by Wendy Moore
Written in simple words with plentiful dialogue, Sandford and Merton tells the story of two boys, Tommy Merton, the pampered son of a rich plantation owner who lives a life of indolence and selfishness, and Harry Sandford, the honest son of a poor farmer who works hard, treats animals and fellow humans with kindness and enjoys a simple life. A local clergyman, Mr. Barlow, is given the role of teaching the two boys—much in the way that Day had undertaken the task of teaching two girls though with rather better results. With Barlow as the boys’ wise mentor and Harry as the model pupil, Tommy gradually sees the error of his ways and evolves into a virtuous, generous and plain-living gentleman. During their adventures, the boys meet a variety of characters who treat them to a string of fables and cautionary tales, drawn from classical stories and other sources, which illustrate the path to virtue, as well as offering them lessons on such skills as making bread, building a house and using magnets. With its firm moral stance and sentimental tales, the book combined Day’s belief in the traditional values of industry, stoicism and honesty with his attachment to the idea of sensibility.
Sandford and Merton became an immediate success and would remain one of the best-selling and best-loved children’s books for more than a century. Hundreds of thousands of boys—and girls—throughout the nineteenth century and into the early twentieth would be captivated by Day’s hero Harry and dream of meeting its celebrated author. Once, when Day visited the Midlands, he was mobbed by young readers who came to gawp at the writer of their favorite book. Tommy and Harry’s adventures would be eagerly consumed in turn by writers from Robert Southey and Leigh Hunt to Charles Dickens, Oscar Wilde and P. G. Wodehouse. Leigh Hunt declared the book “a production that I well remember, and shall ever be grateful to” while Southey insisted that it should be read by all “with profit and pleasure.”
Standing on the bookshelves of almost every Victorian nursery, Day’s children’s novel would be reprinted 140 times by 1870, with translations in French and German; a new edition was published as recently as 2009. The book was not only one of the first aimed at children, it launched an entire new genre in adventure books for boys that helped to stiffen British resolve in the face of danger whether in the playground or on the battlefield.
Inevitably the popularity of Sandford and Merton would eventually wane. Dickens would lead the way with a vociferous attack in 1869 on the story that had “cast its gloom over my childhood.” Three years later, schoolboys everywhere could guffaw in relief at a spoof version of the book, The New Sandford and Merton, although Day’s novel would continue to hold sway for several more decades before it was declared well and truly out of date and out of step.
It was a remarkable achievement. In his book, Day had created two boys who exactly fitted the mold he had so long aimed to fill. And although the book focuses almost solely on the education of boys, at one point Day even introduces a perfect girl, Sukey Simmons, who befriends Harry. Orphaned in childhood, Sukey has been raised by her uncle, just like Esther, but in a decidedly Rousseauvian fashion. While young, Sukey was woken by candlelight in winter, plunged into cold baths and made to ride or walk dozens of miles daily but had also been taught to read “the best authors” in English and a few in French. Through this “robust and hardy” education Sukey acquired “an excellent character” in Day’s words. Even if Day had failed to educate his two female pupils to adopt his singular ideas, in fiction he would finally fashion the children of his dreams. Furthermore, Day’s enduring literary success would ensure that his views on innocent virtue and stoical courage would be inculcated in innumerable boys and girls throughout the nineteenth century.
Busy educating the nation’s children, Day gave little thought to his early educational experiment. If he did, according to Keir, he would now scoff at his earlier naïveté in pursuing “schemes, which, on account of the im-practicality of their execution, were sometimes the subject of his own pleasantry in his maturer age.” In other words, Sabrina’s ordeal was now the subject of a joke. But when Edgeworth wrote to tell him that he was thinking of adopting a peasant boy in order to educate him as a gentleman in a bizarre imitation of Day’s attempt to educate Sabrina, Day was aghast at the idea and strenuously warned Edgeworth against the notion.
