always command admiration."

He classes it with the libraries at Oxford of Corpus, St. John's,
Jesus, and Magdalen, and he regretfully adds that no college library
in his own University has retained the same old features as these
have done. But none of the four can compare with Merton, either in
antiquarian interest or in picturesqueness; it stands in a class by
itself.

The Library was built by the munificence of Bishop Reed of Chichester
between 1377 and 1379; the dormer windows, however (seen in Plate
VII), are later in date. The bookcases in the larger room were made
in 1623; one of the original half cases, however, was spared, that
nearest to the entrance on the north side, and this is the most
interesting single feature in the whole library. It need hardly be
said that the reading-desk in early times was actually attached to
the bookcase; the library then was a place to read in, not one from
which books were taken to be read. The books were to be kept "in some
common and secure place," and they were "chained in the library
chamber for the common use of the fellows" (J. W. Clark).

The old case that has been retained still has its chained books, and
traces of the arrangement for chains can be seen in the other cases.
Merton was one of the last libraries in Oxford to keep its books in
chains; these were only removed in 1792; in the Bodleian the work had
been begun a generation earlier (in 1757).

Not all books, however, were chained; by special arrangements in old
college statutes, some of them were allowed out to the fellows. The
register of Merton contains interesting entries as to how the books