A very fine day. I passed it for the most part at home, engaged in writing upon my projected Review and in correcting MS. I believe I have in my mind a better thing than I am likely to execute. My energy does not seem equal to the investigation which I meditate. Joseph H. Adams here a little while, who tells us of his mother’s illness. Apparently a grievous case of suffering from the death of poor Thomas, her son. I can feel for her where I regret her sensibility.

Afternoon, my father accompanied me in a ride round Milton, my favourite resort. He seemed to enjoy it much. Home in time to finish the letters of Pliny. These as relics of a particular age are interesting. Those to Tacitus are interesting as well as the correspondence with Trajan which is perhaps the only one extant of the kind. But after all Pliny was not a mind of the first class. Evening at the house. Conversation as usual.

Morning I went to town and was actively occupied in various commissions as usual until eleven o’clock, when I went to the Office. Calls from P. C. Brooks Jr. with a Note from his father,1 P. P. F. Degrand and S. E. Greene who has at last sold Mr. Johnson’s Exchange. Then home.

This was the day fixed upon for the great dinner to Mr. Webster, the manifestation of the feeling of the citizens of Boston against the Administration and in his favour. I do not attend, first because I dislike all of these sorts of display. Secondly, because I dislike the public character of the hero.

Afternoon read Pliny. Panegyric upon Trajan in the extreme of the adulatory spirit though regarded in that age as moderation. Evening at the Mansion.

The morning looked very threatening with rain but there was only a little and it cleared away. My time much taken up in my work a sketch of which I finally accomplished this day. But it is a mere skeleton of skin and bones which requires all of the filling up, and somehow or other my energy seems to be laid asleep. A great many books to consult 83and some to read more attentively than I am likely to do. Corrected some portion of text also.

I expected Mr. Brooks today to dine with me, but he did not come. My father whom I had asked to join him came and spent an hour, after which I went to ride accompanied by him. We went to Braintree, thence through Weymouth over the bridge to Quincy Point and home. I read a little of Pliny and but little. Evening my father, Mother and family at my house until nine.