Milder. Office as usual. Visits from Colburn of Quincy and T. Adams who wanted money which I could not pay, and from W. Spear who paid a little and returned me my Note to Jos. Adams redeemed. After talking over many things relating to my affairs at Quincy, he left me and I wrote Diary and Accounts.

Mr. Hallett and A. H. Everett came in and talked. Nothing new however. The first goes to Washington next week. He left and Mr. Everett intimated to me a suspicion thrown out by Mr. Foster, that Hallet was sent to Washington to secure the place of Collector for Mr. Simpson. I said I did not believe it, that I had supposed Mr. Simpson 162to have acquired power by playing off Hallett and James against each other, and that thus Mr. Hallett had got a nomination on the ticket of Senators while James had consented to sacrifice the Antimasons for his nomination as Mayor. But that by this process a tacit withdrawal of opposition was all. Everett seemed doubtful what to think. He suggested a nomination of Parmenter and seemed anxious to press the point. I told him that I studiously avoided personal questions and doubted whether Mr. Cushing would favor the plan. I have reason to suspect E’s motive in this to be to make a vacancy in the Middlesex Congressional District with the hope of filling it. A desperate idea. I suggested to him against my former advice a visit to Washington which he seemed to favour. Thus I have released myself from that advice. O! wretched miserable stuff, these petty political jealousies. I will seek to avoid them if I lose by it every prospect of distinction.

Home. Livy. Afternoon, Plutarch and Burnet. Forster. After which finished the first volume of von Tietz, and Goguet.

A fine day with the wind from the Northward and yet remarkable to relate very mild. I read some of the versified Psalms of J. B. Rousseau with which I was struck. He appears to have done the best with French Poetry, which does not often admit of the high Lyric.

Attended Church at Mr. Frothingham’s. Mr. Walker of Charlestown preached from 2. Corinthians 8. 21. “Providing for honest things, not only in the sight of the Lord, but also in the sight of men.” He considered honesty as a word of various signification, and dwelt particularly upon what he called legal honesty, and worldly policy as distinct from true honesty, or moral rectitude. The discourse was in his style plain almost to baldness, but strong and clear. Afternoon Job. 7. 16. “I would not live alway.” It seems to me I have heard him or somebody else on this subject lately. Preparation for a future life the great business of this exemplified by him by the process of a liberal education. Mr. Walsh did not dine with me and I walked alone.

Read Dr. Barrow on the same text and subject with last Sunday. A continuation of the reasons for the crucifixion. After all, common sense points out the fact as the great argument and must look at the attempts to assign causes, however ingenious and well argued as mere boy’s play. Evening called at Mr. Brooks’, nobody there but W. G. Brooks. Home early. Goguet.