Cold day. I remained at home. Read as usual beginning with Horace. My practice is to read over the Notes of the Edition of Dacier and Sanadon and to compare the Text of my edition which is Gesner’s. I then note down in the Margin all that occurs to me as worthy of remark especially in cases where local allusion occurs. My Copy has no Notes. As soon as I shall have gone through the whole Volume in this manner I propose to have it bound up with perhaps an occasional blank leaf and make it my book of reference whenever I desire to consult the Author.1 Read a Chapter of Neal and some of Hutchinson with occasional reference to the Prior Documents.2 Thus my morning had gone before I was sensible of it’s passage.

In the afternoon I read Henderson and walked up in quest of Mr. Field, the Tenant who provokes me so much.3 I could not find him. I never can. He is a slippery good for nothing and such men are more trouble than value. I have one or two now on hand.

Evening at home. We heard today of the death of Mr. J. S. Johnston of Louisiana by the explosion of a Steamboat on the Mississippi.4 He was an amiable and a worthy man, and his loss is to be felt as well by the Country as his immediate circle of acquaintances and friends.