Morning exceedingly mild. I went to the Office as usual and passed my day with the same degree of indolence which is usual with me. Received a letter from T. B. Adams expressing his satisfaction with my Accounts.1 Read a part of one of the numbers of the Farmer’s Series upon the Horse, with which I was pleased. I have purchased the set and consider it as more valuable than the general Series published by the same Society.2 But I must turn over a new leaf in the employment of my time of a morning. Took a walk to the Athenaeum thence home.

Afternoon continued Quinctilian Book 2 and 3. The division of Rhetoric, the Account of the Authors upon it and their particular theories, none of which is either interesting or peculiarly valuable. I came across an idea of perspective which seemed to me to settle the question whether the Ancients knew it or not.3

Quiet evening at home. Read to my Wife part of Leigh Hunt’s book about Byron.4 It is evidently a thing for sale, containing mean anecdotes and grovelling doctrines stuck on to distinguished names. The writer having had opportunities to see a little of some famous men in his day. Afterwards, finished Fuseli, read over the 7th book of the Odyssey and the usual Guardians.