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January 1830 - December 1838
page 468
- Huntt. Henry.
My wife is ill with a
very violent attack of Erisypelas which has been coming upon her these
four days— This afternoon we sent for Dr Huntt who came and bled her,
and gave her medicines of severe operation— Late this Evening she was
extremely sick— My walk round the Capitol was barren— I answered a
Letter from Benjamin Cowell of
Providence, Rhode-Island, who has sent me a copy of an Address to an
Anti-Masonic Convention there on the second of this Month— Also a Letter
from Joseph Leary of New-York who
requests me to write a preface to a Stereotype Edition of the
Declaration of Independence the Constitution of the United States, and
Washington’s farewell
address— I read Lord Byron’s Bride
of Abydos and part of his Parisina— One remarkable peculiarity in him, is his
choice of Subjects— Most of them are to me disgusting— He has great
fertility of thought but not much imagination— He is always wallowing in
the mire of sensuality, and repeats himself perpetually— His Don Juan and Haidee is a mere copy of Conrad and Gulnare, and
it seems as if he could write nothing without an incest.