[488] Eton College Minute Book, 19 December, 1719. [489] Macray, _ut supra_, p. 86. The inconvenience of chaining had long been felt for in _The Foreigner's Companion through the Universities_, by Mr Salmon, 1748, it is objected that "the books being chain'd down, there is no bringing them together even in the Library," p. 27. [490] King's College Mundum Book, 1777: _Smith's work_. "To a man's time 9 Dayes to take the Chains of the books L1. 7_s._ 0_d._" [491] Churton's _Lives of Smyth and Sutton_, p. 311, _note_. [492] Henderson's _History_, p. 237. [493] _Voy. Litt._, ed. 1724, Vol. III. p. 24. CHAPTER VIII. THE WALL-SYSTEM. THIS BEGAN ON THE CONTINENT. LIBRARY OF THE ESCORIAL. AMBROSIAN LIBRARY AT MILAN. LIBRARY OF CARDINAL MAZARIN. BODLEIAN LIBRARY AT OXFORD. WORKS AND INFLUENCE OF WREN. FRENCH CONVENTUAL LIBRARIES OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. While in England we were struggling with the difficulties of adapting medieval forms of libraries and bookcases to the ever-increasing number of volumes, a new system was initiated on the continent, which I propose to call the wall-system. It seems so natural to us to set our bookshelves against a wall instead of at right angles to it, that it is difficult to realize that there was a time when such an arrangement was an innovation. Such however was the case. I believe that this principle was first introduced into a library at the Escorial, which Philip the Second of Spain began in 1563, and completed 13 September, 1584. I do not mean by this sentence that nobody ever set bookshelves against a wall before the third quarter of the sixteenth century. I have shewn above, when discussing the catalogue of Dover Priory[494], that the books stood on pieces of furniture which were probably so treated; and it is not uncommon in illuminated manuscripts to see a writer's books standing on one or more shelves set against the wall near his desk. Further, in the accounts of the library arranged in the Vatican by Sixtus IV., shelves set against the wall of one of the four rooms are specially mentioned[495]; and in the description of the library of the Dukes of Urbino, it is expressly stated that "the shelves for the books are set against the walls (_le scanzie de' libri sono accostate alle mura_)[496]." What I wish to enforce is that before the Escorial was built, no important library was fitted up in that manner from the beginning by the architect. [Illustration: Fig. 118. Bookcases in the Library of the Escorial on an enlarged scale.] [Illustration: Fig. 117. General view of the Library of the Escorial, looking north.]