Barth in Brooklyn and to Washington Street & bed.
  21.  Monday.  Drawing all day, till sunset.   A letter from Alf Waud with
lots of Bostonian news.  Charley Brown at a fearful discount, owing to his �backing out�
of a strike �mong the engravers, (which resulted in their getting some $12 or 15, while
he cheweth the cud of envy and regret on $10.)    He hath been reviled, �wigged� and in-
sulted in a manner scarcely to be outdone, and has not pluck to resent it.  Unhappy dog!
And more unhappy, that he has not one friend in the world, nor deserveth one. /  Alf
still inamoured, happy man be his dole.              After supper, entered one of the ferry
boats with intent to call on Butler, but a sky promising rain, and my accidental
meeting with Davis changed my intention.   Called at Roberts, and learnt they, the
cruising party have not yet returned. This I was told by a fresh-faced damosel, in the
door-stoop.     Rest of the evening at Washington Street, talk with Miss Letitia, with
Keating &c.  Keating hath less brains than I gave him credit for!
  22. Tuesday.  To New York, called on Butler, then to Strongs. Got $6 for
monkey picture.  To the book and print store adjacent where I spent a pleasant
hour, turning over a portfolio of olden prints. There were many Dutch copper-plate
engravings illustrative of biblical history, of such rare, quaint merit that Charles Lamb
would have loved to have looked at them, and afterwards to have written an essay on 
�em.
They exceeded Hogarth�s drawings for minuteness of detail, you read them instead of 
merely
gazing.   The plagues of Egypt were marvellously delineated.   In that of the rivers and
pools turned into blood, a winding sedgy-brinked river was shewn, huge crocodiles 
floating
belly upwards on its surface or being holed out by throngs of people; fish of all shapes &
sizes, �curling eels & fishes of the flood lying melting on the banks, men rejecting them 
with
loathing; women with water vessels aghast & repugnant, some vomiting; great crowds
in the distant city, seen far, and farther in detail, all that men could be supposed to
feel from such an event was as faithfully drawn as might be. The Artist had gone 
to walk with a fervent belief in the subject.  The frog plague, represented the reptiles
swarming everywhere, invading bakers ovens, in dishes and a viands carried by cooks, 
swept