Washington_. They should read it with diligence, and read it often. They will never rise from the perusal of it without feeling fresh incentives both to public and private virtue. The progress of the style which marked the period of the American Revolution may be traced in North Carolina from the administration of Governor Dobbs. It had become the common style of the leading men of the colony before the meeting of the Continental Congress in 1774. The correspondence and public papers of Samuel Johnston and Joseph Hewes, of Edenton; of William Hooper and Archibald Maclaine, of Wilmington; of Richard Caswell, of Kinston; of Thomas Burke, of Hillsborough; of Francis and Abner Nash of New Bern, upon the great subjects which then engrossed the public attention, do honor to the literature of North Carolina at that time. They wrote upon matters of business--business which concerned the welfare of the nation; they wrote as they felt; and their compositions, coming warm from the heart, are free from affectation or pedantry, and equally free from that prolixity which is the vice of modern composition. When these men disappeared, our literature, in a great degree, disappeared with them. The war had exhausted the resources of the State and ruined the fortunes of many individuals; we had no schools for the education of our youth; few of our citizens were able to send their sons to the Northern colleges or to Europe to be educated. Two individuals, who received their education during the war, were destined to keep alive the remnant of our literature and prepare the public mind for the establishment of this University. These were William R. Davie and Alfred Moore. Each of them had endeared himself to his country by taking an active part in the latter scenes of the war; and when public order was restored and the courts of justice were opened they appeared at the bar, where they quickly rose to eminence, and for many years shone like meteors in North Carolina. They adorned the courts in which they practiced, gave energy to the laws, and dignity to the administration of justice. Their genius was different and so was their eloquence. Davie took Lord Bolingbroke for his model, and Moore, Dean Swift; and each applied himself with so much diligence to the study of his model that literary men could easily recognize in the eloquence of Davie the lofty, flowing style of Bolingbroke; and in that of Moore, the plainness and precision of Swift --they roused the ambition of parents and their sons; they excited emulation among ingenuous youth; they depicted in glowing colors the necessity of establishing a public school or university in which the young men of the State could be educated. The General Assembly resolved to found an university. I was present in the House of Commons when Davie addressed that body upon the bill granting a loan of money to the trustees for erecting the buildings of this University; and