At the Office as usual. Read a part of Gibbon’s fifth volume and 240the detail of the miserable condition of the Countries of Europe under the Government of such Puppets as Arcadius and Honorius. I have often thought of a remark made either by Robertson or Roscoe which at the time I transferred to my Commonplace, that the period which may be considered that of the world’s utmost degradation dated from the close of the reign of Theodosius till the Revival of letters.1 Nothing material occurred.

Mr. Peabody and Mr. Quincy dined with me. The thing was rather dull. The latter gentleman has altered considerably and not for the better since his engagement. I had not time to pursue my studies today so that I took up Beaumont and Fletcher reading the four first Acts of the Maid’s Tragedy, and wondering what it was gave to them their reputation.2 Probably the loyalty which runs through it. A King is represented as bad as possible, and the persons he most injured will not touch him because he is a King. The Woman repents of her sin in the most sudden and unnatural manner merely because her brother rants a minute or two and threatens to kill her. Just so, this brother afterwards quarrels with Amintor and is reconciled again in neither case with any adequate motive. The transitions are violent and unnatural, and the Poetry is not particularly distinguished. Evening quiet, continued Hunt’s puerile recollections of himself, the epithet will apply in more than one sense.