Springtime and Other Essays. Sir Francis Darwin
books or persons of note; but he was wise enough to include what a pompous editor would have omitted as trifling. It is these which are especially valuable to one who tries to give a picture of Hearne’s simple and lovable character.
The following account of Thomas Hearne, written by himself, is from the Appendix to vol. i. of The Lives of John Leland, Thomas Hearne, and Anthony à Wood, 1772. [29b]
Thomas was the son of George Hearne, Parish Clerk of White Waltham, Berks. He was born at Littlefield Green “within the said parish of White Waltham.” Thomas, “being naturally inclined to Learning, he soon became Master of the English Tongue.” [30a]
Even when a boy Hearne was “much talked of,” and this “occasioned that Learned Gentleman, Francis Cherry, [30b] Esq., to put him to the Free School of Bray [30c] in Berks on purpose to learn the Latin Tongue, which his Father was not entirely Master of; this was about the beginning of the year 1693.” “Not only the Master himself, but all the other Boys had a very particular Respect for him, and could not but admire and applaud his Industry and Application.
“Mr. Cherry being fully satisfied of the great and surprising Progress he had made, by the advice of that good and learned Man Mr. Dodwell (who then lived at Shottesbrooke), he resolved to take him into his own House, which accordingly he did about Easter in 1795 [31] and provided for him as if he had been his own Son.”
In the Easter Term 1696 he began life at Oxford as a Batteler of Edmund Hall, where he was soon employed by the Principal in the “learned Works in which he was engaged.”
“As soon as ever Mr. Hearne had taken the Degree of Batchelor of Arts [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.”
This led to his being appointed Assistant Keeper of the Bodleian.
“Being settled in this employment, it is incredible what Pains he took in regulating the Library, in order to which he examined all the printed Books in it, comparing every Volume with Catalogue set out many years before by Dr. Hyde.” It seems that this was very imperfect, and Hearne supplied a new catalogue. He afterwards dealt with the MSS. and the collection of coins.
In 1703 he took his M.A., and was offered Chaplaincies at two Colleges, but was not allowed to accept either of them. In 1712 he became “Second Keeper” of the Library. This position he accepted on condition that he might still be Janitor without the salary attaching to that position. He desired to retain the office because it gave him access to the Library at all hours. In 1713 he declined the Librarianship of the Royal Society.
In January 1714/15 his troubles began with his election as “Architypographus and Superior or Esque Beadle in Civil Law.” But after he had been elected, the Vice-Chancellor appointed, as Architypographus, a common printer, and Hearne resigned the Beadleship, but “continued to execute the office of librarian as long as he could obtain access to the library; but on 23rd January 1716, the last day fixed by the new Act for taking the oaths to the Hanoverian Dynasty, he was actually prevented from entering the library, and soon after formally deprived of his office on the ground of ‘neglect of duty’ ” (Dict. Nat. Biog.).
It is not necessary to follow in detail the ill-usage he received. He was afterwards treated with more consideration. Thus in 1720 it appears that he might have had the Camden Professorship of History, but again the oaths stood in his way. He also declined the living of Bletchley in Buckinghamshire. In 1729 he refused to be a candidate for the place of Chief Keeper of the Bodleian Library. In his own words “he retired to Edmund-Hall, and lived there very privately … furnishing himself with Books, partly from his Study, and partly by the help of friends.”
It is evident that his literary work was well remunerated, because a “sum of money amounting to upwards of one thousand Pounds was found in his Room after his decease.” This statement, together with the date of his death (10th June 1735), are clearly part of the design to conceal the authorship of the biography.
In the following pages I have chosen what seem to me to be interesting extracts from Hearne’s Diary, which begins 4th July 1705, and concludes 1st June 1735. I shall give what especially illustrates the conditions of life at Oxford from the beginning of the eighteenth century until the date of the author’s death.
There was plenty of barbarism remaining in Oxford life, for instance, 4th September 1705:—
“The Book called The Memorial was burnt last Saturday at the Sessions house, by the hands of the common hang-man, and this week the same will be done at the Royal Exchange and Palace-Yard, Westminster.” In the same month, however, we find pleasanter record, e.g., the first mention of one who (though I think they never met) became his most valued correspondent.
“Last night I was with Mr. Wotton (who writ the Essay on Ancient and Modern Learning) at the tavern. … Mr. Wotton told me Mr. Baker of St. John’s College, Cambridge, had writ the history and antiquities of that college; and that he is in every way qualified (being a very industrious and judicious man) to write the hist. and antiq. of that university.”
Thomas Baker, b. 1656, d. 1740, was a Fellow of St. John’s College, Cambridge, but on the accession of George I. he would not take the oath of allegiance and lost his Fellowship. The College, however, treated him with consideration and he was allowed to remain as a commoner-master until his death. He worked indefatigably, and gained the deserved “reputation of being inferior to no living English scholar in his minute and extended acquaintance with the antiquities of our national history” (Dict. Nat. Biog.).
There is often a pleasant irrelevance in Hearne’s Diary. For instance:—
18th Oct. 1705.—“Mr. Lesley was in the public library this afternoon, with some Irish ladies. He goes under the name of Smith.”
I like the following outburst on the value of books:—
2nd Nov. 1705.—“Narcissus March, Archbishop of Armagh, gave 2500 libs for Bishop Stillingfleet’s library which, like that of Dr. Isaac Vossius, was suffered to go out of the nation to the eternal scandal and reproach of it. The said archbishop has built a noble repository for them.”
6th Nov. 1705.—“Mr. Pullen, of Magd. hall, last night told me that there was once a very remarkable stone in Magd. hall library, which was afterwards lent to Dr. Plot, who never returned it, replying, when he was asked for it, that ’twas a rule amongst antiquaries to receive, and never restore.”
This was the more reprehensible in Dr. Plot (1640–1696) inasmuch as he had been bred at Magdalen Hall. He was the author of A Natural History of Oxfordshire, and also of Staffordshire. The latter is apparently the better of the two, but it does not speak well for his sources of information that it should have been “a boast among the Staffordshire squires, to whom he addressed his enquiries, how readily they had ‘humbugged old Plot.’ ” He was appointed Secretary to the Royal Society in 1682. He was also the first custos of Ashmole’s Museum, which could not have been an easy office since “twelve cartloads of Trades cant’s rarities” arrived in Oxford to form its nucleus. (Dict. Nat. Biog.).
18th Nov. 1705.—“When sir Godfrey Kneller (as Dr. Hudson informs me) came to Oxon, by Mr. Pepys’s order, to draw Dr. Wallis’s picture, he, at dinner with Dr. Wallis, was pleased to say, upon the Dr’s questioning the legitimacy of the prince of Wales, that he did not in the least doubt but he was the son of King James and queen Mary; and to evince this he added, that upon the sight of the picture of the prince of Wales, sent from Paris into England, he was fully satisfied of what others seemed to doubt so much. For, as he further said, he had manifest lines and features of both in their faces, which he knew very well, having drawn them both several times.”
18th Nov. 1705.—“After Mr. Walker was turned out of University coll. for being a papist, he lived obscurely in London, his chief maintenance being from the contributions of some of his old friends and acquaintance; amongst whom was Dr. Radcliff, who (out of a grateful remembrance of favours received from