My night was not a quiet one. Morning clear, I arose at my usual City hour. After breakfast began a new branch of Study, Aristotle upon Poetical Composition.1 One would suppose I was a Poet from my studies but Nature gave me no flights. It endowed me with a tolerably strait forward sense and middling Judgment which is perhaps more than a counterbalance so far as regards the practical affairs of life. I read Aristotle and Horace to form a critical Judgment, and to apply much of their rules to prose composition, for which they answer equally well. Felt languid and unwell so that my exertions during a considerable part of the morning were lame. I finished a re-composition of my first number against Otis and wrote my Father a letter.2 Mr. Ballister called upon me with a short statement of his Account with my brother, which I inclosed to my Father with an explanation. Mr. Curtis came to ask me to mention an intended visit from himself and Mrs. Boylston on Friday morning. Judge Hall called for general conversation. Nothing was therefore lost of the time, that I could save. But these interruptions from people about my father’s concerns is something of a tax.

Returned to dinner. Afternoon, continued the Letters to Lentulus. There are some pleasures in living in town, but the situation of my Wife at present renders me anxious, and I take less interest in my books. Evening, Mrs. Frothingham called. Read Grimm and the Spectator.

Fine morning but warm. Read for an hour Aristotle’s Poetics, which is a kind of original fountain supplying the ideas of the whole world upon a certain subject. To be such an Author is worth while. But the days are gone. Men spread their ideas more widely and less to the purpose. At the Office. Engaged nearly all my time in writing a second Number of my remarks upon Otis’s Oration. My father’s man Kirk called to let me know my father was in town, but owing to the length of his engagement and my going to the Athenaeum as well as for a few other things I did not see him.

Returned home and in the Afternoon read as usual a portion of the Letters to Lentulus. Among others a famous long one in which he endeavours to justify his reconciliation with the Triumvirate, and his defence of Vatinius. I detest the moral of this Letter. I believe it is all sophistry from beginning to end, and though done with great ability and ingenuity, it deserves no Quarter from a moral man.

Evening at home with my Wife. We had a slight shower. Sidney Brooks and his Wife came in late and passed an hour. They had just come from Nahant and are going back tomorrow. I read some of Grimm whose constant snarling I am tired of, and the Spectator.

Morning fine and clear. I pursued my study of Aristotle’s Poetics for an hour, and find it on the whole more simple than I expected. The Essay however seems to be guided not so much by any principle founded in nature as by experience of what has been successful with Men. Thus the Works of Homer and of the early Grecian Tragic Poets are the sum of his lessons. Perhaps this is looking at the subject in rather a contracted light. Yet he really deserves the name of a great genius who can succeed in a new line.

Went to the Office and was occupied during the morning in writing. Mr. J. T. Adams called upon me about my Article. I found myself anticipated by a severe Pamphlet so that I shall discontinue my intended criticism.1 Read a little of Puffendorf as abridged in the Bibliotheque de l’homme public.

At one o’clock I returned home for the purpose of going with my Wife to Medford. We reached there quite late to dinner. Found Mr. 95Brooks, P. C. Jr. and his Wife and Miss Phillips. Passed the Afternoon doing nothing. Mr. G. W. Pratt and his Lady paid a visit. On the whole the day went pleasantly, and we returned safe and sound calling on our way upon Mrs. Angier. I read Grimm to the end of the first part of the Work, (I believe I shall not take up the second) and the Spectator. Read this evening another Letter about that business of Farmer’s.2