It looked really like Winter this morning. The Streets were a sheet of ice. I went to the Office and after the usual work rather idled away my time. Wrote an answer to Mr. Treadway.1 This is a tiresome business, and I wish I was rid of it. But the change having now arrived when I have always a good deal of leisure time at the Office, I must try and turn it to some account. Walk, and home to read Juvenal whose twelfth Satire I got through with.

Afternoon copying my letter to Mr. Treadway and finishing my second number for the Advocate. I have some doubts about the merits of these. They do not strike me so favorably as other things I have done. And I hope they will prove the last. Politics are not agreeable to me. I pursue them in order to maintain my standing in the eyes of others. Read Madame du Deffand and Voltaire.2 Evening, the Biographies of Voltaire and Rubens in the Portrait Gallery. Afterwards writing without satisfaction.