model. The reformers failed, the society dissolved, and Day gave up politics. In 1781 the Days left Abridge, and settled at Anningsley, near Ottershaw in Surrey, in a region of wide open heaths. Here he took up farming energetically, lived simply without a carriage, saw no society, and spent his income upon improving his estate. He lost money by his farm, but was consoled by the employment given to the poor. He declined invitations to take part in political agitation, preferring his schemes of moral and social reform, and approving of Pitt's administration. He studied mechanics, chemistry, and physic, became a good lawyer, and wrote ‘Sandford and Merton’ to set forth his ideal of manliness. It was originally meant for a short story, to be inserted in the Edgeworths' ‘Harry and Lucy.’ Both he and his wife devoted themselves to the care of the labourers, often asking them to his house and giving them religious instruction. He had become convinced of the mischief of thoughtless generosity, and affected to be less charitable than he really was. His letters (R. L. Edgeworth, ii. 70–84) show strong sense upon this question. His seclusion gave him the reputation of a cynical misanthrope; but he gave away nearly his whole fortune (Seward, Letters, ii. 330). The farmers generally disliked him, but Samuel Cobbett, a farmer near Chobham, possessed of unusual cultivation as well as practical knowledge, became his special friend. His stepfather died in 1782, and his mother still occupied the house at Bear Hill, where he often visited her. On 28 Sept. 1789 he started to see her and his wife, then at Bear Hill, on an unbroken colt, in conformity with one of his pet theories, that kindness would control any animal. The colt shied near Wargrave, and threw Day upon his head. He died in an hour, and was buried at Wargrave. His wife died two years afterwards of a broken heart, and was buried by his side.
Edgeworth calls Day the ‘most virtuous human being’ he had ever known. His friend and biographer Keir speaks with equal warmth. His amusing eccentricities were indeed only the symptom of a real nobility of character, too deeply in earnest to submit to the ordinary compromises of society. ‘Sandford and Merton’ is still among the best children's books in the language, in spite of all its quaint didacticism, because it succeeds in forcibly expressing his high sense of manliness, independence, and sterling qualities of character. The influence of Rousseau's ‘Émile’ is sufficiently obvious, but is modified by Day's sturdy British morality.
Wright of Derby painted a full-length portrait of Day, meditating in a thunderstorm, leaning against a column inscribed with Hampden's name, and reading one of the patriot's orations by a flash of lightning, which ‘plays in his hair’ (Seward, Darwin, 20). An engraving, without the accessories, is in Edgeworth's ‘Memoirs’ (i. 345).
Day's books are: 1. ‘The Dying Negro,’ 1773. 2. ‘The Devoted Legions,’ 1776. 3. ‘The Desolation of America,’ 1777. 4. Two speeches at meetings of the counties of Essex and Cambridge, on 25 March and 25 April 1780, published by the Society for Constitutional Information. 5. ‘Reflections on the Present State of England and the Independence of America,’ 1782. 6. ‘Letters of Marius; or Reflections upon the Peace, the East India Bill, and the Present Crisis,’ 1784. 7. ‘Fragments of Original Letters on the Slavery of the Negroes’ (written in 1776), 1784. 8. ‘Dialogue between a Justice of the Peace and a Farmer,’ 1785. The last four were also issued as four tracts, 1785. 9. ‘Letter to Arthur Young on the Bill to prevent the Exportation of Wool,’ 1788. 10. ‘History of Sandford and Merton,’ vol. i. 1783, vol. ii. 1787, vol. iii. 1789. 11. ‘History of Little Jack,’ in Stockdale's ‘Children's Miscellany,’ and separately in 1788. An anonymous ‘Ode for the New Year,’ 1776, appears also to be Day's.
‘Select Miscellaneous Productions of Mrs. Day and Thomas Day in verse and prose, edited by Thomas Lowndes,’ 1805, contains Mrs. Day's juvenile poetry, and a few letters and short pieces, to which Lowndes added some of his own, solely, as he is careful to say, to ‘increase the size of the work.’
[Account of Life and Writings of Thomas Day, by James Keir, 1791; Anna Seward's Erasmus Darwin (1804), 17–54; Memoirs of R. L. Edgeworth, 1821; Blackman's Life of Day, 1862.]
DAY, WILLIAM (1529–1596), bishop of Winchester, the younger brother of George Day, bishop of Chichester [q. v.], was the son of Richard Day of Newport, Shropshire. He was born in 1529, his elder brother having been chosen public orator of the university of Cambridge the previous year. From his brother's position as provost of King's College the younger Day naturally was sent for education to Eton College, whence he proceeded to King's College, where he was admitted scholar in his sixteenth year, 14 Aug. 1545, and fellow 15 Aug. 1548. He took the degree of B.A. in 1549, and of M.A. in 1553. He appears to have embraced the doctrines of the reformation at an early age, which caused a serious breach between him and his brother.
