into the arms of La Fayette, and mingled our tears with his." WILLIAMSBURG, though a small place, is the oldest incorporated town in the state, and was formerly the capital. It is fifty-eight miles from Richmond, and sixty-eight from Norfolk. It has three churches, a magazine, two seminaries, the eastern lunatic asylum, and William and Mary college. The number of inhabitants is about two thousand. The Statue of Lord Botetourt stands in the square, which retains a portion of its original beauty, though much mutilated, having been a good specimen of sculpture. He was one of the first judges of the colony. It was erected in 1774, at the expense of the colony. William and Mary College.-This was the first literary institution of the higher kind in Virginia, having been founded in 1692, under the reign of the sovereigns whose name it bears. They were its liberal benefactors, granting it twenty thousand acres of land as an endowment. There are five professors, about one hundred students, and about four thousand volumes in its libraries. The institution embraces a law department. The commencement is held on held on the 4th of July. This institution is the oldest of that name in the Union, with the single exception of Harvard university, but was long kept as a mere grammar school. Many of its graduates have been among the most distinguished men in the state and nation. Some of the books in the library bear the name of Robert Dinwiddie and his coat-of-arms, with his motto: "Ubi libertas, ibi patria." Among the most valuable works is Catesby's Natural History of Carolina, Florida, and the Bahama Banks, two volumes folio, English and French-printed in 1754. The first building was erected in 1793, in Williamsburg; but it was not until some important changes were made in the plan of the institution, that it began to assume the character of a college. The two professorships in divinity and that for Latin and Greek, established in 1692, were substituted by professorships in other departments. Among the six formerly existing was one for the instruction and conversion of the Indians, founded by Mr. Boyle, of England. The Old Capitol.-A few fragments only now remain of the building known as "the capitol." This, however, was not the first edifice erected for the capitol of the colony, which was consumed by fire in 1746. Its successor also was burned in 1832, and that is the one whose remains are to be seen. Within its walls some interesting incidents occurred. There Washington received, in his youth, an expression of the thanks of the colonial legislature, on his return from the French war, from the lips of Mr. Robinson, the speaker, who com plimented him in such high terms, that, with characteristic modesty, he blushed, trembled, and stammered-unable to return a distinct answer. To relieve his embarrassment, the speaker kindly said: "Sit down, Mr. Washington; your modesty is equal to your valor, and that surpasses the power of any language that I possess." "an In the same building, Patrick Henry made his first public speech before the house of burgesses; and although in a coarse dress, and with the air of “ obscure and unpolished rustic," he astonished the aristocratic members of the chamber, by his vigorous eloquence. The old Raleigh Tavern is still to be seen, distinguished by a bust of Sir Walter Raleigh over the door. It is the place in which some of the most important committees of the legislature used to meet in the Revolutionary days; and there is said to have been first conceived and proposed, by Henry Lee and his associates, the system of correspondence which was carried on with so much success during the war. Lord Dunsmore's Palace.-Twc small buildings may be seen, which are the remains of the edifice occupied by Lord Dunsmore, the last royal governor of Virginia. They stand in a small court, which formed part of the extensive grounds which surrounded his mansion, and then embraced three hundred and sixty acres. There he maintained a splendid style of living; but, being opposed to the rising spirit of the people at the approaching of the revolutionary period, he was deprived of his place and power. The Old Magazine.—This is an ancient octagonal building, on the square, erected above one hundred and twenty years since, from which Governor Dunsmore, in 1775, removed the gunpowder of the colony on board the man-of-war Magdalen, then in the harbor. This act excited the people to form the first armed forces assembled in opposition to the British government. degrees Fahrenheit, and remains uniformly the same, winter and summer. The principal spring yields about eigh teen gallons per minute, and is never increased or diminished by any changes of weather. The water is perfectly clear and transparent, and deposites copiously, as it floats over a rough and uneven surface of rocks, a white precipitate-sometimes, under peculiar circumstances, red and black-composed in part of its ingredients. Its taste and smell, fresh at the spring, are those of all waters so strongly impregnated with sulphuretted hydrogen gas. The fountain is enclosed and covered by a circular edifice, about thirty feet in diameter, supported by pillars like the cupola of a church or other public building, except that in place of a weathercock, or some religious emblem, the summit is handsomely embellished with YORKTOWN, Seventy miles from Richmond, is situated on the right bank of York river, and is distinguished for the closing military scene of the American revolution, the surrender of Lord Cornwallis, which put a close to the struggle between Great Britain and the new states. It was founded in 1705, and was formerly much more flourishing than it now is. The number of inhabitants a large marble figure of Hygeia (the is very much reduced, so that it is hardly worthy of the name of a village, containing scarcely forty houses, and these marked by decay. York county was one of the eight original counties into which Virginia was divided in 1634. The situation is pleasant, and many of the scenes are fine. The York Tavern, in the village, is believed to be the oldest in the state. The ruins of the old church have a sad and solemn aspect. It was built above one hundred and fifty years ago, and destroyed by fire in 1814. The bell is preserved, and bears this inscription : "County of York, Virginia, 1725." goddess of health), presented by the late Mr. Henderson, of New Orleans, in a spirit of gratitude for the benefit he had received at this noble fountain. Here visiters resort early in the morning, to quaff from two to six glasses of water impregnated chiefly with sulphate of lime, sulphate of magnesia, and sulphate of soda. Within two hundred yards of the spring, in the centre of the valley, which here spreads out nearly to a plane surface, and at the lower end of a lawn of some eight or ten acres, stands the dining hall, near two hundred feet long, with tables to seat six hundred guests. From The walls of the building were com- one hundred and fifty to two hundred posed of marl, which was soft when first cabins and cottages are ranged along at dug from the ground, but hardened like considerable elevation above the spring, stone after a little time. in curvilinear form, adapted to the sinuThe White Sulphur Spring, in Green-osities of the mountain base that skirts briar county, two hundred and twelve miles from Richmond, is situated in an elevated and beautifully picturesque valley, hemmed in by mountains on every side, and in the midst of the celebrated 'spring region." Its elevation above tidewater is two thousand feet. It bursts with boldness from rock-lined apertures, and is enclosed by marble casements five feet square and three and a half feet deep. Its temperature is sixty-two the valley, and other irregularities of the site; but still making nearly an oblong square, and occupying a line of perhaps nearly a mile in its entire length, enclosing an area of ten or twelve acres, well set in blue grass, intersected with dry walks for exercise, and ornamented with that variety of trees which seems characteristic of this region. Here the native oak in all its grandeur; there the symmetrical sugar-maple; next again |