Morning cloudy with very high winds. I went to the Office as usual. Very busy in writing Diary which my engagement yesterday put me behind hand in. I afterwards made a good deal of progress in Lingard. He is now upon the track which I have pretty well beaten. His account is generally tolerable. But he is too severe upon most of the British men of genius. Every thing that is not Catholic, is open to his darts. He speaks with little severity of the Jesuit pamphlets or the Jesuit doctrines, he conceals the efforts of the Catholics against the Government, and he deprecates censure of Catholic noblemen. But Coke, Bacon, Raleigh, Burleigh, Walsingham and Hatton all are not to be spared. This is not fair. England has no names to be more proud of than some of these. Took my usual walk although it was very windy.

Afternoon, finished No. 8 of my Papers. Their publication is at a dead stand still. Why should I plague myself to continue them? Nothing but the want of something else to do more useful induces me. Read more of Villemain’s miserable book. A Frenchman can form no distinct ideas of Constitutional liberty. Evening as usual. Malvina, Lockhart’s Burns and Wieland, a discourse before the Abderites upon the Shadow of an Ass.