I went into town this morning accompanied by Walter Hellen. My time was very much taken up in running around with him to show him the town. This with half a dozen business Commissions made the hours slip away fast enough. Returned to dinner. The day was cloudy, and threatened rain.

Afternoon. I finished Mr. Jefferson’s works. The impression they leave is not favourable. You cannot think the man great. His ideas were all refinements and his benevolence had so theoretical an aspect that it never touches the heart. On the other hand, his malignity seems to have grown with his age, and his last Letters breathe the discontents of a mortified man instead of the softened exultation of a uniformly prosperous one. His irreligion gives the last deep shade to the picture. Read several of the Lamentations of Ovid which are another and a different but an equally discreditable picture of human life.

Evening, quiet, finished the first volume of Madame de Maintenon’s Memoirs which are well written.