Isaac Hull Adams came to town this day and established himself at our house for the purpose of preparing himself for West Point.1 I was at the Office. Anxiety for the Child not materially diminished. Took a walk to a house in Cedar Street for the purpose of looking at some of the Furniture which I wanted. It did not at all answer my expectation. This and a regular walk at one o’clock fatigued me considerably as I had passed but a middling kind of a night. Read a considerable quantity of Gibbon however, upon Justinian and Theodora. Bad enough in all conscience.

Afternoon. Mr. Brooks having dined with us, I remained down stairs considerably longer than usual, so that I accomplished only about five hundred lines of the second Aeneid, with the description of the taking of Troy. I think it is a very great mistake committed to make boys or men read Virgil first and Homer afterwards. One would think the true way to be exactly the reverse. For the former takes up the subject just where the other drops it. Perhaps it is one of the most curious of occurrences that perfection in this kind of style should have been reached so early.

Evening, we omitted our usual reading. Mr. Degrand came in, and passed an hour. I read more of Montesquieu, and progressed in my irregular study of the harmony of the Gospels.