DR. FISKE'S LAST LECTURE.

In Sanders Theatre last evening Professor John Fiske delivered the last of his series of ten lectures on southern colonial history.

He began by briefly sketching the somewhat unsuccessful administrations of the four governors following Berkeley. In 1690 the last of these, Howard, was succeeded by Nicholson, who was sent out as temporary governor. The chief events of his government were the moving of the capital to William sburg, and the founding of William and Mary College by Commissary Blair in 1691.

Nicholson being temporarily removed to Maryland, he was succeeded in Virginia by the unpopular Andros. He quickly became involved in a quarrel with Blair, and was removed for allowing an insult to the latter to pass unpunished. Nicholson resumed the reins of government which he held till 1704, being finally recalled for unbecoming conduct to men of high station in the colony.

He was followed by the Earl of Orkney, who held the nominal title of governor for forty years, but who governed by means of deputies whom he sent out. Perhaps the most famous of these was Alexander Spottswood, who came over in 1710. His most memorable act was the conducting of an expedition, consisting of fifty men, over the hitherto unexplored Blue Ridge into the Shenandoah Valley. Spottswood too was in 1722 removed as the result of a dispute with Dr. Blair concerning the governors right to appoint the clergy to their parishes.

Dr. Fiske spoke of the important part played by the Scotch-Irish in the history of the Alleghany region. About 1730 they began pouring into the Shenandoah Valley, bringing Democracy and Presbyterianism where hitherto the Cavalier ideas and the Established Church had held sway. This conflict resulted in a thing most happy for the colony-the separation of church and state. "Indeed," said the lecturer, "the Shenandoah may be called the cradle of Democracy."

This advance into the great woods brought about the conflict with the French, who claimed the region by right of La Salle's discoveries. They advanced down the Alleghany region, building forts as they came, till in 1753 the governor of Virginia sent George Washington to warn them against further aggression. In the war which followed the individual history of Virginia becomes merged with that of the other colonies with whom she became leagued in the struggle.