“Burr,[39] who had little wit or pride, Preferr’d to take the strongest side.  And Willard soon receiv’d commission To give a publick admonition.  With pedant strut to prayers he came, Call’d out the criminals by name; Obedient to his dire command, Prescott and Wier before him stand.  The rulers merciful and kind, With equal grief and wonder find, That you do drink, and play, and sing, And make with noise the College ring.  I therefore warn you to beware Of drinking more than you can bear.  Wine an incentive is to riot, Disturbance of the publick quiet.  Full well your Tutors know the truth, For sad experience taught their youth.  Take then this friendly exhortation; The next offence is RUSTICATION.”

GOWN.  A long, loose upper garment or robe, worn by professional men, as divines, lawyers, students, &c., who are called men of the gown, or gownmen.  It is made of any kind of cloth, worn over ordinary clothes, and hangs down to the ankles, or nearly so. —­Encyc.

From a letter written in the year 1766, by Mr. Holyoke, then President of Harvard College, it would appear that gowns were first worn by the members of that institution about the year 1760.  The gown, although worn by the students in the English universities, is now seldom worn in American colleges except on Commencement, Exhibition, or other days of a similar public character.

The students are permitted to wear black gowns, in which they may appear on all public occasions.—­Laws Harv.  Coll., 1798, p. 37.

Every candidate for a first degree shall wear a black dress and the usual black gown.—­Laws Univ. at Cam., Mass., 1848, p. 20.

The performers all wore black gowns with sleeves large enough to hold me in, and shouted and swung their arms, till they looked like so many Methodist ministers just ordained.—­Harvardiana, Vol.  III. p. 111.

  Saw them ... clothed in gowns of satin,
    Or silk or cotton, black as souls benighted.—­
  All, save the gowns, was startling, splendid, tragic,
  But gowns on men have lost their wonted magic.
    Childe Harvard, p. 26.

  The door swings open—­and—­he comes! behold him
    Wrapt in his mantling gown, that round him flows
  Waving, as Caesar’s toga did enfold him.—­Ibid., p. 36.

On Saturday evenings, Sundays, and Saints’ days, the students wear surplices instead of their gowns, and very innocent and exemplary they look in them.—­Bristed’s Five Years in an Eng.  Univ., Ed. 2d, p. 21.

2.  One who wears a gown.

And here, I think, I may properly introduce a very singular gallant, a sort of mongrel between town and gown,—­I mean a bibliopola, or (as the vulgar have it) a bookseller.—­The Student, Oxf. and Cam., Vol.  II. p. 226.

GOWNMAN, GOWNSMAN.  One whose professional habit is a gown, as a divine or lawyer, and particularly a member of an English university.—­Webster.