The older part consists, as will be clear from a glance at the frontispiece, of an H-shaped building, and three sides of a Quadrangle fitted on to it. Readers who have followed the history outlined in preceding chapters will understand that the very cradle of the whole Library lies in the part marked on the plan “Old Reading Room.” That is Sir Thomas Bodley’s own first room, which had been superposed on the Divinity School in the latter part of the fifteenth century, finished in 1480, and taken over in a derelict condition by the Founder. No one can enter the room without a feeling of veneration for its antiquity and associations. The first extension (also in the Founder’s life-time) was the Arts End on the East, matched before the Civil War by the corresponding Selden End on the West. Since all three rooms were on the first-floor level, there is a space below, and a vaulted walk or ambulatory bears up the Arts End, while the Convocation House, built by the University, is under the Selden End. The contents of this triple room on the first floor are chiefly the printed books acquired before 1750, still divided according to the four Faculties—Theology, Medicine, Law and Arts. So firmly fixed are some of these that the present writer, having lost all trace in the General Catalogue of a book to be found under the word _Parantinis_ in the 1605 Catalogue, in despair ordered it by its shelf mark in 1605 (8ᵒ L. 20 Th.), to see what would turn up, and it came. The fittings, ceiling and desks are hardly altered from what Sir Thomas Bodley ordained and saw. America as well as England may claim this heritage, for it presents the same appearance now as it presented years before the Pilgrim Fathers sailed in 1620. [Sidenote: The Bodleian Quadrangle.] The three sides of the School Quadrangle which adjoin the Arts End now contain the most valuable part of the Library. In the Gallery are the Upper Reading Room (with the General Catalogue and the selected periodicals) and the Picture Gallery (with a quarter of a mile of bibliography). On the first-floor on the South side are the chief manuscript collections; on the East side the Bywater, Douce and (north of the Tower) the Oriental MSS, and printed books; on the North side the Malone, Tanner, and Gough books, with all the Bibles. On the ground-floor are placed the Hope Collection of engraved portraits (about 300,000)—which is under separate trustees and is not really Bodleian property—the Music School (containing the printed and manuscript music and, at present, the Backhouse Chinese collection), the Meerman room (with a number of smaller sets of books), the Law Room, the Foreign Periodical Room and the Map Room. [Sidenote: The Camera.]