Thomas Day (1748-1789) was the author of Sanford and Merton (1783). Devoted to Rousseau, Day was actively involved in political reform during the 1770s. His The Dying Negro (1773) was a well-known anti-slavery poem. Although he approved of Pitt's administration, Day retired to the country in 1781. He was a close associate of Erasmus Darwin and figures prominently in Anna Seward's biography of Darwin. This poem was written earlier, probably during the war with America. See James Keirk, Account of theLife and Writings of Thomas Day (London, 1791).
