Cloudy and variable. Morning employed in preparing despatches as usual this day. I find the business increasing rather than diminishing. After luncheon I went with my daughter, Mary, to see the gallery of ancient masters again. This time I pretty much fixed my relative ideas. A portrait by Rembrandt impressed itself much more strongly than before. Then the Van Dykes and Rubens’s portrait of his Wife. Next a landscape by Hobbema, and Reynolds’s picture of the infant Duchess of Gloucester. A single Claude completes the list. There are many other good ones but I want more time to study them. We dined by invitation at Mr Reeve’s. Rather a select company. Mr Van de Weyer and his daughter, Lord Kingsdown, Mr Ryan, Madame de Buri, Mr Seuier and his daughter, Mr Chevalier and M Hervé de Kergolay. One person, Lord Moncrieff missed. This is very much more of an attractive circle, which seems to me as empty as it is every where else in the world. We returned home at eleven, thus closing what I suppose is the last dinner of the season.