Plainly speaking with bitterness born of his own experience, Day protested: “If we chuse to make a lady out of what fortune has intended for a serving wench, or a gentleman out of the materials of a blacksmith, we certainly have a very good right.” But the child would grow up to “consider you as doomed to supply all its wants,” and Edgeworth would have to “maintain for a gentleman him whom you have taken as a beggar.” With an eye to his future reputation Day added gravely: “Or will you much relish, towards the decline of your life, the having manifestoes to publish about your own conduct, and to apologise to your fellow-creatures for not being a dupe, or an idiot?”‘ Wisely, Edgeworth dropped the scheme and concentrated on educating his own family.
But one person at least had not given up on Sabrina.
TEN
VIRGINIA, BELINDA AND MARY
Five Ways, Birmingham, May 1783
Far from the dizzying world of politics and publishing, Sabrina had grown into her twenties with only an occasional cold letter and her yearly £50 allowance from Day. Since her final rejection by him in 1775, she had spent eight years living in anonymous boardinghouses and family homes across the Midlands. For a while, after moving from the lodging house in Birmingham where Day had first placed her, she obtained work as a lady’s companion in Newport in Shropshire. For an educated, single woman of slender means, becoming a companion to a wealthy woman or a governess to a well-to-do family were the only two respectable options. Part-chaperone and part-maid, the job of lady’s companion meant being at the command of a mistress day and night. In theory this was a step up from working as a domestic servant; in practice it was often harder work than being the lowliest maid.
By 1780 this unenviable position had come to an end, and Sabrina had moved back to the outskirts of Birmingham. At that point Day had felt the need to write a will, which was almost entirely devoted to exonerating himself from any additional responsibility for his former pupil. Although he made sure to leave ample security for his mother, stepfather and Esther after his death, Day stipulated that “Sabrina Sidney an Orphan now living near Birmingham” should continue to receive her £50 allowance only so long as she remained single. If she married she would receive the £500 dowry Day had promised back in 1769, but only on the condition that the money “be accepted by her as a perfect acquittal of every promise engagement or contract which I have made with her or on her behalf.” Day appointed his trusty friend Keir to ensure his orders regarding Sabrina would be carried out. But even if Day could cut Sabrina out of any inheritance, he could not cut her out of his life.
Charming and graceful with an easy manner and a ready rapport, Sabrina had continued to visit old friends in old haunts and attract new admirers in new places. “Wherever she resided, wherever she paid visits, she secured to herself friends,” wrote Anna Seward. She often stayed with the Darwins on visits to Lichfield—at least until Darwin moved to Derby after marrying a second time in 1781—and she was a favorite guest with the Savilles too. In August 1780, she had been invited to the baptism of John Saville’s grandson, the first child of his daughter, Sabrina’s friend, now married as Eliza Smith. “We are unable to fix the time till Sabrina comes,” Saville told a friend. “She is expected in a few days.” Judging from the need to await her arrival, Sabrina was probably the baby’s godmother; the baptism duly took place on August 25 when the baby was named Saville Smith.
With all traces of Sabrina’s foundling past forgotten or obscured, she faced the world as a self-assured woman of independent means. According to Seward, “she passed the dangerous interval between sixteen and twenty-five without one reflection upon her conduct, one stain upon her discretion.” Yet although Day was at pains to keep her out of his sight he maintained a hold on her lif
e—and her marital fortunes. When in her early twenties Sabrina received a marriage proposal from an eligible young suitor she made the mistake of seeking Day’s advice.
The proposal, written in verse, came from a surgeon apothecary, named Jarvis Wardley, who had served an apprenticeship in Newport before setting up business on his own in nearby Market Drayton. Traditionally apothecaries ground powders and mixed potions prescribed by physicians, but by the late 1700s they were becoming recognized as medical men in their own right—the future general practitioners. Wardley was highly regarded by Erasmus Darwin judging from the considerate reply Darwin sent to a letter from Wardley seeking advice on a patient. It was perhaps through Darwin that Wardley had met Sabrina. Charmed by the amiable young woman, Wardley, a year her senior, sent his marriage proposal in the form of an acrostic poem—a verse in which the first letter of each line spells out a message or name.
