Warm day but not like yesterday. We are in general subject here to a rapid alternation from cold to hot without much of the middling weather which is so agreeable to the system. Went to town accompanied by Mr. Brooks. As my Office was not habitable under the process of purification I went to the Athenaeum where I amused myself reading Blackwood upon Trade Unions.1 Called for my Wife who was in town and we went to the Athenaeum Gallery together. Then back to Medford. Afternoon not much employed. My place of occupation is too near the children. Read a little of Discovery, finished Hume’s Moral Treatise, and two elegies of Ovid. Then took a walk with my child. Evening, read aloud to Mr. Brooks, Mr. Webster’s late speech 326upon the Protest.2 It is the next best thing to the reply to Hayne which he has done. Some parts are very fine.