Mr. Bowles, the Librarian, died at Shaftesbury, the place of his birth, and was buried there on Nov. 25. On Dec. 2, Mr. Robert Fysher, B.M., Fellow of Oriel College, was elected his successor by 100 votes to 85 over Francis Wise, the Under-librarian. Mr. John Bilstone, M.A., Chaplain of All Souls' and Janitor of the Library, was also a candidate, but retired before the election, in the hope of securing Wise's return. As Wise held Hearne's old place, and was regarded by him as an usurper, and as Bilstone held in his possession the new keys which Bowles originally procured to render Hearne's old ones useless, the latter consequently regarded them both with great disfavour, and rejoiced greatly at the result of the election. His account of it is printed in the Reliqq. Hearn. vol. ii. p. 712.

Forty-two MS. volumes came to the Library by the bequest of the widow of Mr. Francis Cherry, of Shottesbrooke, Berks, the early patron and constant friend of Hearne[199]. Cherry himself

died Sept. 23, 1713, and Hearne says that he had intended to give his MSS. to his old protégée. They are not, for the most part, of very great value, but among them are various volumes by Dodwell; and a book written and bound by Q. Eliz. is described above, under the year 1628. Hearne was greatly annoyed at a paper of his own, containing reasons for taking the oath of allegiance, which he had written in 1700, coming into the Library amongst these books; he endeavoured in vain (although now in these days his legal right would be at once recognized) to recover it, and it was published, to his still greater annoyance, by the Whigs, under the editorship of Mr. Bilstone, the janitor. An account of Hearne's endeavours to regain it, together with a notice of Mrs. Cherry's bequest and of the MSS., is to be found in Dr. Bliss' Appendix to his Reliqq. Hearn. ii. 899-906.

In the Register of Readers admitted by favour occurs, under date of April 19, the name of 'C. Wesley, Ædis Xti alumn.,' written in a neat and clear hand. The name of his great brother is not found in any register extending over the period of his stay in Oxford. At this time the Library appears to have been almost entirely forsaken. Between 1730-1740 it rarely happens that above one or two books are registered to readers in a day, while often for whole days together not a single entry occurs; and since, in the register for this period, the books are noted down by three hands, it can hardly be possible that the blanks are due to the negligence of librarians (as might have been supposed were the same handwriting found throughout) rather than to the lack of students.

[199] In the Benefaction Register they are erroneously entered as coming by the bequest of Mr. Cherry himself.

A.D. 1735.

On the death of Hearne (June 10, 1735) fifteen of the MSS. of Thomas Smith, D.D., of Magdalen College, the well-known and learned non-juror, came to the Library, Smith having bequeathed

them to Hearne on this condition. With them came also copies of Camden's Britannia and Annales Eliz., with MSS. notes by their author. The rest of Smith's MSS. appear to have come to the Library together with the mass of Hearne's collections, included in Rawlinson's bequest in 1755. They amount altogether to 138 thin volumes, containing notes, extracts and letters on all kinds of subjects. There is a very full written catalogue of their contents, in two volumes. Three Greek MSS. were given by Smith himself on his return from his travels in the East about 1681.

A.D. 1736.

The Library was enriched with the collections of the well-known antiquary, Thomas Tanner, Bishop of St. Asaph, who died on Dec. 14, in the preceding year. By his will, dated Nov. 22, 1733, he bequeathed his MSS. to the Library together with such printed books, not already there, as the Curators and Library-keeper should think fit to accept. But he directed his executor to burn all his sermon-notes, 'and other little pieces and attempts in divinity,' as well as all his own private papers and letters. The largest portion of his MSS. (nearly 300 volumes out of 467) consists of the papers which he himself says he 'bought of Archbishop Sancroft's executors,' but which it is said in the Gent. Mag. for 1782 (cited by Gough in his British Topography, i. 126) he bought for eighty guineas of the bookseller Bateman, to whom Sancroft's executors had sold them[200]. Together with these, and perhaps not now to be distinguished, are some of the collections of Dr. Nalson between 1640 and 1660. To the latter a claim was made through Archdeacon Knight, in 1737, by Dr. Williams of St. John's College, as grandson of Nalson; but the Bishop's brother replied (as we learn from a copy of his answer and of another letter written by