Cold. When I went to the Office this morning I found the workmen all there making changes which have heretofore been contemplated. The stairs having been removed render it impossible for me to get into my rooms, so that I went down to the Insurance Co. and from thence to the Athenaeum, in which manner I passed my time quite as pleasantly as if I had been at the Office. Read part of the story of Japhet in the Metropolitan and one or two interesting articles in the Edinburgh Review. Then I took a walk after which home to read Livy. This is 335after all one of my most agreeable occupations. There is none of the bustle and stir of the world with it’s anxieties and it’s disappointments. And yet there are pictures of life brought before one with the vividness of scenic representation.

After dinner I read a part of the time, and another part I devoted to the papers of my Grandfather. Went over those of Sam. Adams but missed one very important one which I presume my father has put away too carefully. Several papers are in this predicament. The collection of Sam. Adams is small but valuable. That of Jas. Lovell is large but partakes of the valueless character of his mind. In such a position as he was this is a tenfold pity.1 Finished the first volume of Cooks Life of Lord Bolingbroke, very interesting.

Evening at home reading to my Wife from Slidell’s American in England. This was the evening of the meeting at Faneuil Hall, which I decided not to attend. Afterwards, the Zauberring.