I find my cold as inconvenient, although not perhaps quite so severe as it has been. Continued reading the Maid of Orleans and then to the Office, where I occupied myself for the most part with Cicero’s first book de Oratore which I finished. How discouraging to study such a model. To see what can be done by a great genius and how little one must feel in making even an attempt in comparison. I do mean however to try my best upon my new work when I get over my cold.

Walk and collected my Dividend upon Shares in Lawrence Factory, Mr. Brooks last present. It is not very large for Manufacturing Property in the Stability of which I have very little confidence. Read more of the Ibis which to be sure is a curse beyond every thing of the kind excepting the curse of Obadiah.

Afternoon, Grimm. He gives an Account of a journey of Louis 16. made in 1786 in which it would seem as if the whole French people were at his feet, and he maintains the opinion that no king of that Country ever was more firmly seated in the heart of his people. Five short years made his words folly. Read Mons. Guizot whose views are clear enough but I do not know that any reading of this sort will be of much use to me. My main difficulty is the desultory character of my studies. Began today a curious book, Deontology by Bowring from the Manuscripts of Jeremy Bentham.1