Winter in Mr. Sparks almanack1 is said to begin today, and certainly the weather looked not unlike it when we arose. The snow fell thick and heavily, but it did not last more than two or three hours. 386At the Office as usual where I again spent a good deal of time in mere conversation to no useful purpose with my neighbour Mr. Peabody. I did afterwards find a useful hour in reading a book obtained from the Athenaeum called acts relating to the Colonies.2 This assumes the English Ground and it must be admitted reasons it well. Took a walk, in the usual direction of my Tenements, where I had a short and sharp conversation with the occupant of the first one. Then I returned home.

The Afternoon passed in a very rapid reading of a considerable portion of Brutus, with which I was better pleased. I think my acquaintance with the Latin Idiom is in some respects,3 I am getting to that perfection of being able to take in the sense of a sentence often at a glance, which is the only way of enjoying a language. Evening, some more of Corinne, and having no regular book, I read to my Wife from a novel recommended to her as a good one, Pride and Prejudice.4 It is not bad. Pursued my Catalogue and read two Numbers of the Tatler.

This was the coldest morning, we have yet experienced this year, and is no very pleasant presage of what we are about to suffer during this winter. I went to the Office this morning and held myself more to occupation than I have done heretofore. I finished the book called Acts relating to the Colonies, in which is condensed very ably all that can be given upon that side. I am not surprised that Englishmen should have held on so tenaciously as they did for to them it must have been convincing reasoning. My Uncle Judge Adams called for half an hour to see me and talk a little. Nothing else remarkable took place. I went to the Athenaeum to get out one or two books and called to see Mr. Brooks but felt half frozen.

Afternoon, reading Brutus which I almost completed. The style of the latter part is interesting, more particularly as it gives us an insight into his method of pursuing the study of Oratory. It was highly laborious and moreover, it was in one particular1 essentially different from any thing that is pursued in our day. We have no Masters of Rhetoric and Philosophy with whom to argue. Do we gain or lose by it? Evening, Corinne and a little of a new book called Nollekens and 387his times,2 but Mr. Chapman came in and passed the Evening. Catalogue and Tatler.