"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 all sorts, colors, conditions, nations, and tongues. A country muster or ordination dwindles into nothing in comparison. It was a second edition of Babel. The Governor's life-guard, in splendid uniform, prancing to and fro, 'Quadrupedante putrem sonitu quatit ungula campum.' Horny-hoofed, galloping quadrupeds make all the common to tremble. "I soon steered for the meeting-house, and obtained a seat, or rather standing, in the gallery, determined to be an eyewitness of all the sport of the day. Presently music was heard approaching, such as I had never heard before. It must be 'the music of the spheres.' Anon, three enormous white wigs, supported by three stately, venerable men, yclad in black, flowing robes, were located in the pulpit. A platform of wigs was formed in the body pews, on which one might apparently walk as securely as on the stage. The _candidates_ for degrees seemed to have made a mistake in dressing themselves in _black togas_ instead of _white_ ones, _pro more Romanorum_. The musicians jammed into their pew in the gallery, very near to me, with enormous fiddles and fifes and ramshorns. _Terribile visu_! They sounded. I stopped my ears, and with open mouth and staring eyes stood aghast with wonderment. The music ceased. The performances commenced. English, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, French! These scholars knew everything." More particular is the account of the observances, at this period, of the day, at Harvard College, as given by Professor Sidney Willard:-- "Commencement Day, in the year 1798, was a day bereft, in some respects, of its wonted cheerfulness. Instead of the serene summer's dawn, and the clear rising of the sun, 'The dawn was overcast, the morning lowered, And heavily in clouds brought on the day.' In the evening, from the time that the public exercises closed until twilight, the rain descended in torrents. The President[09] lay prostrate on his bed from the effects of a violent disease, from which it was feared he could not recover.[10] His house, which on all occasions was the abode of hospitality, and on Commencement Day especially so, (being the great College anniversary,) was now a house of stillness, anxiety, and watching. For seventeen successive years it had been thronged on this anniversary from morn till night, by welcome visitors, cheerfully greeted and cared for, and now it was like a house of mourning for the dead.