Clear day. It would be ludicrous for me to describe how I spent my morning. Suffice it to say, that it was partly in talking with Mr. Walsh and partly in burning up old Account books which have been long laying about my rooms reminding me of the vanity of human expectations in the life and death of Bob New, barber.1

Mr. A. H. Everett called in to know when his room would be ready. I told him tomorrow, and he said he should then try to get in his things. He told me that Simpson was the person likely to succeed Mr. Henshaw in the Collectorship, inasmuch as the County Committee had voted to recommend him. So it is—Democratic enough. Mr. Henshaw understands a thing or two as well as his neighbours. Walk and home, Livy. Afternoon, Sismondi upon Alfieri, Ariosto and Fouqué.

Little John continued so unwell that my Wife concluded at last to send for Dr. Bigelow who announced that he was threatened with scarlet fever—A thing that frightens me always. I was depressed as 378I always am in such cases, and felt the presence of Gardiner Gorham as rather irksome. Swift, Conduct of the Allies.

Morning clear and bright, but a sharp Easterly wind. I went to the Office after Dr. Bigelow had been to see my boy. He inclines this morning to the opinion that he has measles. Morning taken up in Diary, Accounts and so forth. I wrote a letter to my father,1 but interruptions of one kind and another prevented it’s being as long as I meant to make it.

Walk and home where I finished the tenth book of Livy. From that to the twenty first containing the wars with Pyrrhus and the first Punic, is a hiatus valde deflendus. Livy is on the whole one of the most agreeable historians I have read—And his speeches are occasionally of far greater eloquence than the originals ever were.

Afternoon, copying my letter, after which finished Sismondi’s Account of Italian literature and read Fouqué. Evening, E. C. Adams was with us. We are anxious about little John, as well as the other children who probably will have to take their turns. Swift, four years of Queen Anne.

Little John’s case of measles is pronounced, and he is under considerable suffering with them although as yet the case is not, thank heaven a bad one. I went to the Office—My time very much thrown away in an arrangement of my books, which very much needed it, certainly. Mr. Everett as yet makes but little progress in his transmigration. I have a body of law in books and not in my head where it ought to be. Walk, but short owing to the bad weather. Called at Mr. Brooks’ and agreed to an investment with Mr. Stanwood, the same person with whom we on the former occasion transacted the other money.

Home, Livy. Afternoon, Sismondi and Fouqué. Nothing of any consequence. I read a Canto or two of Ariosto—A pleasant writer in that particular field which has so attracted all men. Chivalry seems to 379have been an institution for the pure benefit of poetical imaginations. Our days of utility drive away every thing like fancy.

Evening, I read to my Wife from the seventh volume of Madame Junot. We are rapidly drawing to the close of this long work. It has nevertheless afforded us a vast fund of amusement and has rarely proved in the least tiresome. Madame Junot no doubt colors her pictures but that is in her of no great consequence. Afterwards, Swift, Four last years of Queen Anne, one of his strongest and most biting satires.