The day was not an improvement upon any of the preceding. I went to the Office as usual and occupied myself in making up my Accounts as well as writing my Journal after which I sat down again to my German. My progress here is not very rapid and for a few days past has been very much confused by other occupations. I succeeded however in making a slight impression upon the verbs. Took my walk as usual between one and two o’clock.

In the afternoon I read a large portion of Cicero’s second book de 363Oratore, coming to the Account of wit which I did not taste. The application of language in this manner requires a most thorough knowledge of the conversational idiom of a Country, and the peculiar acceptation of words in Society. However good it may have been, and Cicero would scarcely have commended it if it had not been thought so, we can see nothing which merits being so strongly sustained.

Evening, Corinne with my Wife, after which Edward Brooks came in and spent the evening. Which was all very pleasantly done. I finished the fifth book of Paradise Lost, and reviewed two thirds of it. Two numbers of the Tatler.