Fine day. At home. Ride. Evening, visit from E. Quincy and Mr. Parker.

This day was passed very quietly at home. Read the Correspondence of the Revolution, being that of Izard, Laurens and the commencement of Franklin’s. Also Texier, but my German does not flourish from the want of a text book. So I went over the Life of Alcibiades in Plutarch. How much in that biography as indeed in all those of that writer.

Read after dinner only ten sections of the twelfth book of the Annals of Tacitus, as I went to ride accompanied by my father round Milton Hill. The Country looks very beautifully. Evening at home. Edmund Quincy and his Wife’s brother, Mr. parker came in and passed an hour. The former appears much better.

Hazy but fine. To town. Afternoon visitors. Evening at the house below.

I went this morning to town and was occupied very much with applications from tenants and with the performance of commissions. I know not why but things seemed to go well with me today. This is a peculiar and unaccountable circumstance in my life that without my knowing why or wherefore, I shall be at some moments a little elated and at others equally depressed. The course of my life has been so smooth that it ought not to be subjected to such alternations, at least without some evident reason for them.

Home. Afternoon, only five sections of Tacitus as I was interrupted by a visit from Mrs. Perkins and Mr. and Mrs. Rogers who spent an hour. At the Mansion in the evening.

Warm and dry. At home. Dine at my father’s and evening visit.

I spent a large part of my morning in a manner somewhat different from my usual one. My first experiments in budding were made this morning upon a variety of stocks of wild pear and apple trees which are in my vicinity and which at present cannot be said to yield any profit to any one. Whether they will take or not I cannot say, the heat of the day which I did not expect is against it, but at any rate there is not much lost. I had a little time left for Texier.

We dined at the Mansion and spent the evening as usual. I finished the twelfth book of the Annals ending with the death of Claudius. Which is the worst character Messalina or Agrippina? I incline to think the latter. Visit with my father, Mr. and Mrs. John Greenleaf, and Mr. Cranch.1 J. Carr my father’s tenant lost his child this evening, so late obtained.