This Snow makes every thing cheerless, and my walk to the Office very disagreeable. I went however and was busy in making up my Accounts at the Probate Office on Mr. News Estate. This took much time in waiting, and the business was not settled after all. But it is off my thoughts for the present. Mr. Champney called in to bargain about a House, but I could not come to any decision. On the whole my morning as usual is not to be accounted for and yet I feel as if I had done my best. But so it is, and I almost despair of any decided improvement.

Returned home and spent the afternoon in reading the Orator in which I now made great progress. Having cut the road, it is very easy now to smooth it. But the doctrine it contains is as useless now as it was before. Because we have lost the Art upon which it is based, and do not even know the pronunciation of the ancient Romans.

Evening at home quietly. Read French with my Wife and then read to her during the Evening from Camilla, another of Miss Burney’s books.1 Progressed with my Catalogue and read the Tatler.