A fine afternoon although appearances before dinner indicated a storm. I continued reading Faust and then went to the Office. Time there but very short.

Went in to see a collection of paintings made or copied by one of our young artists while learning his trade abroad which he is about to sell. He has copied with great diligence but I do not think very well. His drawing is deficient. He does not seem to have been disposed to 40study Anatomy with the patience the subject requires. His coloring is pretty good and yet you see too much of the same in the copies of all the different masters. The painter, Hewins, has also made a collection of pictures which he dubs with very high sounding names. Some of them are good copies and some tolerable originals but the impression is generally unsatisfactory.1

Walk. Ovid. Afternoon pursued the arrangement of the papers. Mr. Jefferson’s correspondence. He appears most agreeably while acting as Minister in France. And least so in the interval of his retirement from public life in 1791. Evening, continued reading Faust.