The Storm had abated very little when we arose this morning, and it continued during the day, piling its heaps around us. We have had no such storms for two years. I did not stir out of the House all day. My occupation was reading Middleton’s Life of Cicero, and Drake’s Account of the Authors of the British Essayists, which last in it’s original shape I concluded. On the whole I have not experienced disadvantage from this reading. It has given me a view of the History of 403Essay Writing in England which I had not before. The acquisition of new ideas is always of value. The same Author has continued the History since the age of Addison and Steele, which I propose also to examine.1 I did not feel the pressure of time and accomplished a good deal.

Evening, reading to my Wife, from the Book upon Spain. This work of Mr. Slidell’s2 is really an acquisition in it’s way, it does credit to our Country. I afterwards read the North American Review, Article, The American System,3 which is a good Commentary upon Mr. Cambreleng’s miserable misrepresentation of our affairs—A statesman who is for setting a foreign Country over his own by a series of perversions of fact. After this, I read my regular quantity of the Tatler.