A Bodleian Guide for Visitors Author:Andrew Clark Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II THE INTERIOR OF THE LIBRARY Having thus viewed what is to be seen outside, we must next make our way within, to complete our survey of the Libra... more »ry. We return, therefore, to the Great Quadrangle of the Schools, where, in the south-west corner, appears a square doorway under the superscription:— BIBLIOTHECA BODLEIANA SCHOLA VETUS MEDICINAE signifying that it leads to the old School of Medicine (otherwise called, of Anatomy), and to the Bodleian Library. The Staircase. Entering this doorway we find thirteen flights of five steps, sixty-five steps in all, leading upwards. As we ascend, we perceive that the staircase here was an afterthought, built on to the wall of the Library already completed, the panelling of which confronts us at every other flight. As a matter offact, the original entrance was, as we have seen (p. 28), at the opposite end of the Library. We perceive also that the designer of this staircase made due provision for the shaky limbs and wheezing breath of aged seekers after knowledge, in the shape of frequent restful seats on window-ledge and in stair-corner. Seven flights, thirty-five steps, bring us to the closed door of the Anatomy School (p. 71); six others, thirty steps, to the threshold of Bodley itself. But before we get there, we are met, at the last flights, by outfliers of the Picture Gallery and the Library. Conspicuous among these are a quaint view of the great monastery of Mount Athos in North Greece, with its monks at their garden and other work, and a large portrait of King George IV. Readers of The Four Georges may marvel that the subject of Thackeray's bitter invective should hold place of honour here, as a tutelary genius of this home of learning. But hold it he does; and by the best of titles, as a considerable benefa...« less