422 
THOMAS DAY. 
ill-usage from men. Upon his own plan, therefore, he reared, fed? 
and tamed, a favourite foal, and, when it was time it should become 
serviceable, disdaining to employ a horse-breaker, he would use it to 
the bit and the burden himself. The animal, however, disliking his 
new situation, heeded not the soothing voice to which he had been 
accustomed, but plunged, threw his master, and instantly killed him 
with a kick. This melancholy accident happened on September 28, 
17H9, as he was returning from Anningsley to his, mother’s house at 
Barehill, w'here he had left Mrs. Day. He was interred at Wargrave, 
in Berkshire, in a vault which had been built for the family. 
In the very flattering, and by no means just or discriminative cha- 
racter of Mr Day, given in the Biograpbia Britannica, his life is repre- 
sented to have been one continued exertion in the cause of humanity. 
He thought nothing mispent or ill-bestowed which contributed in any 
degree to the general sum of hapj)iness. In the pursuit of know- 
ledge, though he deemed it highly valuable as a private and personal 
acquisition, he had a particular view to the application of it to the 
purposes of philanthropy. It was to be able to do good to others, 
as well as to gratify the ardent curiosity and activity of his own mind, 
that he became an ingenious mechanic, a well-informed chemist, a 
learned theoretical physician, and an expert constitutional lawyer. 
But though his comprehensive genius embraced almost the w'hole 
range of literature, the subjects to which he was the most attached, 
and which he regarded as the most eminently useful, were those that 
are comprehended in historical and ethical science. Indeed, every 
thing was important in his eyes, not merely as it tended to advance 
the individual, but in proportion to its ability in disclosing the pow'ers, 
and improving the general interests, of the human species/’ 
On this high character, after the facts w^e have exhibited, it will 
not be necessary to ofl’er any remarks. As the epithet constitutional 
law’yer” is here e.mployed, it remains to be mentioned, that he was 
admitted to the Middle Temple in 1705, and called to the bar in 1779. 
Much of this time, we have seen, elapsed in his travels, and pursuits 
of another kind ; nor, although his name remained on the book of the 
society, did he ever enter seriously into the business of the profes- 
sion. In politics he attached himselfto no party, properly so called ; he 
was neither whig nor tory, but joined many of the popular associa- 
tions about the close of the American war, to which he was a decided 
opponent, and wrote some political pamphlets, — on peace, reform of 
parliament, and other topics which agitated the nation at that period. 
His poetical talents, if not of the first rate, evinced considerable 
taste and elegance, but w'ere not always equally usefully employed. 
His first publication. The Dying Negro, published in 1773, some part 
of which was written by his friend Mr. Bicknell, contributed its share to 
create that general abhorrence of the slave-trade, w'hich ended at length 
in the abolition of a traffic so disgraceful to the nation. His other poems, 
The Devoted Legions, and the Desolation of America, were both of a 
political cast. His prose effusions on national affairs consists of the 
Letters of Marius, or Reflection upon the Peace, the East India Bill, 
and the Present Crisis ; the Fragment of a Letter on the Slavery of the 
Negroes, expressing his regret that the friends of freedom in America 
