Morning clear. I went to the Office and passed my time in Diary and in drawing up accounts for the close of the present Quarter. This is a laborious business for so heavy a quarter as the last one has been. And it requires more skill to bring it exactly to correspond with my books than my former and simpler system did. The double entry plan is no doubt very useful for very extensive operations but it is a little cumbrous for plain ones.

Short walk and home to read Livy. Finished the sixth book, with the account of the struggle for the laws of Licinius Stolo and the final victory of the plebeians over the money power of the nobles. The speech of Appius Claudius is a fine one whether genuine or not. There is something remarkable in the continuation in these families of great ability with the influence of name. No modern history shows any parallel to it. Even in England, wealth sustains the nobility but how few leading men in the debates of the House of Lords are not novi homines, created for merit from the gentry and middling classes? In our Country, where are the old names?—All gone out of the list of leading men.

Afternoon, Niebuhr and de la Motte Fouqué with a glance at d’Israeli’s Literary character which hurts my eyes in the fine print.1 I can read but a very little at a time. Evening, Madame Junot, and afterwards Scott’s Life of Swift prefixed to his works which I have just received and mean to study.2