Diary of Charles Francis Adams, volume 5
1834-05-08
Fine morning with the air mild and pleasant. I went to town accompanied by Mr. Brooks. Time occupied in commissions of various sorts. Called in at a sale of pictures,1 from thence to my House which I found duly closed and at the office where I read a considerable part of the Report and Investigation by the Committee of the last Legislature upon the subject of Freemasonry. It is evidently from the pen of Mr. Hallett and very clear but rather dull. He often writes with spirit but not with that sort of vigor in his serious papers which makes them amusing.
Returned to Medford to dinner. Afternoon. Commenced Madame de Stael on Literature,2 and read Ovid, Deianira to Hercules. I also took up Italian which with German I mean to make my occupation this Summer. Evening. Mirabeau, Considerations sur l’ordre de Cincinnatus, a translation of Burke’s pamphlet which first attacked the order in this Country.3 Began to feel more settled.
The paintings were advertised as having been received from Antwerp and as the work of Rubens, Cuyp, Hobbema, Poussin, &c. (Columbian Centinel, 8 May, p. 3, col. 6).
In CFA’s set at MQA of Mme. de 309Staël’s Oeuvres complètes, 17 vols. in 9, Paris, 1820–1821, “On Literature” is in vol. 4.
A copy of the London, 1788, edition is at MQA. The author of the original pamphlet, published in 1783, was Aedanus Burke of South Carolina (
DAB
).