A fine afternoon although appearances before dinner indicated a storm. I continued reading Faust and then went to the Office. Time there but very short.

Went in to see a collection of paintings made or copied by one of our young artists while learning his trade abroad which he is about to sell. He has copied with great diligence but I do not think very well. His drawing is deficient. He does not seem to have been disposed to 40study Anatomy with the patience the subject requires. His coloring is pretty good and yet you see too much of the same in the copies of all the different masters. The painter, Hewins, has also made a collection of pictures which he dubs with very high sounding names. Some of them are good copies and some tolerable originals but the impression is generally unsatisfactory.1

Walk. Ovid. Afternoon pursued the arrangement of the papers. Mr. Jefferson’s correspondence. He appears most agreeably while acting as Minister in France. And least so in the interval of his retirement from public life in 1791. Evening, continued reading Faust.

A clear, cold, bright winter’s day. I took a walk which I enjoyed. The air was sharp and the ground covered with a thin coating of snow but the distant hills were sharply defined in the landscape and the sun cast a cheerful glow over the scene.

I attended divine service all day. Mr. Frothingham preached. Luke 24. 29 “But they constrained him saying, Abide with us: for it is toward evening and the day is far spent.” I am afraid I must have been musing for I utterly forget what the substance of the Sermon was. Matthew 2. 8 “And he said, Go and search diligently for the young child; and when you have found him bring me word again, that I may come and worship him also.” This was upon the old idea of Rochefoucauld, that hypocrisy is the homage vice pays to virtue, exemplified in the speech and conduct of Herod.

Read a discourse of Dr. Barrow in continuation of the one read last week. The profitableness of Godliness, brought out into more particulars. It’s value as producing contentment and energy, hope and faith. I did not think the subject in this contracted view of it would have produced two Sermons. Dr. Barrow does not appear to me to see religion in its more noble forms. Evening continued and finished for the first time Faust. I have been much pleased with it, and intend to go over it soon again to be more master of it’s language.

Lord Francis Leveson Gower has attempted to translate Faust, and considering the enormous difficulty of the task has pretty well suc-41ceeded. But many passages he in despair utterly omits and others he does not fully render. The scene in the Cathedral and that in the prison strike me the most, although as much perhaps from the allegorical meaning they can be made to convey as from the Poetry which in contrast is finely managed. If I was called upon to say what I did not like, I should say the doubting tone of the piece. The sarcasm upon wisdom and religion without any confirmation of sound principles. The spirit of evil has got possession of Faust. He seduces Margaret, who poisons her Mother and kills her child. Margaret’s position is strictly dramatic being innocent of all but loving with weakness. She is made religious but her religion aids her little and the last scene fine as it is, might have been improved by a little less of frenzy and more of the spirit of piety and reliance upon the Deity. This would have made a moral which on the whole the piece a little wants.

I went to the office where I passed a couple of hours as usual and then a walk—After which the battle of the Centaurs and Lapithae in Ovid. The afternoon was passed in arranging papers. Evening Mr. Brooks being out, I read to my Wife part of the translation of Faust, which Nathl. Hall finally interrupted. Mr. Brooks was out.