I have rarely known a time when my existence was more monotonous than at present. Even my literary occupations which usually give some variety to my Journal have dwindled so much as to be scarcely perceptible. I vegetate and am likely so to do. This is an incident of my condition from which I must not start. In a Community like our’s where all classes are in eager pursuit of wealth, and can spare no time 260for other purposes, he who by circumstances is relieved from the pressure, is in some degree thrown aside from the current of affairs.

Office, where Mr. Brown kept me the whole morning in argument about the Infirmary.1 He had taken advantage of the Tenant and got a Contract for it from me in April next. The Tenant came to complain and I thought him aggrieved. I have endeavoured in consequence to rectify my mistake. I kept my temper perfectly throughout.

In the Afternoon, read Stuarts Essay upon the Beautiful in which he endeavors to refute Burke and substitute a new theory. I do not think him perfectly satisfactory. Mr. Brooks took tea and spent a couple of hours, though he had not much to say. I read a little of the Absentee. Afterwards, took an incidental direction in my reading and examined Buffon’s Natural History of the Ass.2