Historical Notes; Wm. and Mary Qrtly., Vol. 1, No. 1, 1892 Transcribed by Kathy Merrill for the USGenWeb Archives Special Collections Project ************************************************************************ USGENWEB ARCHIVES NOTICE: These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or presentation by any other organization or persons. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material, must obtain the written consent of the contributor, or the legal representative of the submitter, and contact the listed USGenWeb archivist with proof of this consent. The submitter has given permission to the USGenWeb Archives to store the file permanently for free access. http://www.usgwarchives.net *********************************************************************** Historical Notes William and Mary College Quarterly Historical Papers, Vol. 1, No. 1 (Jul., 1892), pp. 59-60. HISTORICAL NOTES. The Legislature of Virginia which finished its labors in March last, deserves an enduring renown not only for its settlement of the State debt and other political questions, but for the way in which it recognized the claims of letters and education. Among other acts of this nature, it appropriated $200,000 to erect a new fire proof library building, increased the annuity of this College from $10,000 to $15,000, and appropriated $5,000 to copy the early court records previous to 1700. Let the next Legislature do as well. The editor proposes to collect the names of all Virginia families entitled to coats-of-arms, as a matter of history only. None will be admitted into the list who cannot verify their claim by the evidence of some muniment of title prior to 1776 - a tombstone, a document, a book or silver plate, a seal, a ring, or a proved identity of the name with that of some other family entitled to arms. He asks for information. One of the nicest and neatest little books published in the North, during the year, if Prof. Jameson's "Historical Writings in America." His allusions, however, to John Smith and Alexander II, Stephens might be improved upon. "Beowulf", by Professor Hall of William and Mary College, is admitted to stand in the lead of Anglo Saxon translations. Page 60. What is the matter with James Schouler of Boston? He writes history like a jockey running a race, straining at every nerve. In his "History of the United States" he never loses an opportunity to cavil at Virginia and thinks it smart to refer to her as a "mouldering state". For a "mouldering State" to have given to the world four such captains as R.E. Lee, Joseph E. Johnston, Thomas Jonathan Jackson and Albert Sidney Johnston is curious. It took all the states of the North to furnish anything like their equals. That Schouler does not like the South or Southern men is plain. But what does Percy Greg, an English- man, and, therefore, in a position to be impartial, declare? In his History of the United States, Vol., II. p 304, he says: "The Virginians were un- questionably the flower of the southern people, perhaps of the English race. * * The manufacturers of New England, the miners of Pennsylvania, the city populations of Boston, Lowell, Buffalo, New York, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh were, if not degenerate, physically and materially inferior, partly because the flower of the Eastern populaton had been constantly drafted to the west."