―258―

For the Literary Magazine.

on the character of thomas
day.

THERE is seldom to be met with
a more curious and instructive nar-
rative* than that which is given by
Miss Seward of Thomas Day, the
author of the celebrated work
“Sandford and Merton.” A great
part of mankind, or at least the best
part, are governed by an unaccoun-
table and blameable degree of either
indolence or diffidence, which hin-
ders them from being their own bi-
ographers. How extremely small
is the number of those, whose me-
rits or singularities have made them
worthy of general curiosity, who
have left behind them any memo-
rial of themselves. Judging with-
out experience, one would imagine
that vanity, or a lust of applause,
would lead a vast multitude to bur-
then the public with the history of
their own lives; but the fact is,
that the class of self-biographers
consists almost entirely of those who
have very little merit in any eyes
but their own; whereas that illus-
trious train, whose works will live
forever in the memory of mankind,
and whose minutest reliques are
regarded with some degree of idola-
try, have suffered themselves wan-
tonly to perish; for to leave the of-
fice of recording their lives to
others, or to content themselves
with compiling loose and concise
summaries, as Hume and Gibbon
have done, is the same thing nearly
as to leave themselves wholly with-
out memorial.

No complaint is more common,
than that the historians of great
men are totally unfitted for the
province, by the want of candour,

  *Inserted entire in this number.

―259―

sagacity, or information, and the
curious must have many a sigh that
Johnson's own hand did not super-
sede the labours of Boswell, or Dar-
win's those of Miss Seward. But I
never more regretted the want of a
faithful and mintue picture, drawn
by the hand itself of the pourtrayed,
than with respect to Thomas Day.
Miss Seward's narrative is drawn
up with great felicity, and all it
wants is that minuteness and fidelity
which the hand of Mr. Day could
alone give. We have libraries full
of the self-written tales of soldiers,
sailors, and actors, of pilgrims, and
enthusiasts, which nobody at all
reads, or nobody with benefit or pa-
tience, while men like Thomas Day,
whose lives have been distinguished
by the most lofty projects, sublime
virtues, and extraordinary vicissi-
tudes, are suffered to sink into obli-
vion. The fortunate hand of a ca-
sual acquaintance, like Miss Sew-
ard, has brought millions to a know-
ledge of this man, who would
otherwise have lived a few years in
the vague recollection of half a
dozen, and then perished forever.

In reading this sketch, we imme-
diately perceive the original from
which Miss Edgeworth derived the
hint for the grand incident in her
novel of Belinda. Such blind mor-
tals are critics, that this portion of
Miss E.'s work appeared the only
part liable to particular exception
as unnatural and improbable, though,
as it now appears, it was drawn
from her own experience, and the
example of Mr. Day.

This man's life was distinguished,
beyond most others, by examples of
the fallacy of all human projects…...
Not one of his elaborate schemes
were crowned with success, and the
end he sought was at last accom-
plished, but by a mere random
stroke of fortune, and in opposition
to all the measures which he had
taken to insure it. His disap-
pointments form an admirable les-
son on the imperfection of all formal
plans of education, at least of such
as begin at so late a period as ten

or twelve years of age. What rea-
sonable man, not blinded and dazz-
led by a favourite theory, would
ever have dreamed that the cha-
racter of man or woman, their ca
pacities and tempers, were not com-
pletely formed before twelve years
of age! And since the earliest im-
pressions are the most durable, who
would make a choice among those
whose parents were too indigent or
profligate even to maintain their
children? The chances that the
two orphans, Sabrina and Lavinia,
would grow up free from vicious
propensities and grovelling tastes,
were extremely few, and yet they
actually grew up into modest and
respectable characters. This cir-
cumstance, however, was still owing
to early and infantile impressions,
which chanced to be good, for the
education they received from their
protector seems to have been calcu-
lated only to stupify or deprave
them. That the good tendency of
early habits was not blasted and
stifled was no doubt owing to his
speedily consigning them to the or-
dinary instructors of female youth,
and thus the rectitude of their sen-
timents was put to hazard by the
very means he used to foster it,
and secured by the very means
which he deemed fatal to it.

The orphan whom he sought to
qualify for his future wife, proved
totally unfit for him, while she final-
ly was chosen by the man, who pro-
bably regarded the tenants of an or-
phan-house as necessarily doomed
to folly or depravity. While he
laughed at the visionary projects of
his friend, and predicted nothing but
an evil destiny to the objects of his
selection, he was actually assisting
to select from the herd of destitute
urchins his own future wife.

Had Mr. Day succeeded in his
application to either of the Miss
Sneyds, he would only have ensured
the perpetual misery of himself and
of the object of his love. His own
habits could not have been relin-
quished willingly, gracefully, or
completely; and they could not have

―260―

been retained without destruction to
the ease and comfort of his com-
panion.

The kind of being, whom he en-
deavoured to mould with his own
hands, at last made her appearance
in the giddy and gaudy sphere of
rank and fashion, ready modelled.
In thus answering his hopes, Heaven
probably designed a lesson on the
absurdity and folly of his plans of
conduct, but through kindness to
posterity, denied him the principal
good for which he probably consent-
ed to marry at all, that of having
children to instruct and rear accor-
ding to his favourite system. This
consequence, so commonly and natu-
rally flowing from marriage, his
destiny (evil as he probably thought
it) refused him.

His character appears to have
been little influenced, in a favoura-
ble manner, by age and experience.
He seems, indeed, to have resigned
all hope of tutoring human beings to
his mind, but he committed a new
though characteristic error, in turn-
ing all his efforts of tuition from hu-
man to brutal nature, from men to
horses, and the lamentable, yet ridi-
culous catastrophe of his eventful
drama, was to die of the kick of a
horse, whom he had reared and
educated himself: thus, in his very
death, completing the catalogue of
his absurdities, and exemplifying
the folly of all systematic plans of
education.