Morning fine, but it afterwards grew cloudy and disagreeable. I went to the Office and found there a letter from T. B. Adams Jr. requesting me to appropriate his funds to the education of Joseph until he should go to Sea.1 This is generous on his part but hardly fair, for Joseph ought to pay his own expenses. Continued Gibbon and passed on the whole a fair morning. My time better occupied than heretofore. One or two interruptions of Tenants to pay Money. My father’s Affairs are now pretty easy here and would go to relieve him very much if he had not contracted such a debt from his speculation of last Summer as throws back every thing for some years. Took a walk with Mr. Peabody as usual.

Afternoon. Read parts of the third and fourth Georgic. There is an amazing sweetness in these Poems. They present agreeable images. Country scenery, quiet, innocence and peace. Not that the thing is real, for human passions are the same every where but the eye loves to rest upon a green spot, even if it is only an illusion.

Evening at home. Continued Ariosto, but my Wife votes it monotonous and a bore, so that I shall be obliged to drop it. Read the rest of Dryden’s Hind and Panther. A religious discussion in verse. I became drowsy over it.