Morning cold and clear. I went to Meeting all day, and heard in the 417morning a Sermon from Mr. Frothingham which my own personal suffering during the morning totally prevented me from listening to. In the Afternoon I heard Dr. Follen preach from a portion of the Sermon on the Mount. “Blessed are the pure in heart &ca.” He did not handle it with the ability such a Sermon requires. He is a German and I cannot bear to see a German undertaking to talk to Americans in their own language. And when he takes the sublimest part of the New Testament to talk upon, he tries his abilities in a strong light. His Sermon in other respects, was very good. It would have done very well with a hundred other Texts or with none at all.

Returned home and finished my Letter to my father with the Copying.1 Evening quiet. Read Buffon’s Theory of the Earth which amused me, and also finished the first Volume of the Latin Grammar and two Numbers of the Tatler.

Morning at the Office. Busy as usual in my avocations and had very little time to pursue my examination of the maxims of the wise men which I resumed after a lapse of some time. In truth during the intensely cold weather we have had, it is a severe thing to sit down and write at all. I have a good deal of that to do always in addition to which this comes hard. I find also that a good deal of my time is wasted in the reading of Newspapers. My morning evaporates in spite of myself.

After dinner I finished the first Oration against Verres, and began the second, all the early part of which is only a repetition of what he has already said. But he then enters into the heart of the subject. It is a pity that you are obliged to imagine this to have been delivered as the Delinquent fled the Contest, and made the whole series unnecessary.

In the Evening I attended the annual Meeting of the Proprietors of Boylston Market to see an Account of their expenditure and receipt. Upon the election of Directors, I was very much surprised to find myself put upon the list. It was not my wish to undertake this which is very certainly a more troublesome situation than that in the Middlesex Canal, but I did not feel at liberty to decline it. Upon the election of Clerk, I was again put in nomination and chosen, which I disliked exceedingly. Though of the two, I should have preferred having that alone to the other. Returned home at nine o’clock and read the Latin Grammar and the Tatler.