22 THE VALE OF GALA. 



and which, I am told, contains reading-rooms 

 and library for the working-classes. How is 

 it that this class say they are not cared for ? 

 Never since Adam's transgression have they 

 been more so than at the present time ; and is 

 not the structure before you a beautiful in- 

 stance of watchfulness over their comforts ? 

 throwing, as it were, an arch of mutual con- 

 nection between rich and poor ; giving them 

 the means of cultivating their minds, the noblest 

 of the desires of our common nature, and en- 

 deavouring to make those of his estate and 

 hamlets an intellectual and intelligent people. 

 The poet Gray pathetically laments in the 

 ' Elegy,' that in his day the ploughman and 

 woodman the rude forefathers of the hamlet 

 had gone to their narrow cells quite neglected 

 in this respect : Then 



' Knowledge to their eyes her ample page, 

 Rich with the spoils of time did ne'er unroll.' 



Xow we see a glorious change. In many 

 other places, Peebles, for instance, we also 

 see gentlemen associating together for their 

 people's good, and for the supply of their wants, 



