A fine day. I went to the Office and was busy in the never ending occupation of Accounts. This is about the close of the Quarter and therefore calls for my usual duties. In addition to these, I have now on hand Mr. Johnson’s funds which I cannot yet succeed in making available. My conferences with the Cashier of the Merchants Bank are fruitless. I called to see Mr. Brooks and state the case fairly to him.

Walk to the Athenaeum, nothing new. Home, Livy. Afternoon, Sismondi, Italian Literature, Dante, Tasso and Petrarch and Ariosto and Boccaccio, pleasant enough. Fouqué. Evening, finished the sixth volume of Madame Junot and obliged to stop there for want of the seventh.

I afterwards went on with the Journal to Stella, a most singular production. Of all strange characters, Swift’s is perhaps the most so. And the Journal to Stella is the oddest mixture of childish nonsenses1 with the gravest political allusions and the deepest personal feeling.