Diary of John Quincy Adams, volume 1
1780-09-12
Received two lett
one a Letter from Mr. Thaxter.1 Nothing remarkable this day.
Reading a Volume of the Spectator I found something which I will copy.2
Undoubtedly that of 4 Sept., on which date
Thaxter also wrote to JA
(
Adams Family
Correspondence
, 3:411–413).
Here follows, on three and one-half pages in the Diary, Alexander Pope's poem, “Messiah, A sacred Eclogue . . . in Imitation of Virgil's Pollio,” from “Spec. vol 5, Number 378,” where the poem was published for the first time on 14 May 1712 (ed. Bond, 3:419–422).