Morning at the Office as usual—The weather a continuation of the fine season of warmth we so unexpectedly enjoy. I was engaged nearly the whole of my time in copying my Letter to my Father and finishing the Accounts previous to their transmission. I completed every thing so as to feel rather awkwardly when Dr. Lewis came to pay his rent and wind up his Lease. I begged him to postpone it which is a prayer I seldom make in cases of payment. I am going to have some trouble with that House. From some cause or other, George had very little while he was in the Agency. And now it comes all at once upon me, with the repairs which it will be necessary to make to put1 upon the Houses so as again to rent them. I wrote fully upon the subjects and 120intend as far as possible to relieve myself from responsibility in the matter. Many persons called upon small affairs of different sorts too numerous to mention.

I had only leisure to look over a small portion of the Catalogue of the Athenaeum which is just now published.2 There are many good books, but too many which seem to have very little value attached to them. I suppose this a fact necessarily resulting from the Constitution of the Corporation, by which popular works are demanded, to please the taste of Proprietors who read only those. Returned home, and having wasted an hour of the afternoon in paying attention to the affairs of my Wine Cellar I read a considerable part of Aeschines. Having left off the slow process of translation, I go on faster, but my schemes and my projects are so numerous that they puzzle me a little. In the evening, I read to my Wife a portion of Clarissa Harlowe where it is becoming most interesting. We were interrupted by Edmund Quincy who spent an hour in conversation in a very tolerable manner.