Fine day. I went to the Office and was occupied very busily in making up my Account for the last Quarter. This took three good hours work, and I felt glad that I had such full occupation. I accomplished the Account at the exact time I generally leave my Office for my Walk. Afternoon I wrote a letter to my father to accompany it and copied it,1 thus forwarding the Packet today. Received a Letter from my Mother which dispirited me much.2 She has indulged in her usual melancholy strain which has affected my Wife and me. I do not know what to do.

Postponed thinking of it for the purpose of seeing Miss Kemble in Isabella. This is a play in which Mrs. Siddons is said to have been very great, and I had much expectation raised from this fact. But I found 287the two first Acts decidedly heavy, and she seemed to me tame in the others. I do not admire the piece.3 Its groundwork borders upon the ludicrous. To marry two husbands is not so very terrific an idea as to make the former one kill himself. Yet upon this expectation the whole villainy of Carlos and management of the plot depends. In short I was as much disappointed in this piece as I was more than pleased with the Gamester. Home immediately afterwards.