Another mild day. I went to the Office as usual and passed my time in the same way. It was cut up today partly by attending a Meeting of 234the Directors of the Middlesex Canal for the purpose of organization for the next year. I had also one or two interruptions. Took a walk to the Athenaeum. On the whole nothing to boast of in my morning. Read part of Quinctilian in the afternoon containing his distribution of the various species of Oratory and the subdivisions of which it is capable. In my opinion a great deal of time consumed in trifling matters. The subject of Rhetoric seems to me to have been very much mystified in former days. The division is simple enough, into deliberative, demonstrative and judicial. Though the second name hardly applies to the class it intends to cover.

Evening at home. Mr. Brooks took tea and spent two hours in conversation. So that I did not read. Afterwards I wrote a short letter to my father for the purpose of telling him what Deacon Spear requested as to the state of his farms at Quincy.1 But my Correspondence with him this Winter has amounted to nothing at all. Afterwards, the Odyssey and Guardians.