CHAP. IV.] TEMPERANCE HOTEL. 55 



the late frost. &quot;We had, indeed, been struck with the dearth of 

 the feathered tribe in Maine at this season, the greater number 

 of birds being migratory. As soon as our carriage stopped at 

 the door, we were ushered by the host and his wife into a small 

 parlor, where we found a blazing wood fire. It was their private 

 sitting-room at times, when they had no guests, and on the table 

 were books on a variety of subjects, but most of them of a reli 

 gious or serious character, as Bishop Watson s Apology in reply 

 to Tom Paine. We saw, also, a treatise on Phrenology, styled 

 &quot; The only True Philosophy,&quot; and Shakspeare, and the poems 

 of Cowper and Walter Scott. In each window were placed two 

 chairs, not ready to be occupied, as they would be in most coun 

 tries, but placed face to face, or with their fronts touching each 

 other, the usual fashion in New England. 



On one of the walls was seen, in a gilt frame, the Declaration 

 of Independence, with all the signatures of the subscribers, sur 

 rounded by vignettes or portraits of all the ten presidents of the 

 United States, from General Washington to Mr. Tyler. On 

 another side of the room was a most formidable likeness of 

 Daniel Webster, being an engraving published in Connecticut. 

 Leaning over the portrait of the great statesman, is represented 

 an aged man holding a lantern in his hand, and, lest the mean 

 ing of so classical an allusion should be lost, we read below 



&quot; Diogenes his lantern needs no more, 

 An honest man is found, the search is o er.&quot; 



While supper was preparing, I turned over a heap of news 

 papers, of various shades of politics. One of them contained a 

 spirited reply to the leading article of an extreme democratic 

 journal, which had enlarged on a favorite text of the popular 

 party, &quot; The whole of Oregon is ours.&quot; In another I saw, in 

 large type, &quot; The continent, the whole continent down to the 

 isthmus ;&quot; so that, before Texas is yet fairly annexed, the 

 imagination of the &quot; more territory&quot; zealots has incorporated all 

 Mexico, if not Central America, into the Union. In the obitu 

 aries were recorded, as usual, the names of several &quot; revolutionary 

 soldiers,&quot; aged eighty-five and ninety, and I spent some minutes 



