Portrait of Thomas Day, author & political campaigner

John Condé

Stipple engraving of Thomas Day (1748-1789), author and political campaigner. (His most famous work, destined to be a best-seller for eighty years, was the children's book, Sandford and Merton. Published in three volumes (1783, 1786, and 1789). This is an edifying narrative showing the superiority of virtue to status, and the obligations of humans to their suffering fellows and to animals. Day joined the Lunar circle of scientists, chemists, and inventors, presided over by Erasmus Darwin. In 1769 he adopted two girls from foundling hospitals and bore them off to France to see which of them he could educate (in accordance with Rousseau's ideas) into becoming a suitable wife for himself. One (Sabrina) seemed promising but after conducting some rather extraordinary experiments, which included dropping hot sealing wax on her arm, he concluded that she was insufficiently phlegmatic.)