William Wirt, writing twenty-three years after Marshall's short attendance, thus describes the college: "They [Virginians] have only one publick seminary of learning.... This college ... in the niggardly spirit of parsimony which they dignify with the name of economy, these democrats have endowed with a few despicable fragments of surveyors' fees &c. thus converting their national academy into a mere lazaretto and feeding its ... highly respectable professors, like a band of beggars, on the scraps and crumbs that fall from the financial table. And, then, instead of aiding and energizing the police of the college, by a few civil regulations, they permit their youth to run riot in all the wildness of dissipation." (Wirt: The British Spy, 131, 132.)
[511] "Notes on Virginia": Jefferson; Works: Ford, iv, 69.
[512] Chastellux, 299. It is difficult to reconcile Jefferson's description of the college building with that of the French traveler. Possibly the latter was influenced by the French professor, Bellini.
[513] John Brown to Col. Wm. Preston, July 6, 1780: W. and M. C. Q., ix, 80.
[514] John Brown to Col. Wm. Preston, July 6, 1780; W. and M. C. Q., ix, 80.
[515] Records, Phi Beta Kappa Society of William and Mary College, printed in W. and M. C. Q., iv, 236.
[516] Dr. Lyon G. Tyler, now President of William and Mary College, thinks that this date is approximately correct.
[517] Records, Phi Beta Kappa Society of William and Mary College; printed in, W. and M. C. Q., iv, 236.
[518] See infra.
[519] Marshall's Notebook; MS. See infra.