John Quincy Adams Digital Diary

28. Rose again about five, and after my first reading wrote the Journal of yesterday— Then walked and on my return read the ninth Oration of Isocrates— The Eulogy of Evagoras king of Salamis in Cyprus— It contains a genealogy from Jupiter, through AEacus and Telamon and Teucer, and Peleus and Achilles of all the Æacidae— The Panegyric is sufficiently warm, The Oration is addressed to Nicocles, son of Evagoras, and concludes with an exhortation to him to imitate the virtues of his father— After Breakfast I read the second Book of Manilius, which is altogether Astrological— He is continually extolling reason, and her discoveries— Such for instance as the conjunction and opposition of the Constellations— Their trine, tetragon, sextile aspects, their dodecatemories, and octotopes, and especially their undoubted influence on the destinies and Passions of Men— In this Book he unfolds the system of friendships and enmities of all the signs of the Zodiac; How they are alternately of different sexes (which I do not understand considering the two first are Ram and Bull) how they stand affected towards one another— their loves— their hatreds, and their mutual designs of fraud— The system is extremely complicated, and as the translator remarks, abounds with inconsistencies— But the poetry is beautiful—the astronomy is often incorrect, even for the age and place of the writer; and Pingré says it is entirely borrowed from Eudoxus of Cnidos, who wrote more than three Centuries before— I had a visit from Mr Smith of Boston, who informed me that he should be ready to go in about seven days; and afterwards Mr Richards called upon me to ask if I could not procure for him also a Courier’s Passport to go to Gothenburg— Mr Smith having already a Companion, and going about the same time I could not apply for two such Passports at once— Mr Fisher also paid us a morning visit— I walked again before dinner— And pass’d the Evening in making visits to the Chevalier Bezerra, Madame de Bray, and General Betancourt— Mr Bezerra and his lady were not at home, and on my return I found they had been at my house—the Chevalier de Bray was out and Madame being unwell did not receive— Madame de Betancourt and her daughters were going to the Duchess de Serra Capriola’s, and left me with the General— I came home about ten— Mrs Adams and the Child are better— Mr Smith dined abroad.