Diary of John Quincy Adams, volume 2
A very warm day. I loitered away my time, as I have, every day for these three weeks.
Classmates dropping off. Very few will be left by the 21st. This evening the sodality went serenading and at 3 in the morning they play'd in our entry.
Richard Whitney
1 of Petersham, Worcester C, was 20, the 23d. of last February. His circumstances are low and he will find it very difficult to get through College; this situation distresses him, and affects his spirits: notwithstanding which his native humour, and his originality of genius, frequently break out; and appear conspicuous. I am fond of his character because there is some thing new in it: he has manners and ideas of his own, and does not keep forever in the old and beaten track; the generosity of his soul is admired, although it is cramped by poverty. His heart is benevolent and his disposition is amiable. As a scholar, the disadvantages under which he has laboured have prevented him from appearing to so great advantage, as he would if he could have spent all the time here, since his admission. As a speaker I know but little what improvements he has made; for he has been so much absent that I never heard him declaim but once.
Whitney, the son of Dr. Ephraim Whitney, whose strong tory sympathies apparently led to the confiscation of his property. Young Whitney became a lawyer in Brattleboro, Vt., and served as clerk of the Vermont House of Representatives, 1793–1797, and secretary to the governor and council (Frederick Clifton Pierce, De-239scendants of John Whitney, Chicago, 1895, P. 81; Zadock Thompson, History of Vermont, Natural, Civil, and Statistical..., Burlington, 1842, pt. 2, p. 118; Records of the Governor and Council of the State of Vermont, 8 vols., Montpelier, 1873–1880, 5:92).
Went to Boston this morning with Bridge, Cranch, White and Whitney in the stage. I attended the debates in the house of representatives; they were debating upon the subject of the instructions to the different members. I dined at Mr. Jackson's, with Mr. Lowell,1 and Mr. Brimmer. They conversed much upon gardening.
At half past 6 in the evening we return'd to Cambridge, and past the evening at Cranch's chamber.
John Lowell, former member of the congress and a judge on its Court of Appeals in Cases of Capture, 1783–1789. Later he was United States district court judge for Massachusetts (Sibley-Shipton, Harvard Graduates
, 14:650–661).
Mr. Wigglesworth gave a lecture this forenoon, but I did not attend; engaged the chief of the time in writing off my theses: read Mason's Caractacus, and was much pleased with it. I think he has made it more interesting than his Elfrida. The Catastrophe it is true is not more tragical; but the speech of the Chorus which closes the Poem of Elfrida, is cold and inanimate, and that of Caractacus is noble and pathetic.1
Weather very fine and warm, all day.
William Mason, “Caratacus. A Dramatic Poem: Written on the Model of the Ancient Greek Tragedy” and “Elfrida. A Dramatic Poem: Written on the Model of the Ancient Greek Tragedy” (Poems, London, 1764, p. [169]–289, [75]–168; Harvard, Catalogus Bibliothecae, 1790, p. 142).
Return'd a copy of my theses to the president, who informed me, that they would all be ready to send to Boston in a day or two. Cranch and Amory, and Beale, went over to Mystic with Learned, who took his final leave of College.
The weather was very warm all day; but in the evening, a beautiful thunder shower refreshed the air very greatly. Pass'd the evening at Foster's chamber.