shoulders; he was full made, but not corpulent; and in his pensive and melancholy air were blended awkwardness and dignity. Though his features bore the traces of a severe smallpox, yet they were interesting and agreeable. A kind of weight hung upon the lids of his large hazel eyes, but when he declaimed -cf good and evil,

Passion and apathy, and glory and shame,

the expression that flashed from them was highly energetic.

His moral character was moulded after the antique model of the most virtuous citizens of Greece and Rome. He proudly imposed on himself rigid abstinence, even from the most innocent pleasures; nor would he allow any action to be virtuous that was performed from the hope of a reward here or hereafter. This severity of principle had, however, the effect of rendering him rather sceptical towards the doctrines of revealed religion. Strict integrity, active friendship, open-handed bounty, and diffusive charity, greatly over-balanced the tincture of misanthropic gloom and proud contempt of common-life society, which marked his character. For such miseries as spring from refinement and the softer affections, Mr. Day had no sympathy; but he evinced genuine compassion for the sufferings of cold and hunger. To the pleasure of relieving these he nobly sacrificed all the parade of life

and all the gratifications of luxury. For polished society he expressed supreme contempt, and cherished a particular aversion for the modern plans of female education, ascribing to their influence the disappointment he experienced from the fickleness of a young lady to whom he had paid his addresses. He, nevertheless, thought it his duty to marry; he indulged systematic ideas of the powers of philosophic tuition to produce future virtue, and took great delight in moulding the mind of infancy and youth.

The distinctions of birth and the advantages of wealth were ever regarded by Mr. Day with contempt. He resolved that the woman whom he should choose for his wife should have a taste for literature and science, for moral and patriotic philosophy. She would

thus be a fit companion in that retirement to which he had destined himself, and might assist in forming the minds of his children to stubborn virtue and high exertion. He likewise resolved, that in her dress, her diet, and her manners she should be simple as a mountain-girl, fearless and intrepid as the Spartan wives and Roman heroines. The most romantic philosopher could not expect to find such a creature ready made to his hands, and Mr. Day was soon convinced of the necessity of moulding some infant into the being his fancy had pictured.

To the accomplishment of this plan, he pro

When he

ceeded in the following manner. came of age, he procured credentials of his moral probity, and with these he travelled to Shrewsbury, accompanied by his friend the late Mr. Bicknel, then a barrister in considerable practice, to explore the hospital for foundling girls in that town. From among the little inmates of this institution, Mr. Day, in the presence of his friend, selected two of twelve years. They were both beautiful: the one, fair, with flaxen locks and light eyes, he called Lucretia; the other, a clear auburn brunette, with darker eyes, more glowing bloom, and chestnut tresses, he named Sabrina. The written conditions on which he obtained these girls, were to this effect: that within a year he should place one of them with some reputable tradeswoman, giving one hundred pounds to bind her apprentice, and maintaining her, if she behaved well, till she married or began business for herself, in either of which cases he promised to advance four hundred more. He avowed his intention of keeping and educating the other, with a view to make her his wife; solemnly engaging never to violate her innocence, and, if he should renounce his plan, to maintain her in some creditable family till she married, when he promised to give five hundred pounds as her wedding portion. For the performance of this contract Mr. Bicknel was guarantee.

With these girls Mr. Day immediately went

to France, and, that they might imbibe no ideas but such as he chose to communicate, he took with him in this excursion not a single English servant. Notwithstanding all his philosophy, his young companions harassed and perplexed him not a little; they were perpetually quarrelling and fighting, and, at length falling sick of the small-pox, they chained him to their bedside by crying and screaming if they were left a moment with any person who could not speak to them in their native language. Their protector was, therefore, not only obliged to sit up with them many nights, but also to perform for them the lowest offices that are required of a nurse or a domestic. Health returned, and with it all their former beauty. Soon after

the recovery of his wards, Mr. Day was crossing the Rhone with them on a tempestuous day, when the boat overset. Being an excellent swimmer, he saved them both, though not without considerable difficulty and danger to himself.

After a tour of eight months, during which his patience and perseverance had been abundantly exercised, Mr. Day returned to England, heartily glad to separate the little squabblers. Sabrina having become the favorite, he placed the fair-Lucretia with a chamber milliner; she behaved well, and afterwards married a respectable linen-draper in London. He committed Sabrina to the care of Mr. Bicknel's mother, while he settled

his affairs at his own mansion-house, Bear Hill, in Berkshire, from which filiai tenderness would not permit him to remove his mother.

About this time the fame of Dr. Darwin's talents induced Mr. Day to visit Lichfield. Thither, in the spring of 1770, he conducted the beauteous Sabrina, then thirteen years old, and took, for twelve months, a pleasant mansion in the little green valley of Stowe. Here he resumed his endeavors to implant in the mind of his charge the characteristic virtues of Arria, of Portia, and Cornelia, but his experiments were not attended with the desired success. He found it impossible to fortify her mind against the dread of pain and the sense of danger; when he dropped melted sealing-wax upon her arms, she did not endure it without flinching, and when he fired at her petticoats pistols which she believed to be charged with balls, she could not forbear starting, and expressing her apprehensions by violent screams. More than once, when he tried her fidelity in keeping pretended secrets, he discovered that she had communicated them to the servants and to her playfellows. She manifested an aversion to study and books, which afforded little promise of ability that should one day be responsible for the education of youths who were to emulate the Gracchi.

In these experiments Mr. Day persisted, to his uniform disappointment, during the year he spent in the neighborhood of Lichfield. The