Library, and, in 1701, by his influence Hearne was made Janitor, or
Assistant, in the Library, succeeding to the post of Second Librarian in
1712. The duties of this appointment he continued to perform until the
23rd of January 1716, the last day fixed by the Act for taking the oaths
to the Hanoverian dynasty. These oaths as a nonjuror he could not
conscientiously take, and he was in consequence deprived of his office
on the ground of 'neglect of duty'; but the Rev. W.D. Macray, in his
_Annals of the Bodleian Library_, tells us that '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, 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.' Hearne continued a staunch nonjuror to the end of his days,
and refused many University appointments, including the Keepership of
the Bodleian Library, which he might have had, had he been willing to
take the oath of allegiance to the government; but he preferred, to use
his own words, 'a good conscience before all manner of preferment and
worldly honour.' The Earl of Oxford offered to make him his librarian on
Wanley's death, but this post he also declined, and continued to reside
to the end of his life at St. Edmund Hall, engaged in preparing and
publishing his various antiquarian and historical works. He died on the
10th of June 1735, and was buried in the churchyard of St.
Peter's-in-the-East at Oxford. Hearne, who was a man of unwearied
industry, and a most devoted antiquary, is described by Pope in the
_Dunciad_, under the title of Wormius--

'But who is he, in closet close ypent,
Of sober face, with learned dust besprent?
Right well mine eyes arede the myster wight,
On parchment scraps y-fed, and Wormius hight.'

[Illustration: _THOMAS HEARNE M.A. of Edmund Hall Oxon._]

Hearne amassed a considerable collection of manuscripts and printed
books, of which he made a catalogue, with the prices he gave for them.
This manuscript came into the possession of Mr. Beriah Botfield, M.P.,
of Norton Hall, Northamptonshire, who privately printed some extracts
from it in 1848.

Hearne left all his manuscripts and books with manuscript notes to Mr.
William Bedford, son of the nonjuring bishop, Hilkiah Bedford, whose
widow sold them to Dr. Richard Rawlinson for one hundred guin