An old doctor came to me once (this is literal fact) with some contrivance or other for people with broken kneepans. As the patient would be confined for a good while, he might find it dull work to sit with his hands in his lap. Reading, the ingenious inventor suggested, would be an agreeable mode of passing the time. He mentioned, in his written account of his contrivance, various works that might amuse the weary hour. I remember only three,—Don Quixote, Tom Jones, and _Watts on the Mind_. It is not generally understood that Cicero’s essay was delivered as a lyceum lecture, (_concio popularis_,) at the Temple of Mercury. The journals (_papyri_) of the day (“Tempora Quotidiana,”—“Tribuinus Quirinalis,”—“Præco Romanus,” and the rest) gave abstracts of it, one of which I have translated and modernized, as being a substitute for the analysis I intended to make. IV. Kal. Mart. . . . . The lecture at the Temple of Mercury, last evening, was well attended by the _élite_ of our great city. Two hundred thousand sestertia were thought to have been represented in the house. The doors were besieged by a mob of shabby fellows, (_illotum vulgus_,) who were at length quieted after two or three had been somewhat roughly handled (_gladio jugulati_). The speaker was the well-known Mark Tully, Eq.,—the subject Old Age. Mr. T. has a lean and scraggy person, with a very unpleasant excrescence upon his nasal feature, from which his nickname of _chick-pea_ (Cicero) is said by some to be derived. As a lecturer is public property, we may remark, that his outer garment (_toga_) was of cheap stuff and somewhat worn, and that his general style and appearance of dress and manner (_habitus_, _vestitusque_) were somewhat provincial. The lecture consisted of an imaginary dialogue between Cato and Lælius. We found the first portion rather heavy, and retired a few moments for refreshment (_pocula quædam vini_).—All want to reach old age, says Cato, and grumble when they get it; therefore they are donkeys.—The lecturer will allow us to say that he is the donkey; we know we shall grumble at old age, but we want to live through youth and manhood, _in spite_ of the troubles we shall groan over.—There was considerable prosing as to what old age can do and can’t.—True, but not new. Certainly, old folks can’t jump,—break the necks of their thigh-bones, (_femorum cervices_,) if they do; can’t crack nuts with their teeth; can’t climb a greased pole (_malum inunctum scandere non possunt_); but they can tell old stories and give you good advice; if they know what you have made up your mind to do when you ask them.—All this is well enough, but won’t set the Tiber on fire (_Tiberim accendere nequaquam potest_.)