"WILLIAM AND MARY," the oldest of American colleges, with the single exception of Harvard University, has so many historical associations connected with it, that a full and minute history of it from its foundation to the present time would be almost the history of Virginia. It began its career soon after the settlement of the country, and is, consequently, now nearly two hundred years old. During all this long period it played an important part, first in the colony, and then in the commonwealth. Founded in the reign of William and Mary, it was a flourishing institution when Marlborough was fighting Louis XIV., and Addison was writing the "Spectator." The royal governors, from Spotswood to Dunmore, began and ended their official careers, and the country, from being a dependency of the British crown, became a great confederated republic, and the old college was still in the full tide of its energy and usefulness. From its situation at Williamsburg, the colonial capital, it witnessed and was a part of all VOL. XI.-I.

that was eminent, brilliant, and attractive in Virginia society. The sons of the planters were uniformly sent to the college to be educated, and the sons in turn sent their own sons to the venerable institution. It was always regarded as an important and conspicuous feature of the "viceregal court" under the old royal rulers, and had in its library rare volumes with the coats-of-arms of kings and noblemen who had delighted in connecting their names with its history. Burned down more than once, the buildings were always erected again, and the work of education was steadily resumed. Almost every Virginian of any eminence in the eighteenth century had been trained for his work in the world within its walls. It gave twenty-seven of its students to the army in the Revolution; two Attorney-Generals to the United States; it sent out nearly twenty members of Congress, fifteen United States Senators, seventeen Governors, thirty-seven Judges, a Lieutenant-General and other high officers to the army, two Commodores