Morning clear but showing the advances of Winter upon us. The Country looks bleak and cheerless, and I feel no disposition to seek it. 346Attended Divine Service all day and heard a certain Mr. Abbot1 a young man preach two uninteresting and commonplace Sermons. This matter of preaching is rather a poor business in most cases—Particularly when young men undertake it. Yet young men must practise to become good. I continued my Number in the Edinburgh Review which I found uncommonly interesting. The Life of Bentley, the Roman History of Niebuhr and the Political Article are all good.2 The spirit of the second I liked more particularly as it discourages the strong spirit of the age to doubt. My own ideas have always turned against the doctrine that makes every thing in the world unstable. Afternoon, a visit from Mr. Willm. G. Brooks and his brother from Maine.3 They stayed an hour, after which I read Walter Scott’s Dramatic Pieces, lately published. They have no great merit. Some pretty poetry, great ease, but no higher qualities and a total deficiency of Plot except that poorest of all which takes its rise from supernatural incidents—A quality which is visible in all the works of Scott and shows an inherent weakness in his mind.

Morning clear and pleasant but cold. After breakfast we returned to town with Mr. Brooks in the Carriage. I went to the Office after a visit from Miss Longhurst my quondam Tenant who told me a long story about her misfortunes occasioned by the conduct of a Custom House Officer. To be sure it was bad, but she explained enough of her course in the Spring to satisfy me that it was diamond cut diamond. I had for once an uninterrupted morning at the Office and read Mr. Meisel with some diligence. I begin to feel a little more settled there and as if I could pursue some regular occupation without having my time broken up. A man by name Hayden called and took one of the Houses in Tremont Street.1 Two left.

After dinner I was busy in reading Cicero’s second book de Inventione in which I made good progress and much more understandingly than before. There is a great deal in the connection which never is broken with impunity in reading Latin. Evening, my Wife read a good portion of Corinne and I a few Letters of Gray after which I 347accomplished a considerable part of Todd’s Sketch of Milton’s Life. I believe the events and the character of this Man’s Life are now pretty well impressed upon my Memory. I afterwards read the usual quantity of the Tatler. But I find it very difficult to see the great merit of this species of Essay Writing.