Diary of Charles Francis Adams, volume 3
1830-10-22
Morning clear and pleasant. At the Office as usual. Occupied in my Occupations of account and in settling some outstanding demands, until eleven o’clock, when I took up one of my books purchased at the sale yesterday. It is a work upon diplomatic style by one Meisel and so far as I have read contains some very good precepts indeed.1 I was pleased with the simplicity of his advice and its aptness. A man in writing about a thing should always exemplify his advice as much as possible by his practice.
Returned home and passed the Afternoon in reading over the second book of Cicero de Inventione. I do not think more of it on a reperusal. It is on the whole a dry production. Useful to such as myself who are examining the subject with attention but totally without interest to people in general. It wants clearness, its allusions are intricate, its advice too multiplied. The mind cannot embrace at once so rapid a variety of points.
In the evening I attended a Ward Meeting of the friends of Mr. 345Appleton to organize the system of voting, and returned home to read a little of Mr. Todd’s Account of Milton,2 which I do not like so well as that of Dr. Symmons. Two numbers of the Tatler.
In the copy at MQA of Cours de style diplomatique by H. Meisel, 2 vols., Paris, 1826, is a notation in CFA’s hand: “Bought at the sale of Mr. E. J. Lowell’s Library. October 21st 1830, $2.00.”
Two copies of Henry John Todd’s “Some Account of the Life and Writings of John Milton” are in MQA, both owned by JQA. One was published independently (London, 1809), the other is vol. 1 of Milton’s Poetical Works in 7 vols., published in the same place and year.