The first professorship of law in the University was established in 1815, upon a foundation partly supplied by an ancient devise of ISAAC ROYALL, Esq.,--a munificent gentleman of ample fortune, who, being connected by blood and marriage, as well as by political opinions, with the principal royalists of Massachusetts, forsook the country with them at the commencement of the Revolution, and died at Kensington, in England, in October, 1781. Though an exile, he did not forget the land he had left. Thither before death his "heart untravelled fondly turned." By his will, recorded at the Probate Office in Boston, he devised to Medford, in Massachusetts, where he had resided, certain lands in Granby, for the support of schools. The residue of his estate in that town, and other lands in the County of Worcester, he devised to the Overseers and Corporation of Harvard College, "to be appropriated towards the endowing _a Professor of Laws in the said College_, or a Professor of Physic and Anatomy, whichever the said Overseers and Corporation shall judge to be best for the benefit of the said College." The capital, with its accumulation, from the property thus devised, is $7,943, yielding an annual income of about four hundred dollars. It is believed that the University and the lovers of the law are indebted to the late Hon. JOHN LOWELL, while a member of the Corporation, for calling these funds--yet unappropriated to either object of the devise--from their sleep in the treasury, by procuring the establishment of a professorship of law, which was ordered, for the present, to bear the name of _Royall_, in honor of him whose will in this regard was now first executed. This was in 1815. The residue of the funds for its support have been supplied by the University, mainly from fees paid by students of law. The Hon. ISAAC PARKER, late Chief Justice of this Commonwealth, was the first professor. In 1817 the Hon. ASAHEL STEARNS was placed upon another foundation, established by the University. The statutes of this professorship required him to open and keep a school in Cambridge for the instruction of graduates and of others prosecuting the study of the law. Besides prescribing to his pupils a course of study, it was made his duty to examine and confer with them upon their studies, to read to them a course of lectures, and generally to act the part of tutor, so as to improve their minds and assist their acquisitions. From this time may be dated the establishment of the Law School in the University.