Arose and found that instead of a bright day we were having a very heavy rain, with a warm south wind. This did not last, though we had occasional showers with thunder through the day. At the Office where most of my time was taken up in reading Mitford, the volume I wish to finish. It has been a matter of some satisfaction to me to find, that the impressions received from the book now are exactly the same with those I had in my first reading at College.

The literature of England for the early period of the nineteenth Century bears the characteristic strongly, of the times. The terror of the French revolution, and jealousy of the success of a rival nation threw nearly all the scholars in England into an attitude hostile to all institutions excepting such as supported the great weight of their own system. And as democracy was the most fearful enemy, it partook most largely of their enmity. The Tory party, Mr. Mitford, Mitchell the translator of Aristophanes, the Writers in the Quarterly Review, Walter Scott in his way, and many others which I cannot now recollect, have laboured with much assiduity and some success at this Oar. But they have perverted history, and unsettled political principle.

The Afternoon was devoted to Dr. Parr’s Life. He to be sure went to another extreme, but perhaps the most correct one. Time should never hallow abuses, though change ought not to be rashly attempted. I took up the works of Sir Joshua Reynolds to inform myself a little more upon the merits of Painters, and the science.1 This is a proper time to apply the information. Finished Eustace to my Wife in the evening, after which I attacked Logic. How multifarious is knowledge. How extended the ways of learning. Who can compass them all and yet who feels not the desire of trying more than he can accomplish.

The morning was cloudy but turned off quite fine. I began another undertaking this morning in addition to my former ones, to which I have been led by reading Dr. Parr’s Life, that is, the making a Catalogue of my Collection of Books. I propose to turn it to some account by learning the editions and their separate value and object. I began it this morning.

At the Office where I finished the volume of Mitford which I had been reading. The most prejudiced and unfair statements I ever read 257in History, compounded to produce an effect upon the occasional feelings of a people. I returned home quite early in order to go out with my Wife to Quincy. Accordingly we went and much to our surprise we found that my Mother was sick and confined to her room ever since Saturday, with a violent attack of erysipelas.1 My father’s spirits seemed much affected. Indeed I rarely recollect seeing him more dull. The time did not pass pleasantly to me, as the family seemed so disarranged. My father was regulating what he never did before, and Mrs. J. Adams doing nothing but sitting with her hands before her. The Child a nuisance, and altogether not over pleasant. The afternoon passed at my Mother’s bedside, I afterwards conversed a little with my father about his plans and prospects and tried to excite his weakened purpose of writing my grandfather’s life.2 After which we returned to town, and I finished Dr. Parr.