Nothing of particular interest today. Clear and cold—Office where I executed my usual duties and listened to a half hour’s discourse by Mr. Walsh. Then to the Athenaeum where I got engaged in reading a most scarifying notice of N. P. Willis and his productions, in Fraser’s Magazine.1 The abuse is coarse beyond measure but the censure is not undeserved. I lost my walk and part of my hour for Livy which is a little too bad. Perhaps my most usefully spent time is in reviewing and reflecting upon the Roman republic—A mine of experience for the stormy days of our popular ocean.

Afternoon, I made up the loss and then sat down to write over some part of my last letter to Slade, but it does not yet satisfy me and I must, I fear write it all over. The political world is a busy one, but under the sort of coventry which I experience, it is a very uninteresting one to me. My papers appear to me to produce little or no effect. They are cited neither by Whigs nor their opponents. Well, patience. I will look to my duty and let that satisfy me. Evening, quietly, reading Madame Junot after which Montagne.