A very hot day with a Southerly wind, more oppressive than any thing I have felt this Summer. My morning was not very actively employed. Read an Ode of Horace and wrote my Diary.

Attended Divine Service all day. Mr. Smith, the Preceptor of the Hingham Academy,1 preached, in the morning upon the immortality of the Soul as the Christian doctrine, 1. Thessalonians 5. 6. and in the Afternoon Titus 3. 9. upon the absence of divisions. He was quite brief and had little of substance in his discourses. But he was good looking, and his manner was quite tolerable.

I read a Sermon of Massillon’s upon St. Bernard. Text Ecclesiasticus 46, 16–17 ( our version makes part 13.14.15. ) “Beloved of his Lord, he established a kingdom and anointed princes over his people. By the law of the Lord he judged the congregation. By his faithfulness he was found a true prophet.” A parallel between Samuel and Bernard, considering them in three lights, as religious men, as Apostles and as teachers of truth. I know little of Bernard’s history, and am not willing to take my knowledge implicitly from this authority.

Mr. Degrand passed the day here. Nothing new. Mr. Beale and his son were here in the evening. There was a shower.

The weather promised to be warm so that I concluded to remain at home. It was in fact however quite tolerable the wind coming out from the North West. I went to the Bath and enjoyed a very agreeable plunge. My way is not to remain long enough to fatigue myself and yet to obtain the benefit of the freshness. I read a little of Horace and also some of Neale and Tudor’s life of Otis, but I do not advance much in my project. I want energy to begin.

The Afternoon was passed in reading St. John de Crevecoeur. He gives some statistics which for that period were no doubt quite valuable, and some account of customs which are curious and to me in a great degree new.

Mr. and Mrs. Wm. Lee came out and paid a visit this Afternoon. Mrs. A my Mother was too unwell to see them. She is suffering severely from her old complaint the Erisypelas. In the evening I went 128out in the Carriage with my Wife and the Children. Little Louisa, our child was taken sick and gave us some trouble. She is in the process of cutting teeth and gives us much anxiety. We did little or nothing. I read the Observer.