Part 14 (1/2)
'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 Dorsets.h.i.+re 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 s.h.i.+llings 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 s.h.i.+lling; 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.