I felt much better this morning. My purpose is now to adhere strictly to the Diet prescribed for me. Remained in Quincy all day. Morning occupied in reading and examining Mr. Stone’s book upon Masonry. The more I study the details of this affair, the more I am astonished at the daring and the deliberation with which it was conducted. Stone makes but a poor business of his defence of Governor Clinton. He exculpated him from all participation in the thing, but he cannot clear him from indifference in prosecuting the actors. He might have known the agency which Masonry had in the proceeding, but he did not care to inquire, and shielded his duty under a blind confidence in the general goodness of the Institution. Compared Text with my father.

Afternoon, amused myself with miscellaneous reading. Began an account of the teachers of Rhetoric by a certain Monsieur Gibert in a French Work called Jugemens des Savans. The work is by Baillet, 384but this is by way of Appendix.1 It is so long however that I shall not be able to read it, nor should I, in all human probability, if I was. Quiet evening at home. Read Granville, and afterwards Lingard, besides making up the deficient numbers of the Idler.