Feudalism has passed; scholasticism has gone; politics,
commerce, philosophy, religion, science, invention, music, art, and
literature are rapidly altering. In England William and Mary pass away.
Queen Anne begins her reign of twelve years. Then, in 1714, enters the
House of Hanover with George the First. It is the day of Newton and Locke
and Berkeley, of Hume, of Swift, Addison, Steele, Pope, Prior, and Defoe.
The great romantic sixteenth century, Elizabeth's spacious time, is gone.
The deep and narrow, the intense, religious, individualistic seventeenth
century is gone. The eighteenth century, immediate parent of the
nineteenth, grandparent of the twentieth, occupies the stage.
In the year 1704, just over a decade since Dr. Blair had obtained the
charter for his College, the erratic and able Governor of Virginia, Francis
Nicholson, was recalled. For all that he was a wild talker, he had on the
whole done well for Virginia. He was, as far as is known, the first person
actually to propose a federation or union of all those English-speaking
political divisions, royal provinces, dominions, palatinates, or what not,
that had been hewed away from the vast original Virginia. He did what he
could to forward the movement for education and the fortunes of the William
and Mary College. But he is quoted as having on one occasion informed the
body of the people that "the gentlemen imposed upon them." Again, he is
said to have remarked of the servant population that they had all been
kidnapped and had a lawful action against their masters.
Pages:
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181