Page:Alloway Kirk or Tam o Shanter a tale and man was made to mourn a poem with a sketch of burnss life.pdf/10

10 an armoury by Oliver Cromwell, who built a citadel round it, enclosing 12 acres of ground; in front of this ground, an academy is built, and the number of students attending this seminary amounts to near 600. There are two other academies in the county, one in Kilmarnock, under the direction of the Magistrates, and one in Irvine, erected there by the Earl of Eglinton, whose pubic spirit will be long remembered. But the one at Ayr exceeds them, both in point of learning, for men of the first rate abilities are employed as teachers, which raised this seminary to great renoun; many of the students are from all quarters of the world. It was instituted by subscription, and the subscribers erected into one Body, political and corporate, by Royal charter, in 1798. The managers and directors in terms of the Charter, are persons or bodies corporate or politic, who may have subscribed