borrowed from and credited to Plato.—­Several pleasing anecdotes were told.—­Old Milo, champion of the heavy weights in his day, looked at his arms and whimpered, “They are dead.”  Not so dead as you, you old fool,—­says Cato;—­you never were good for anything but for your shoulders and flanks.—­Pisistratus asked Solon what made him dare to be so obstinate.  Old age, said Solon.

The lecture was on the whole acceptable, and a credit to our culture and civilization.—­The reporter goes on to state that there will be no lecture next week, on account of the expected combat between the bear and the barbarian.  Betting (sponsio) two to one (duo ad unum) on the bear.

——­After all, the most encouraging things I find in the treatise, “De Senectute,” are the stories of men who have found new occupations when growing old, or kept up their common pursuits in the extreme period of life.  Cato learned Greek when he was old, and speaks of wishing to learn the fiddle, or some such instrument, (fidibus,) after the example of Socrates.  Solon learned something new, every day, in his old age, as he gloried to proclaim.  Cyrus pointed out with pride and pleasure the trees he had planted with his own hand. [I remember a pillar on the Duke of Northumberland’s estate at Alnwick, with an inscription in similar words, if not the same.  That, like other country pleasures, never wears out.  None is too rich, none too poor, none too young, none too old to enjoy it.] There is a New England story I have heard more to the point, however, than any of Cicero’s.  A young farmer was urged to set out some apple-trees.—­No, said he, they are too long growing, and I don’t want to plant for other people.  The young farmer’s father was spoken to about it; but he, with better reason, alleged that apple-trees were slow and life was fleeting.  At last some one mentioned it to the old grandfather of the young farmer.  He had nothing else to do,—­so he stuck in some trees.  He lived long enough to drink barrels of cider made from the apples that grew on those trees.

As for myself, after visiting a friend lately,—­[Do remember all the time that this is the Professor’s paper,]—­I satisfied myself that I had better concede the fact that—­my contemporaries are not so young as they have been,—­and that,—­awkward as it is,—­science and history agree in telling me that I can claim the immunities and must own the humiliations of the early stage of senility.  Ah! but we have all gone down the hill together.  The dandies of my time have split their waistbands and taken to high-low shoes.  The beauties of my recollections—­where are they?  They have run the gantlet of the years as well as I. First the years pelted them with red roses till their cheeks were all on fire.  By and by they began throwing white roses, and that morning flush passed away.  At last one of the years threw a snow-ball, and after that no year let the poor girls pass without throwing snow-balls.  And then came rougher missiles,—­ice and stones; and from time to time an arrow whistled and down went one of the poor girls.  So there are but few left; and we don’t call those few girls, but——­