been represented in the library at Clare College, Cambridge. The old
library was a long narrow room over the old chapel, and we know on the
authority of William Cole[338] that it was "fitted up with wainscote
Classes on both sides." These "classes" had been put up shortly before
1627, when the Duke of Buckingham, then Chancellor of the University, was
taken to see them. When this library was pulled down in 1763 they were
removed to the new library which had been fitted up 20 years previously,
and ranged round the room in front of the modern shelves. They are
splendid specimens of carpentry-work, and bear so close a resemblance to
the cases in the library of S. John's College, that it may be assumed that
they were copied from them[339]. When the removal took place they were a
good deal altered, and a few years ago some fragments which had not been
utilised were found in a lumber-closet. One of the standards (fig. 85),
with its brackets, shews that the cases were once fitted with desks, the
removal of which was ingeniously concealed by the insertion of slips of
wood in the style of the older work[340]. I have not been able to discover
any traces of chaining, but as there are a number of seats in the library,
very like those in Corpus Christi College, Oxford, it is more than
probable that chains were once employed.

[Illustration: Fig. 85. Stall-end in the Library of Clare College,
Cambridge.]

The stall-system was not only popular in Oxford itself, but was adopted as
a standard for bookcases, and reproduced elsewhere.

The first example I will cite is at Westminster Abbey[341], where part of
the dorter was fitted up as a library during the years 1623 and 1624 by
John Williams, Bishop of Lincoln and afterwards Archbishop of York, who
was dean of Westminster from 1620 to his death in 1650. In the flowery
rhetoric of his biographer Bishop Hacket:

With the same Generosity and strong propension of mind
to enlarge the Boundaries of Learning, he converted a
wast Room, scituate in the East side of the Cloysters,
into _Plato's_ Portico, into a goodly Library; model'd
it into decent shape, furnished it with Desks and
Chains, accoutred it with all Utensils, and stored it
with a vast Number of Learned Volumes[342].

This library--which has not been materially altered since 1625--occupies
the north end of what was once the dorter. It is 60 feet long, by 33 feet
4 inches broad. There are twelve bookc