Making all heaven rattle with their revelry!

"Ah! what a classic sight it is to see
The black gowns flaunting in the sultry air,
Boys big with literary sympathy,
And all the glories of this great affair!
More classic sounds!--within, the plaudit shout,
While Punchinello's rabble echoes it without."

To this the author appends a note, as follows:--

"The holiday extends to thousands of those who have no particular
classical pretensions, further than can be recognized in a certain
_penchant_ for such jubilees, contracted by attending them for
years as hangers-on. On this devoted day these noisy do-nothings
collect with mummers, monkeys, bears, and rope-dancers, and hold
their revels just beneath the windows of the tabernacle where the
literary triumph is enacting.

'Tum sæva sonare
Verbera, tum stridor ferri tractæque catenæ.'"

A writer in Buckingham's New England Magazine, Vol. III., 1832, in
an article entitled "Harvard College Forty Years ago," thus
describes the customs which then prevailed:--

"As I entered Cambridge, what were my 'first impressions'? The
College buildings 'heaving in sight and looming up,' as the
sailors say. Pyramids of Egypt! can ye surpass these enormous
piles? The Common covered with tents and wigwams, and people of