Morning tolerably pleasant, with a cool East Wind. I went to town 63as usual, though I felt a little affected by a bad Night’s rest. Occupied much in my common way, in the performance of sundry Commissions, and then in reading Mr. de Mably. A book I do not admire. The principle of its foundation being wrong, it destroys the whole superstructure. I went to the Athenaeum to get some books and spent a short time reading the newspapers from England which exhibit a very peculiar state of things. But the Reform seems determined. The violence with which it is conducted betokens more alarming measures to come.

Dined at Mr. Frothingham’s with only the family and Horatio Brooks.1 From thence I went to the regular Meeting of the Directors of the Boylston Market, where having transacted all the usual business which was not much, I got away to return to Quincy at about five o’clock. But from my imprudence in eating Nuts at dinner, I found myself suffering from a violent headach with some fever, which I tried to walk off by going to Mt. Wollaston, without effect. Read the Spectator and passed a restless Night.

A strong fog from the Eastward. I felt so much indisposed that I thought it not advisable to go to town. So that I busied myself as well as I could in arranging my Grandfather’s Papers. I find the correspondence immensely large and some of it not of great value. But there is some which is valuable to preserve, as a memorial to our family of what others thought. The attempt to methodize must be well studied before it can succeed. I read a part of the second book of Rousseau’s Emile that falls off from the practical character of the first though equal in the beauty of its style. It was cold though it cleared away.

In the Afternoon, I began Cicero’s Oration for Rabirius Postumus, and read a large part of it. The reflection in it is fine, though perhaps he could have been better occupied. Probably his Client was no better than he should be. I cannot however study with one half the relish here that I do at home, for I am not in the way to be so thorough. T. B. Adams Jr. was here from Medford,1 and passed the afternoon. Evening, read a little of Grimm, felt a good deal better, and finished with two Numbers of the Spectator.