John Quincy Adams Digital Diary

144 Quincy Wednesday 11th. August 1847.

11. VI.

Smith Mr. Smith Mrs. Smith Miss Loring Thomas Woodward Dr. E.

A warm and trying Summer day. After a restless and sleepless night, I was deprived of my walk and the portion of time which I could devote to any occupation, was spent in reading newspapers, Articles in Littell’s Living Age, and Beloes’ Herodotus. It serves the hour but leaves no impression I have got through with Clio—Euturpe, and Thalia, and half Melpomene— But this most ancient of Profane Historians seems rather a collector of Anecdotes than merely an Historian— A very small portion of the Anecdotes appear to have any foundation in fact, and they are all discredited by the perpetual occurence of the marvellous— There is also an inextricable confusion of names and the same persons, are mentioned by different names in Herodotus, Diodorus Seculus, Justin the Abbreviator of Trogus Pompeius whose work has perished, and the scriptures of the Old Testament. Chronology prior to the age of Alexander of Macedon is an inextricable chaos— The writings of David, of Solomon, and of Homer about twelve hundred years before Christ, stand unaccountable monuments of Literature in a 145very high degree of improvement, with a subsequent period of at least seven hundred years, of total barbarism. The Psalms of David, the Proverbs of Solomon, and the Illyad and Oddissy of Homer are phenomena in the History of literature hitherto unexplained. and in all probability so to remain notwithstanding the recent discovery of the secret of Hierogliphical writing. Had visits from Mr. Loring of Hingham accompanied by Mr. Richard Smith of Philadelphia his wife and daughter. Mr. Smith recollects an acquaintance with us in 1811, when we resided at Saint Petersburgh in Russia— My Son gave me a check for one-hundred dollars upon the Merchants Bank at Boston. At half past eleven oclock this evening, Mrs. Hutchinson, wife of the man who lives with us as a farmer, was delivered of a Son—