At the end of the corridor a heavy oaken door admits you to the reading-room, a large square antique chamber, with arched ceiling and panelled walls, and a deeply-recessed oriel opposite the door, that by the very cosiness of its appearance lures you to stay and drink “at the pure well of English undefiled.” In the window lighting this pleasant secluded nook is a shield on which the arms of the benevolent Chetham are depicted in coloured glass—arms that gave him much trouble to obtain, and the cost of which led him to facetiously remark that they were not depicted in such good metal as that in which payment for them was made, to which Lightbowne, his attorney, assented, sagely observing, “there is soe much difference betwixt Paynter’s Gould and Current Coyne,” a conclusion the correctness of which we will not stay to dispute. No doubt it was the thought that he had “paid for his whistle” that led the careful old merchant to adopt the suggestive motto, “_Quod tuum tene_.” The furniture corresponds with the ancient character of the room. In one corner is a carved oak buffet of ancient date, with a raised inscription, setting forth that it was the gift of Humphrey Chetham. There are ponderous chairs, with leather-padded backs, studded with brass nails; and still more ponderous tables, one of which we are gravely assured contains as many pieces as there are days in the year. Over the fireplace, surmounted by his coat of arms, is a portrait of the grave-visaged but large-hearted founder, with pillars on each side, resting on books, and crowned with antique lamps, suggestive of the founder’s desire to diffuse wisdom and happiness by the light of knowledge; and, flanking them, on one side is a pelican feeding its young with its own blood, and on the other the veritable wooden cock already mentioned; antique mirrors are affixed to the panelling; and dingy-looking portraits of Lancashire worthies gaze at you from the walls—Nowell and Whitaker, and Bolton and Bradford, with men who have reflected lustre upon the county in more recent times, not the least interesting being the two portraits lately added of the venerable president of the Chetham Society, and that indefatigable bibliopole, the late librarian, Mr. Jones.