35 



State of Pennsylvania ; was the fast and firm friend of that 

 good old man, James Buchanan, and who did better than that 

 in taking a wife from among the Pennsylvanians ; therefore, I 

 can claim to have a kinship with the Philadelphians, and admit 

 them into the Virginia fraternity along with me ! 



The cordial reception which has been extended to me since 

 my first arrival here; this feast of reason and flow of soul, 

 where philosophy presides over the inner man, science holds 

 the wine cup, and Philadelphia, the city of the gods, sacred to 

 independence and fraternal love, gives the welcome, are, in the 

 language of the Irishman, sufficient to make my face one broad 

 smile from the crown of my head to the sole of my foot. I 

 am glad I stand here on this occasion, and say to you, as an 

 humble representative of William and Mary College, that that 

 ancient institution, which gave to the American Philosophical 

 Society a President, which gave to science the precious gift of 

 her Jefferson, and to the country at large her Monroe and her 

 Marshal, is full of fraternal greetings on this centennial occa- 

 sion to the most ancient philosophical society in America. 

 Veterans in a grand common cause, it is but right that they 

 should meet around a common table and pledge each other's 

 health now and forever. 



Although, Mr. President, the antecedents of William and 

 Mary College go back to the year 1619, when the first project 

 of a university was started in America, its charter was not 

 obtained until the year 1693, just fifty years, a semi-centennial, 

 ahead of the foundation of this association ; and in this age of 

 centennials and semi-centennials (and I understand that the 

 American Philosophical Society has had a full share of them 

 already in the past), it may be worth while to know that old 

 Benjamin Franklin, the founder of this Society, on the occasion 

 of a personal visit to Williamsburg, received, in the semi-cen- 



