At the visitation on Nov. 8, the Curators passed a resolution that the places of Under-librarian and Bedel were inconsistent, and that on S. Thomas' day Hudson should be at liberty to appoint some other person to Hearne's office. Hereupon Hearne immediately, without a moment's delay, resigned both the offices of Architypographus and Superior Bedel of Civil Law, and claimed to remain in the Library; but Hudson had fresh locks put on the doors, of which Bowles kept the keys, so that Hearne was unable to go in and out as before. However, he continued to execute his office whenever the Library was open until Jan. 23, 1716, when the Act which imposed a fine of £500, with other penalties, upon any one who held any public office without having taken the Oaths, came into operation. Then at once, all worldly interests, all affection for the old place of his studies and his care, gave way to the honest and unwavering dictates of his conscience; the Non-juror withdrew, and, with singularly hard measure, in spite of his representations, his place was ordered by the Curators to be filled up at Lady-Day, not on the ground of his own retirement, but on that of _neglect of duty_! His successor was Rev. John Fletcher, M.A., Chaplain, and afterwards Fellow, of Queen's College. Hearne states that his salary was, with great unfairness, withheld from him for the whole half-year preceding Lady-Day, together with some fees which were due[188]. But 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[189], 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. On Hearne's announcing John Ross's _Historia Angliæ_ for publication in this year, W. Whiston forwarded to him a MS. of a Latin historical poem entitled _Britannica_, written in 1606 by an author of the same names as the forth-coming historian, with the following note inserted:-- 'This book was written, as I think, by my great uncle, Mr. John Rosse, rector of Norton-juxta-Twycross in Leicestershire, where I was myself born. If it may be of any use to Mr. Hern at Oxford in his intended edition of this or some other work of the same author now advertis'd, or may be thought worthy of a place in the publick library of that University, it is hereby freely given thereto by 'WILLIAM WHISTON. '_London, December 12, 1715._' Hearne adds that (of course) the author was altogether different from the Ross of his editing, and that the poem had been printed at Frankfort in 1607, as he learned from a MS. Catalogue of Mr. Richard Smith's books lent him by Bp. Fleetwood of Ely[190]. The MS. is now numbered, Bodley 573.