Tuesday the 12th of September 1780.
Received <two lett><one> a Letter from Mr. Thaxter.1 Nothing remarkable this day.
Reading a Volume of the Spectator I found something which I will copy.2
1. Undoubtedly that of 4 Sept., on which date Thaxter also wrote to JA ( , 3:411–413).
2. Here follows, on three and one-half pages in the Diary, Alexander Pope’s poem, “Messiah, A sacred Eclogue . . . in Imitation of Virgil’s Pollio,” from “Spec. vol 5, Number 378,” where the poem was published for the first time on 14 May 1712 ( , 3:419–422).