Morning clear but showing the advances of Winter upon us. The Country looks bleak and cheerless, and I feel no disposition to seek it. 346Attended Divine Service all day and heard a certain Mr. Abbot1 a young man preach two uninteresting and commonplace Sermons. This matter of preaching is rather a poor business in most cases—Particularly when young men undertake it. Yet young men must practise to become good. I continued my Number in the Edinburgh Review which I found uncommonly interesting. The Life of Bentley, the Roman History of Niebuhr and the Political Article are all good.2 The spirit of the second I liked more particularly as it discourages the strong spirit of the age to doubt. My own ideas have always turned against the doctrine that makes every thing in the world unstable. Afternoon, a visit from Mr. Willm. G. Brooks and his brother from Maine.3 They stayed an hour, after which I read Walter Scott’s Dramatic Pieces, lately published. They have no great merit. Some pretty poetry, great ease, but no higher qualities and a total deficiency of Plot except that poorest of all which takes its rise from supernatural incidents—A quality which is visible in all the works of Scott and shows an inherent weakness in his mind.