Chapter IV

Princeton—college—professors wear boots!—students famous for their love of a jest—set the college on fire, and burned out the professors; an excellent joke, but not worth repeating—mem. American students very much addicted to burning down colleges—reminds me of a good story, nothing at all to the purpose—two societies in the college—good notion—encourages emulation, and makes little boys fight;—students famous for their eating and erudition—saw two at the tavern, who had just got their allowance of spending money—laid it all out in a supper, got fuddled, and d—d the professors for nincoms. N. B. Southern gentlemen—churchyard—apostrophe to grim death—saw a cow feeding on a grave—metempsychosis—who knows but the cow may have been eating up the soul of one of my ancestors—made me melancholy and pensive for fifteen minutes;—man planting cabbages[25]—wondered how he could plant them so straight—method of mole-catching—and all that—quere, whether it would not be a good notion to ring their noses as we do pigs’—mem. to propose it to the American Agricultural Society—get a premium, perhaps—commencement—students give a ball and supper—company from New York, Philadelphia, and Albany—great contest which spoke the best English—Albanians vociferous in their demand for sturgeon—Philadelphians gave the preference to raccoon[26] and splacnuncs[27]—gave them a long dissertation on the phlegmatic nature of a goose’s gizzard—students can’t dance—always set off with the wrong foot foremost—Duport’s opinion on that subject—Sir Christopher Hatton the first man who ever turned out his toes in dancing—favorite with Queen Bess on that account—Sir Walter Raleigh—good story about his smoking—his descent into New Spain—El Dorado—Candide—Dr. Pangloss—Miss Cunegunde—earthquake at Lisbon—Baron of Thundertentronck[28]—Jesuits—Monks—Cardinal Woolsey—Pope Joan—Tom Jefferson—Tom Paine, and Tom the ——- whew! N. B. Students got drunk as usual.