Morning mild and pleasant to the feeling but a very bad day in respect to the walking. I went to the Office as usual and made use of all my time, first in making up my Diary and Accounts, and then in taking off the fair Copy of my last Number of the Treasury Report Review. I did not complete it. This is a much greater task than it seems to be. It has filled five Sheets of Foolscap Paper and that written pretty closely on all four sides. The exercise however has been a very good one. I have found the benefit of it as well in clearing my own ideas as in subjecting me to labour and finish the explanation of them.

I had a considerable number of Commissions to attend to so that I went out early and spent an hour and a half in performing them. Mr. Brooks dined with us quietly. After dinner, I sat down to read the 219Treatise ascribed to Cicero, called Consolatio, written by him after the death of his daughter, but I do not for some reason think it is the genuine one. I therefore left off in the middle to begin Ernest’s Critical Preface.1 Evening, finished the German’s Tale which is very ably done from first to last. Afterwards, read over the 18th book of the Iliad and the Spectator.