1855, the commodious building which it now occupies was erected, the Society taking possession in May, 1856.  Many features of the Society Library are unique, to be met with, perhaps, in no other organization of the kind in the world.  Many of its members hold shares that have descended to them from father to son from the time of the first founders.  The annual dues are placed at such a figure (ten dollars) as practically to debar people with slender purses.  The scholar, however, may have the range of its treasures on paying a fee of twenty-five cents, and the stranger may enjoy the use of the library for one month on being introduced by a member.  The market value of a share is now one hundred and fifty dollars, with the annual dues of ten dollars commuted, but shares may be purchased for twenty-five dollars, subject to the annual dues.  The library proper occupies the whole of the second floor.  On the first floor, besides the large hall, is a well-lighted drawing-room, filled with periodicals in all languages, a ladies’ parlor, and a conversation-room.  The library-room is a large, airy, well-lighted apartment, with a series of artistic alcoves ranged about two of its sides.  Here are to be found the Winthrop Collection, comprising some three hundred curious and ancient tomes, chiefly in Latin, which formed a part of the library of John Winthrop, “the founder of Connecticut,” the De Peyster Alcove, containing one thousand volumes, very full in special subjects, the Hammond Library, collected by a Newport scholar, comprising some eighteen hundred quaint and curious volumes, and a collection of over six hundred rare and costly works on art contained in the John C. Green Alcove.  This last alcove, which was fitted up and presented to the library by Mr. Robert Lenox Kennedy as a memorial of Mr. and Mrs. John C. Green, benefactors of the Society, is an artistic gem.  The sides and ceilings are finished in hard woods by Marcotte, after designs by the architect, Sidney Stratton.  Opposite the entrance is a memorial window, its centre-pin representing two female figures,—­Knowledge and Prudence,—­with the four great poets, Homer, Virgil, Dante, and Chaucer, in the corners.  On the east wall is a portrait of Mr. Green by Madrazo, and on the west a tablet with an inscription informing the visitor that, the library having received a donation of fifty thousand dollars from the estate of John Cleve Green, the trustees had placed the tablet as a memento of this munificence.  There are books in this alcove not to be duplicated in European libraries.  A work on Russian antiquities, for instance, containing beautifully-colored lithographs of the Russian crown-jewels, royal robes, ecclesiastical vestments, and the like, cannot be found, it is said, either in Paris or London.  The scope of the collection may be seen by a glance at the catalogue, whose departments embrace architecture, art-study, anatomy, biography, book-illustration, cathedrals and churches, costumes, decorative, domestic, and industrial art, heraldry, painting, and picturesque art.