Fine day. To town. Afternoon and evening at home, family and visiters.

The weather has been uncommonly fine thus far in the Autumn and the frosts set in quite late. This is much pleasanter for us who found last season very uncomfortable owing to the quantity of rainy weather we experienced during this month.

I went to town and was incessantly occupied with the accounts of the quarter and various duties. I am pressing the settlement of T. B. A’s affairs which have already been hanging too long. Home.

Afternoon, Tacitus, Dialogue of Orators. I begin to incline against his being the Author. We had in the evening, the family and Mr. and Mrs. Lunt with her sister Mrs. Robbins. The news is only of some very remarkable and extensive fires in New York. Otherwise, the public is in a state of calm.

Fine day. At home. Evening at the Mansion.

I was occupied most of my morning rather idly, in working upon my grounds and in finishing off several letters which I proposed to dispatch. This with Menzel took up my morning time without going at all upon the letters of A. A.

Menzel has now got upon Education and his observations are exceedingly acute and true as well of this country as of Germany. There is some similarity in the mind of the nations. Activity and fondness for novelty, Omne ignotum pro magnifico.1

Read a few more sections of Tacitus or rather the Dialogue ascribed to him, but I cannot think he could ever have written so. There is merit in the composition nevertheless. What a fascinating subject Oratory is and how the Ancients handle it. We are feeble in the comparison for the reason that we do not make it a business. Evening at the Mansion.

Pleasant day. At home. Dine and evening at the Mansion.

I was quietly engaged all the morning in pursuing my usual occupations. Copied several letters and read Menzel. After dinner finished the Dialogue on Oratory and with it all that is supposed to have come down to us of Tacitus. This perusal is the first thorough one I have ever given to this Author and has been exceedingly useful. Tacitus is a thinker and he makes you feel what the value of history is, as a mingled record of good and evil.

We dined and spent an evening at my father’s. The ladies brought home from their ride a rumour of the failure of the United States Bank and a general suspension of all the rest. As we could get no definite information about it, we were obliged to rest content and wait until tomorrow. But it is a result which we cannot have avoided to foresee when we reflect upon the immense amount of foreign indebtedness we have run into and the injudicious expansion of the Philadelphia Banks. What the effect upon the future will be, we must wait and see.