Fine day and as cool as need be. I rode to town by way of the Neck for the purpose of seeing the improvements going on there. Roxbury is receiving a great deal of the surplus population of the Capital and bids fair itself to become quite a City. The peculiar situation of Boston insulated as it is, prevents the possibility of an indefinite increase, and the progress of the building mania has already taken up most of the vacant spots. The price of land is so enormous that I do not wonder so many people prefer to avoid it. An admirable house might be built for the money that a small one costs with the land in the centre of the City. Boston has unquestionably been under an impulse within a few years which makes one wonder at the remembrance of what it was.

My morning was not very usefully spent. I hardly know what I did with it, excepting to pay a few bills and make up old accounts. Stopped in at a second hand book store where I purchased a nice copy of Grahame’s History of the United States.1 I also went in to see the collection of Pictures belonging to the late President Jefferson, which are poor enough in all conscience.2

Home. My Mother was quite ill all day but more particularly in the Afternoon. Dr. Holbrook came over and seemed to comfort her more by his mildness of manner than by his medicines.3 I read an Ode or two of Horace and some of St. John. Quiet evening.