Arms in the window. See [1610].
[193] Hearne's Diary, lix. 141; Reliqq. Hearn. i. 366.
A.D. 1718.
One Mr. Hutton appears to have been employed in the Library during this year. It seems, from a passage in a letter of
C. Wheatly's, printed in Letters by Eminent Persons, ii. 116, that the learned commentator Samuel Parker, son of the Bishop of Oxford, was also at some time employed in the Library; for Wheatly expresses a wish that S. Parker's son, then (1739) an apprentice to Mr. Clements the bookseller, might, if the accounts of his extraordinary proficiency be true, be placed 'in his father's seat, the Bodleian Library.' As Parker was a non-juror, his employment must doubtless have been at some earlier period than this, but his name is not met with in any of the old Account-books or Registers. One Thomas Parker occurs in the Library accounts in 1766 and in 1772.
A.D. 1719.
Dr. Hudson died, on Nov. 27, of dropsy. And at one o'clock on the afternoon of the very next day, Joseph Bowles, M.A., of Oriel College, was elected in his room.
The bitter terms in which Hearne frequently, in the course of his Diary, condemns Hudson's management, or rather mismanagement, of the Library, may be supposed to be owing in a considerable degree to personal pique and quarrel[194]. But they meet with very singular and abundant confirmation in the letter of Z. C. Uffenbach, quoted above (p. 130), when the writer expresses, in the following strong language, his opinion of Hudson's neglect and incapacity, and of the general condition of the Library under his management:—
'Perpende, quæso, mecum, vir eruditissime, quantus thesaurus ex solius Bodleianæ Bibliothecæ codicibus elici possit, nisi Proto-Bibliothecarii Hudson negligentia ac pertinacia obstaret. Is enim muneri abunde satisfecisse, imo eximie ornasse Spartam videri vult, dum tot annis unico scriptori, Thucydidem ejus puto, omni
Bibliothecæ cura plane abjecta, insudavit, cum hoc, quod supra dixi, potius agendum fuisset. Nefandam hujus insignis Bibliothecæ sortem (ignosce justæ indignationi) satis deplorare nequeo. Inculta plane jacet, nemo ferme tanto thesauro uti, frui, gestit. Singulis sane diebus per trium mensium spatium illam frequentavi, sed, ita me dii ament, nunquam tot una vice homines in illa vidi quot numero sunt Musæ, vel saltem artes liberales. De librorum studiosis loquor; nam puerorum, muliercularum, rusticorum, hinc inde cursitantium, voluminumque multitudinem per transennas spectantium mirantiumque, cœtum excipio.... De Proto-bibliothecarii incuria jam dixi, ejusque stupendam in historia literaria librariaque, inprimis extra Insulam ultraque maria, ignorantiam taceo.'