Clear but cold with an Easterly wind. Day passed in the usual duties and evening at the Mansion. There has been a very bright Aurora borealis for four successive nights.

Attended divine service and heard Dr. Henry Ware Jr. preach in the morning from Proverbs 4. 23. “Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.” A very good discourse explanatory of Pope’s verse “An honest man’s the noblest work of God” which he considers as designed only to embrace that sort of honesty which is of the world and not the higher duty of faithfulness to God. Afternoon Matthew 16. 26. “For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?” He first considered the probable meaning of the word in this text as it was used in other places indiscriminately for life or spirit, but whichever it might mean he regarded it as emphatically expressing the value of another life and the vanity of attaching the affections to the things of this.

Read a discourse of Bishop Atterbury’s in the English Preacher upon the duty of praise and thanksgiving. Psalm 50. 14. “Offer unto God thanksgiving.” I take much pleasure also in reading the criticism of Grimm, which though prejudiced is still excellent. He possessed a great deal of discriminating talent which is the sine qua non for the critic.

Clouds and drizzle from the Eastward. At home all day reading and evening at the Mansion.

Continued and finished Mr. Locke’s Chapter on power. p. 252–282. This does not satisfy me because it resorts to a distinction between liberty and the will which begs the question. The discussion itself seems to be hardly in place. Yet Mr. Locke is still a strong thinker even when he grapples with subjects too tough for him. Read Lessing’s Criticism upon Voltaires Semiramis and Hamlet, and began Winkelman’s History of Art, rather dry I think. Lucretius b. 3, l. 425–633. Grimm.

An evening visit at the other house had not much to interest us, and upon my return I sat down to write a little squib for the Newspaper about my late adventure at my house. It is remarkable how difficult writing becomes to me now, so as in fact to discourage me from often attempting it.

A thick heavy drizzle. I went to town notwithstanding and was occupied as usual in the performance of commissions and in a visit to the Athenaeum. Home bringing to Mrs. T. B. Adams’ Miss Julia DeWint. Afternoon, reading. Evening at home.

I called at the Athenaeum for the purpose of procuring for my father Mr. Cousin’s Report upon public Instruction in Prussia.1 Saw Mr. Brimmer’s late present to the Athenaeum of expensive works of engravings.2 Read the Newspapers which are now full of the result of the late election in Maine and the consequent abandonment of Mr. Webster by the Atlas in Boston.3 Strange things take place in politics.

Read of Lucretius book 3. 633–800. And observed for some time an eclipse of the sun, through a cloud which was sufficiently thin to make it perceptible without obscuring it too much. How much one of these events brings to the mind the grandeur of the Universe. These orbs revolving in space all in their order without interference and no more permitted to us to know than they do so. Mr. Price Greenleaf spent an hour with us in the evening.