Wardley was a professional man with a secure income and romantic leanings, and so his proposal was not one to reject lightly; there were far worse fates than becoming an apothecary’s wife. But Day was unequivocal in telling Sabrina to reject him—perhaps from a snobbish view that Wardley’s vocation was too lowly for his erstwhile pupil; perhaps through reluctance to let her go. Applying his poetic talents to the task, Day composed a return acrostic spelling out Jarvis Wardley’s name, with plentiful barbed allusions to the apothecary’s profession, which he advised Sabrina to send with a stern rebuff. Day wrote, in part: “In ev’ry art you shine the first of men, / So well you wield the pestle and the pen! / When e’er with skilful hand, the lint you spread, / And smooth a plaister for a broken head; / Rollers & bandages confess your skill; / Doctors themselves resign the murd’ring pill.” Day even drafted her rejection letter: “Miss Sydney hopes, that the above will appear a sufficient Recompense, to Mr. Wardley, for his elegant Acrostic, which she will by no means rob him of, as it may serve again with very little alteration.” Further letters from Wardley would be returned unopened, Day wrote, since “such correspondencies are highly improper for young women of any Character.”
Spurned by Sabrina, Wardley soon found another bride. Sabrina, however, continued unmarried and unattached into her mid-twenties. Living in a boardinghouse at Five Ways, a hamlet of fine villas where five roads met a mile south of Birmingham, Sabrina grew close to a young woman who moved into the same house in early 1783. Born in Geneva, Françoise-Antoinette de Luc—known as Fanny to her friends—was the daughter of Jean André de Luc, a geologist who had become friendly with the Lunar Society. Fanny, aged twenty-eight, soon became a popular guest with her father’s Lunar friends—not least for her entertaining stories about the oddest member of their circle.
Finding a friend in Fanny in their shared lodgings, Sabrina confided the bizarre ordeals she had suffered during her training with Day. And Fanny in turn repeated the shocking stories when she visited the home of Samuel Galton, one of the Lunar club’s newest members, who lived in Hagley Row near Five Ways. Galton’s eldest daughter, Mary Anne, was less than six at the time, but she would remember into her seventies Fanny de Luc’s tales of Sabrina’s torture by sealing wax and pistols. “We were very much interested in anecdotes she told us of Sabrina Sidney, the élève of Mr. Day, who was boarding at the same house as her,” she wrote, although the revelations did not diminish her admiration for her favorite book, Sandford and Merton.
Living on the fringes of Birmingham as she turned twenty-six in spring 1783, Sabrina was in danger of being left on the edge of society. Her experimental education was the subject of tea table gossip and giggles. Her financial security was under the control of her reluctant benefactor. And her past connections with Day placed her reputation precariously in the balance. The expanding city that she could see from the windows of her lodgings provided a stark symbol of her ambiguous position. The tree-lined squares and tea gardens still offered a desirable location for Birmingham’s well-heeled residents, but the cramped terraced houses and smoky workshops fast encroaching on every available space suggested an alternative future. Since Day had now married the woman he still hoped to mold into his perfect wife, Sabrina had probably given up hope that she would ever marry. Living at the junction of five roads, she had no idea in which direction her life would lead. And then a long forgotten visitor arrived on her doorstep. It was John Bicknell.
Years of carousing with his friends at Middle Temple had taken its toll on Bicknell. Like Day, he had always preferred to spend his time stirring up radical politics and producing literary works to reading law books and legal briefs. Unlike Day, Bicknell had no independent fortune to bankroll his leisure pursuits. His family’s long predominance in the law had given him a helpful shove up the legal ladder. His positions as a barrister in the court of King’s Bench and as a commissioner of bankrupts brought substantial fees. According to Edgeworth, Bicknell was a “man of shining talents” with “great wit and acuteness.” But Bicknell had squandered his talents and good fortune through laziness, high living and licentiousness.
