of 53 pieces, without including the
seat of two boards and the two small circular heads in front.

Traces of ancient colour--vermilion and gold--may still be seen in several
of the narrow bands: a complete list of other painted work which has been
recorded or still exists in the cathedral has been compiled by Mr C. E.
Keyser.(6)

*The Cathedral Library.*--The Archive Chamber, on the Library. This room,
which has been restored by Sir G. G. Scott, is now approached by a winding
stone staircase.

In earlier times access was only obtainable either by a draw-bridge or
some other movable appliance crossing the great north window. The Library
(which Botfield(7) calls "a most excellent specimen of a genuine monastic
library") contains about 2000 volumes, including many rare and interesting
manuscripts, most of which are still chained to the shelves. Every chain
is from 3 to 4 feet long, with a ring at each end and a swivel in the
middle. The rings are strung on iron rods secured by metal-work at one end
of the bookcase. There are in this chamber eighty capacious oak cupboards,
which contain the whole of the deeds and documents belonging to the Dean
and Chapter, the accumulation of eight centuries.

[Illustration: THE REREDOS.]

THE REREDOS.

_Photochrom Co., Ld., Photo._

Among the most remarkable printed books are:--A series of Bibles, 1480 to
1690; Caxton's _Legenda Aurea_, 1483; Higden's _Polychronicon_, by Caxton,
1495; Lyndewode, _Super Constitutiones Provinciales,_ 1475; Nonius
Marcellus, _De proprietate sermonum_, 1476, printed at Venice by Nicolas
Jenson; and the _Nuremberg Chronicle_, completed July 1493. Of the
manuscripts, the most interesting is an ancient _Antiphonarium_,
containing the old "Hereford Use." One of the documents attached to this
volume states: "The Dean and Chapter of Hereford purchased this book of Mr
William Hawes at the price of twelve guineas. It was bought by him some
years since at a book-stall in Drury Lane, London, and attracted his
notice from the quantity of music which appeared interspersed in it."

The date of the writing is probably about 1270, the obit of Peter de
Aquablanca being entered in the Kalendar in the hand of the original
scribe and the following obit in another hand.

The oldest of all the treasures preserved at Hereford Cathedral, being
certainly one thousand years old at least, is a Latin version of the Four