In the plates of the _Society Library_ allegory is rampant. Minerva appears in all of them, and in the two by Maverick is the principal figure. In both of these she appears to an American Indian, whose attitude shows his deep appreciation of the benefits of education as offered by the resplendent goddess. In one case she is represented as having just arrived from Olympus, and is still encircled by clouds; in the other, she seems quite at home in the alcove of the library, and has taken a suitable volume from the shelf for the use of the savage. In the plate by Gallaudet for this library the allegory is extended, and other prominent inhabitants of the abode of the celestials are present. The arts and sciences which the books of the library treat of are represented by implements and symbols easily recognized. The plate of the _Monthly Library in Farmington_ also uses allegory. The designer and engraver of this plate was Martin Bull, an old deacon in the village, who was quite an interesting man. He was a goldsmith, a maker of silver buttons, and spoons; a manufacturer of saltpetre when needed by the army, a conductor of church music, town treasurer for eight years, clerk of probate for thirty-nine years, a strong patriot, and a writer of long and appallingly solemn letters to the youth of the village when [Illustration: _Monthly Library_ IN FARMINGTON ] at college. The library was founded in 1795,--about as soon as our soldier-citizens could settle down into reading stay-at-homes,--and was conducted upon the plan of monthly exchanges. On the first Sabbath of the month all members would assemble in the evening and pass in their books and receive others, the choice being auctioned off. Two dollars and a half a month was thus realized, and the meeting was the event of the month to the sturdy inhabitants of the quiet town, to say nothing of the younger folk, to whom it must have afforded coveted opportunities for pleasant meetings, and quiet walks along the lanes. On the first day of the new century, January, 1801, the library changed its name to that which appears upon the book-plate, and on which the good deacon exhibited a specimen of his highest art. Previously to this date it had gone under the name of “The Library in the First Society in Farmington,” and its first book-plate, probably engraved by the good deacon, had the simple name with no pictorial accessories. Contemporaneously with this, another library called the _Village Library_, was in operation, and continued until 1826, when it was merged with a third. This library also had a book-plate, but it was undoubtedly beyond the powers of the engraver of its forerunners. In this we see the interior of a room, in which a young lady patron of the library is storing her mind with those choice axioms which, if put in practice, far exceed the attractiveness of mere personal beauty; so says the couplet beneath the picture. [Illustration: VILLAGE LIBRARY.]