Instead of studying briefs for court cases, Bicknell studied his cards in gambling clubs and spent his winnings in Covent Garden brothels or forgot his losses in Fleet Street taverns. He was particularly fond of the game chemin de fer, which was popular with the aristocratic fast set, a variation of baccarat so named because the cards were dealt from an iron box. At one point he won a “considerable fortune,” but as quickly as his winnings accrued they trickled through his fingers again. Before long the attorneys who referred clients to barristers like Bicknell were sending their business elsewhere. “He is said to have kept briefs an unconscionable time in his pocket, or on his table, unnoticed,” wrote Edgeworth. “Attorneys complained, but still he consoled himself with wit, literature and pleasure, till health as well as attorneys began to fail.” By the time he reached his thirties, Bicknell was suffering from “absolute palsies”—probably a stroke—and wrote to Day for advice. Day suggested his stock remedies of fresh air, plain food and exercise—sage words in Bicknell’s case.
But if Day’s prescription came too late to alleviate Bicknell’s ailments, the connection with his old school friend suggested another idea to revive his ailing fortunes. With both his health and his finances in dire straits, Bicknell faced up to his future. It was not looking rosy. Having remained resolutely single so far, at thirty-six Bicknell resolved to settle down and get married. He wanted a companion, perhaps even children, to comfort and care for him in his remaining years. Casting around for possible candidates, he suddenly remembered the pretty twelve-year-old orphan that he had plucked from the line of girls at the Shrewsbury Foundling Hospital fourteen years earlier.
In the intervening years Bicknell had taken scant interest in Sabrina. Despite the fact that he had first selected her as Day’s prospective wife, he later expressed surprise that Day was so smitten with her. He told Edgeworth “he could not, for his part, see any thing extraordinary about the girl, one way or other.” When Edgeworth praised her melodious voice and gentle manner, Bicknell had “only shrugged his shoulders.” When Day rejected Sabrina and married Esther, Bicknell’s indifference had turned to pity but nothing more. And since then Sabrina had apparently slipped completely from his mind.
Now Bicknell made discreet inquiries about her circumstances, probably through Edgeworth since he was careful not to alert Day to his interest. Having established that she was still single, he wanted to know whether she retained a taintless reputation. By Georgian double standards it was quite acceptable for Bicknell to sow his seeds but reprehensible for his potential wife. Satisfied to learn that Sabrina was alive and well, single and saintly, Bicknell obtained her address and set off hotfoot to find her. When he tracked her down to her lodgings at Five Ways, he was delighted to discover that the adolescent girl he remembered had matured into a beautiful and poised young woman.
According to Edgeworth, Bicknell now “saw her with different eyes from those, with which he had looked upon her formerly” and “fell desperately
in love.” Equally it may have been Sabrina’s promised £500 dowry that Bicknell viewed with different eyes. Confident that he had found “a companion for middle life, and a friend, perhaps a nurse, for his declining years,” Bicknell asked her to marry him. Sabrina, he was certain, would be perfect for his needs.
Sabrina weighed up the offer. She had rejected a young surgeon apothecary with a promising future and a literary flair. Now she was confronted by a middle-aged, down-at-the-heels lawyer in declining health. But she was alone, single, living in rented rooms and financially dependent on Day with no guarantees for her future. Bicknell was clever, charming, persuasive and belonged to a respectable family with immaculate connections. It was probably rational considerations, or “prudential” reasons in Seward’s words, that prompted Sabrina to say yes. Later, Sabrina would let it be known that Bicknell was “the man of her dreams,” and perhaps that was true. She had, of course, once told Edgeworth, “I love Mr. Day best in the world, Mr. Bicknell next, and you next.” But before she could go ahead with the wedding, Sabrina insisted on consulting Edgeworth and Day.
Edgeworth responded with characteristic generosity and optimism. He confessed himself a trifle surprised to hear that Bicknell was suddenly in love with someone he had previously considered with indifference and more than a little concerned that Bicknell’s poor health and poorer work ethic might leave Sabrina in financial straits. But ever the incurable romantic, he reasoned that “no motive could be stronger or more likely to make a man exert himself, than the desire of providing for a woman he loved,” and he duly sent his approval with good wishes for their future happiness. Day’s response was rather different.