigies renovet nitorique pristino rest.i.tuat: quippe quas eo pluris aestimendas esse censeo, quod eas in galeria depingendas jusserit ipse Bodleius, Loci Genius.' When the Gallery was re-roofed in 1831, all these paintings were, however, removed [_see_ p. 15].

About the end of this year the Arundel Marbles, which, strange to say, had been exposed to the open air within the quadrangle of the Schools ever since they were given to the University, were removed into one of the rooms on the ground-floor, where they still remain. It was said that they had suffered more 'since they were exposed to our air, than they did in many hundred years before they came into it[185].' But the influence of the air was not all they had to contend against, for Hearne tells us that the defacing of the Marble Chronicle (of which there are portions that were read by Selden, which now can no longer be read at all) and some others, was owing not merely to exposure to the weather, but 'to the abuses of children who are continually playing in the area, and of other ignorant persons[186].'

[185] _Letters by Eminent Persons_, 1813, vol. i. p. 297.

[186] _Letters by Eminent Persons_, 1813, vol. i. p. 204.

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 concern[187].'

At the visitation on Nov. 8, the Curators pa.s.sed 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.