The weather was cold and cheerless, and Abby was quite sick with a head ach so that I felt rather dull. Made inquiries about the Horse and received discouraging Accounts again. Indeed after reading what I saw in the Encyclopedia about the glanders, I have little expectation of his recovery. Mr. J. Y. Champney called and paid me the balance of his rent due on the 1st of April. This was unexpected, but it makes me quite easy, on that score. My Tenants now pay very well. I have no arrears excepting Hollis and Oliver. The former will require pretty strong management, for I shall never get any money out of him. The rest of my day was taken up in copying the Papers of Administration and studying the law upon them, which I find to be tolerably complicated. My course is not a perfectly clear one. I read the leading case making Administrators liable in their private capacity for a warranty of the title of their intestate, in the capacity of Administrator. Had no other time.

After dinner I read Aeschines assiduously so that before I went to bed, I had finished the Oration against Ctesiphon. Thus have I done in six days what occupied me before two months. I also passed the evening in reading to my Wife from my Father’s tour in Silesia.1