The morning opened cheerless and dark, but we established a good counterpoise to the effect of the weather without, by making comfortable fires. I went to the Office however and remained there until driven in by the cold.1 Performed my usual series of duties. Finished the first Philippic which I regard as a very powerful production. Short but clear and developing a policy according to the rules recommended by the Rhetoricians, in such a manner as to instruct, to please and to excite his Auditors. I am glad circumstances turned my Attention to it. Continued reading the Federalist and examined the Numbers relating to the dangers to the States. It is a little singular that the contingency likely to take place, was never foreseen by any of the Writers for the Federalist. They judged only from what they had seen, partial insurrections in particular States, but they did not extend their vision to what seems now as one of the most easily to be foreseen occurrences, the discontent of a State. The spirit of the reasoning however goes to show the total absurdity of the doctrine now advanced respecting the part that the States as separate Governments have in the original compact.

Afternoon, after an hour in the Garden, I continued the Letters to Atticus. The period of Cicero’s Proconsulship is on the whole one of the most creditable portions of his career. He abstained from the Commission of any of the enormities so usual with the Roman Provincial Governors. Yet so little had he in his mind the principles of true morality, which directs human conduct in the path of virtue, by motives drawn from its innate value, that in all the letters to Atticus, it is plain he regards the fame, the reputation of this world as the 139 image great object to be gained. Perhaps even this is a great deal, apart from the knowledge given us through the religion of Christ.

Read Bacon’s Essay on the true greatness of Kingdoms and Estates, and two numbers of the Spectator. Evening with the Ladies, read aloud from the Young Duke.2

Morning clear with a pleasant wind from the Westward and altogether an agreeable day. After my morning’s occupation, I attended divine Service and heard a Mr. Edes, a young man not yet settled,1 preach two very respectable Sermons upon 1st. the servitude of sin. Text John. 8. 34. “Whosoever committeth sin is the Servant of sin.” He drew a contrast between the disgust commonly entertained at the slavery of the body, and the indifference with which the slavery of the mind is regarded. And filled his Sermon by citing examples of the influence of the passions upon man. His afternoon discourse was upon 1. Peter 1. 13. “Be sober” and was of rather a higher order. He inculcated the necessity of sobriety in all matters of life, whether in pleasure or in business, in happiness or in misery. The subjects of neither one new. But then what can be new that relates to the Christian faith? The latter subject is as old as the μηδὲν ἄγαν of the Greek wise man.

Read one of Massillon’s Sermons in the afternoon, upon the Obstacles to the truth existing in the heart of the great. His text from Psalms 2. 2. “The kings of the Earth set themselves, and the Rulers take Counsel together, against the Lord and against his Anointed.” He divided these obstacles into two: The Jealousy of all distinction which does and will always exist among men to depress true honour and virtue, and the self interest which pushes to the acquisition of 140fortune. He shows how these Passions operated to attempt the destruction of the Saviour and how he finally triumphed over these passions. This makes the substance of the Sermon, in which the parts are worked with very considerable power. But the eloquence of Massillon is not the eloquence of business, it is the stately movement of a studied uncontested style, not the fire and steel as Cicero calls it of the real battle of Wits. I read Bacon’s Essay on Regimen of Health.

Evening passed with the family. I read a part of the Spectator and a little of the Review of Affairs in 1830 in the Cabinet Cyclopedia. Mr. and Miss Whitney2 called upon Miss Roberdeau and Abby.