41B 
THOMAS DAY. 
poems were held, and the repeated pleasure they gave in the perusal, 
is a striking test of their merit. He was a studious and correct ob- 
server of nature ; happy in the selection of his images, in the choice 
of his subjects, and in the harmony of his versification ; and though 
his embarrassed situation prevented him from putting the last hand 
to manyof his productions, his Hermit, his Traveller, and his Desert- 
ed Village, claim a place among the most finished pieces in the 
English language. 
Thomas Day. 
This poetical and miscellaneous writer, of an eccentric character,^ 
was born in Well-close square, London, June 22, 1748. His father 
was an officer in the custom-house, and had been twice married. This 
son was the issue of his second marriage, to Miss Jane Bonham, the 
only daughter of Samuel Bonhum, esq. a merchant in the city. His 
father died when he was little more than a year old, leaving him a 
fortune of 12001. a year, including 13001. as a jointure to his mother, 
who in a few years married Thomas Phillips, esq, another officer in 
the custom-house. To this gentleman, who died in 1782, young Day 
behaved with decent respect, but felt no great attachment. His 
mother, however, chiefly superintended his education, and accustomed 
him early, we are told, to bodily exertions, on which he afterwards 
set so high a value. He was first put to a child’s school at Stoke- 
Newington, and when admissible, was sent to the Charter-house, where 
he resided in the house, and under the instructions, of Dr. Crusius, 
until his sixteenth year. He now entered as a gentleman-commoner 
of Corpus Christ! College, Oxford, where he remained three years, but 
left it without taking a degree. 
As soon as he came of age, his property and conduct devolved 
upon himself. At an early period of life, we are told, he manifested 
a particular fondness for scrutinizing the human character ; and as 
if such knowledge could not be acquired at home, he took a journey 
in 1786 from Oxford to Wales, that he might contemplate that class 
of men, who, as still treading the unimproved paths of nature, might 
be presumed to have the qualities of the mind pure and unsophisti- 
cated by art. What of this description he found in Wales, we are not 
informed ; but in pursuit of the same investigation of men and man- 
ners, he determined to go abroad ; and accordingly spent one winter 
at Paris, another at Avignon, and a third at Lyons, a summer in the 
Austrian Netherlands, and another in Holland. At Lyons, as every 
where else, he was distinguished by his humanity and generosity, 
which made his departure from those places to be sincerely regret- 
ted, and at Lyons it produced an effect singularly characteristic of 
the class of people on whom he bestowed his bounty, A large body 
of them assembled at his departure, and very justly considering that 
they would now be in a worse condition than if he had never relieved 
them, requested that he would leave a sum of money behind for 
their future wants. It is probable that these returns for his imprudent 
liberality had a considerable share in producing the misanthropy 
which appeared in his future conduct. 
He had already formed some very absurd notions of the state of 
