Henry returned to town this morning. I felt quite poorly all day with an attack on my bowels, very unusual since I have been in England. It is a little singular that Mrs Adams was similarly but more severely affected early in the week. Can it be that there is some local cause. I wrote my private letters for the mail tomorrow and had some leisure, which I spent reading Leigh Hunt’s book. It is rare one finds a thing so pleasant. He was a specimen of a class of men in England—the literary Editor. A set of people who assume to know a great deal about every thing, and play the whip over people of far greater attainments, and higher qualifications to teach. There is a candor about Hunt’s admission that disavows one in his case. But the race is yet flourishing, preserving all the disposition to domineer without possessing any of the compensating qualities. I confined myself to a moderate walk to the London road in old Hastings, and then a cross cut path over the highest bills in the rear until I struck into the road to the gate of St Leonard’s. This is the first time I have effected that circuit. Evening, amused myself looking over the plates and biographical notices in Grainger’s so called History of England. There is much that is curious to be picked up in such a book.504