Diary of Charles Francis Adams, volume 4
1832-09-20
Morning cloudy and looked very much like rain. The first thing that was announced to us was that the Baby had been sick during the night. She has so little sickness, that at this Season any thing like it alarms us. She was better during the day.
I remained quietly at home all the morning. Read the Preface of Bolingbroke to his Dissertation upon Parties, and some of this piece itself.1 I find my views of the English History during the Stuarts generally born out by him. He has some power with his pen though he is frequently faulty. Spent an hour comparing and correcting MS Journals with my father,2 and then rode in the Carriage with my Wife to Boston.
A dinner at Mr. Bradlee’s.3 Company consisted of Mr. Brooks, Sidney and his Wife and Henry, Mr. Frothingham and Wife, Mr. J. D. Bates,4 a Mr. Teschemaker, and Mr. Mier, besides F. H. Bradlee and his Wife.5 The dinner was quite a pleasant one. The two foreigners with the singular names did a great deal to enliven it. It is a little remarkable that the first of the two should have been an Englishman. 366We left the table before six and returned directly to Quincy. I was fearful I had been imprudent in diet, though I know not why. I did not suffer.
First published in The Craftsman, 1735, Henry Saint John, Viscount Bolingbroke’s Dissertation upon Parties in its 10th edition, London, 1775, is among JQA’s books now at the Boston Athenaeum (
Catalogue of JQA’s Books
, p. 122).
“I began ... with Charles to compare my father’s old Journals with the copies of them that I have had made” (JQA, Diary, 20 Sept.).
Josiah Bradlee’s residence at 20 Pearl Street (JQA, Diary;
Boston Directory, 1832–1833).
John D. Bates, merchant, currently living at the Tremont House (
Boston Directory, 1832–1833).
Frederick H. Bradlee, associated in business with Josiah Bradlee, lived on Milton Place (same).