Weather warm but pleasant. There was a thunder shower in the afternoon. I went to town accompanied by Mr. Brooks. Occupied at 334my Office in writing up Diary, then on the Athenaeum and from thence to my house. Thus the time passed, then to Medford.

Afternoon, read Mrs. Inchbald’s Life. A poor thing as ever was. Towards the latter part of the second volume the letters of Miss Edgeworth are introduced which are worth all the rest put together. The more I see of that lady, the more I admire her. She represents more fully the English character in its best condition than any body I know.

Ovid, Art of Love, second volume, which is prettier. One may trace in this book many of the notions which prevail with respect to women, as that deception is lawful, the modes of flattery, the excessive subjection to their will &ca. &ca. His particular fort lays in the illegible word the Grecian Mythology.1 Nothing else material. Received a letter from my father conveying some disagreeable news respecting Joseph H. Adams.2