pardon me for alluding to one whose genius shed a lustre upon all it
touched, and whose qualities gathered about him hosts of friends,
wherever he was known. Prentiss, a native of Portland, lived from
youth to middle age in the county of my residence, and the inquiries
which have been made, show me that the youth excited the interest
which the greatness of the man justified, and that his memory thus
remains a link to connect your home with mine.

A cursory view, when passing through your town on former occasions,
had impressed me with the great advantages of your harbor, its easy
entrance, its depth, and its extensive accommodation for shipping. But
its advantages, and if facilities as they have been developed by
closer inspection, have grown upon me until I realize that it is no
boast, but the language of sober truth which in the present state of
commerce pronounces them unequaled in any harbor of our country.

And surely no place could be more inviting to an invalid who sought a
refuge from the heat of a southern summer. Here waving elms offer him
shared walks, and magnificent residences surrounded by flowers, fill
the mind with ideas of comfort and of rest. If weary of constant
contact with his fellow men, he seeks a deeper seclusion, there, in
the back ground of this grand amphitheatre, lie the eternal mountains,
frowning with brow of rock and cap of snow upon the smiling fields
beneath, and there in its recesses may be found as much of wildness,
and as much of solitude, as the pilgrim weary of the cares of life can
desire. If he turn to the front, your capacious harbor, studded with
green islands of ever varying light and shade, and enlivened by all
the stirring evidences of commercial activity, offer him the mingled
charms of busy life and nature's calm repose. A few miles further, and
he may site upon the quiet shore to listen to the murmuring wave until