NUNC EST BIBENDUM.

"DRINKING at Harvard is on the wane"; an involuntary sigh escaped me at seeing this melancholy statement in a recent College paper. Alas, these degenerate days, and this noble custom going to the dogs! Whither are we tending? Beware lest the sour old Puritanical days of New England return upon us in all their gloom.

I protest against this innovation, which will turn our gay and lively College into a graveyard with walking tombstones. Pray do not let the spirit of jovial good-fellowship die out within us. To be sure, women and old fogies apply harsh names to these innocent pastimes of youth; but what of that? Let us stand up like men against the tyranny of Mrs. Grundy. Without these jollifications life now would be doleful, and in the future no pleasant memories of college days would throng around us.

Suppose, my friend, twoscore more years have passed over your head, and you are bringing your hopeful son to the kindly arms of Alma Mater. With pride will you point out the place where you were arrested by the Port peeler. Approaching the then venerable Holyoke House, you will say, "Here, my son, is the very gutter in which I lay till the kind arms of comrades carried me to bed." With what admiring awe will your son regard you, and how he will endeavor to tread in the steps of his illustrious sire!

But I hear some dismally virtuous youth remark, "Unless we now improve our time, success in life will never be ours."

Stuff! young man. Are men respected at college because they work and try to do their duty? and do you suppose the world at large appreciates merit any more than we do here? My young friend, your education has been seriously neglected. Do not let the insane idea that justice exists this side of the grave possess you.

Look at that poor dig, how he grinds; so will he do when he leaves college, and finally settle down into some hard-working, long-suffering, and perhaps starving country lawyer or doctor. Such a life does not pay. Go you forth into the world; keep up the good opinion you now have of yourself; try and impress others with the same idea; and if your aims in life are not altogether attained, console yourself by thinking what you could do if you only would; and above all, keep your aims low, for "men of lofty aims" are never happy.

Let old men croak about a wasted life. Pleasure is the only good. So live on merrily, and if you should happen to end your days in an inebriate asylum you would n't care especially, and surely the world would be no great loser.