Page:A tour through the northern counties of England, and the borders of Scotland - Volume II.djvu/17

 and agreeable garden-ground; around them, contribute to the health and pleasure of the inhabitants of the town, whose amusements are diversified by balls and races. And a general taste for reading, and an increase of literary information are diffused over it, by means of a good public library, well stocked with books, and liberally supported: a very desirable institution in every large and money-getting town, not only on account of the gradual growth of knowledge that results from it, but also of that extension of urbanity, liberality, and softness of manners, which are ever found to accompany a taste for letters; the best corrector of the pride of the purse, and the scornful reproof of the wealthy.

Of the other public buildings, the most remarkable are the—Exchange, and St. Nicholas's church; the former presenting a good front towards the river, of the architecture of James 1st's time, the other affording in its tower a specimen of singular and beautiful masonry. From each of the pinnacled corners of the square of this tower springs a rib or section of an arch, meeting a similar one which rises from the opposite angle in the centre, where the four unite, and support a beautiful open lanthorn, with frost-work pinnacles at its corners, and a lofty spire in its centre. An