Morning cold with an Easterly wind and a heavy rain. Went to the Office and passed my morning in reading Marshall attentively—My time having little interruption. A little shocked at the blindness with which such a man as Judge Marshall has followed the English Writers, without appearing to think that he is committing gross injustice to the character of his Countrymen, and still more disgusted that he should have been willing to praise them as he does, in his Preface. But it takes much time to become perfectly disenthralled from the mental after the civil power of others has been defied. We have long ceased to obey their Officers of War, or Peace, but we still remain subjected to the decided dogmas of their High Priests of Literature. How long this may endure it is impossible to say.

The rain passed away by dinner time. Afternoon occupied in reading Chalmers, whose misrepresentations provoke me exceedingly. He makes a most unfair representation of the early History of New England and puts in his wise saws and modern instances with the feeling of a man berating his enemy with reproachful words, rather than talking calmly of the history of the past.

I finished an Article in the Quarterly review upon Dr. Dwights Travels rather more good natured to the United States than such usually are.1 And was prevented reading Eustace by the appearance of Edmund Quincy who spent the evening here.