THOMAS CHATTERTOlSr. 
423 
had not learned to share that blessing with their slaves ; A Dialogue 
between a Justice of Peace and a Farmer; and a Letter to Arthur Young, 
Esq. on the bill then depending in parliament to prevent the Exportation 
of Wool. 
The only works, however, which Mr. Day published, that are likely 
to prolong his name, are those upon education. This was a subject 
in which, we have already seen, he tried some bold and ridiculous ex- 
periments. His notions, however, became at last more moderate, and 
his schemes a little more practicable. He had a particular dislike to 
the. fashionable inodes of education that prevail in this country. 
Youth, he thought, should be inspired with a hardy spirit, both of 
passive and active virtue, and led to form such habits of industry and 
fortitude as would produce a manly independence of character, and 
a mind superior to the enticements of luxurious indulgence; with 
this view, he wrote the history of Sand ford and Merton, a work intend- 
ed for the use of children ; the first volume of which appeared in 
1783, the second in 1786, and the third in 1789. Tiiese soon acquired 
great popularity, which is now much decayed. They are harmless 
at least, and amusing, though ill accommodated to the actual state of 
manners. He published also The History of Little Jack ; a story, the 
moral of which is this simple truth, that it is of very little consequence 
how a man comes into the world, provided he behaves himself well, 
and discharges his duty when he is in it. 
Thomas Ciiattehton’. 
The early and extraordinary talents, and tragical end, of this youth, 
have rendered him an object of much interest and curiosity. He was 
the posthumous son of a person in humble life at Bristol, in which 
city he was born in November, 1752. He was slow in attaining the 
first rudiments of education, and it was not till he had been delighted 
with the illuminated capitals of an old manuscript, that he took to 
learning his letters. This circumstance, and his being taught to read 
out of a black-letter bible, will doubtless be thought, by the partisans 
of the theory of association, to have had a great share in the peculiar 
turn to the imitation of antiquities which he afterwards displayed. 
All the scholastic education he received was at a charity school, 
where no language was taught but the mother-tongue. Here he re- 
mained some time undistinguished, except that a pensive gravity of 
demeanour assimilated him rather to the man than the boy. About 
his tenth year a taste for reading disclosed itself, which thenceforth 
became a kind of ruling passion. He hired and borrowed books as 
he had opportunity, and between his eleventh and twelfth year drew 
up a catalogue of those he had read, amounting to seventy, which 
chiefly consisted of history and divinity. It is not absolutely certain 
how soon he began to write verses, but he had certainly composed 
some at twelve years of age ; and he now began to shew’ that ardour 
of mind and versatility of parts by which he was afterwards so strongly 
■characterized. 
In his fifteenth year he left school, and was articled to a scrivener 
at Bristol, in the lowest form of apprenticeship. Though in this situ- 
ation he underwent much confinement, yet his leisure was great, and 
