THIS curious and interesting account, written by a gentleman of Essex, intimate with one of the descendants of Mr. Daniel Day, will afford us an instance of its being in the power of almost every man, to add to the felicity of his neighbours and fellow creatures. The subject before us, though in the middling rank of life, for a series of years had the gratification to see the hearts of hundreds annually rejoiced and made glad, by his means, around the old Oak, and thousands to this time assemble there, on the day he set apart for innocent pastime and rational recreation, so that the benevolent views of his heart were not buried with him in his grave: and, we most sincerely hope, while the spot whereon stood the far-famed Fairlop Oak is to be pointed out, the sons and daughters of freedom and hilarity will meet beneath the delightful shades of the Forest of Hainault, in commemoration of the Founder of the Feast and Fair, Daniel Day.
Daniel Day was born in the parish of St. Mary Overy, (in which parish his father was an opulent brewer) in the year 1683, and for a great number of years, until his death, was a very considerable engine, pump, and blockmaker, in the parish of St. John’s, Wapping, where, to this day, his memory is respected as a great benefactor to that parish, particularly in the gift of the great bell at the consecration of the new church in 1760, and as an upright and ingenious tradesman, a great mechanic, as the many inventions he has left behind him in the construction of various descriptions of engines and pumps, and of the improvement he made in the jiggers used by brewers in the starting of beer, which is worked by them to this day, sufficiently proves. He was of a most charitable and humane temper, and exemplarily generous and liberal in his principles and actions; to evince this we need only mention his portioning off his twin nieces in his life-time with £1000 each, one of whom lies buried near him. He would not only lend a distressed friend considerable sums, but he invariably refused the smallest interest, and very frequently forgave the principal; in short, his character for probity was such, that his neighbours were ever satisfied with his arbitrations in their disputes, to which his abilities were amply adequate; his memory was astonishingly retentive, in so great a degree, as to enable him to repeat, almost verbatim, a long discourse or sermon. He was not the enemy of any man, or particular description of men, but the muscles of his face were violently agitated whenever he heard of litigation in law, and he always professed to be uneasy in the company of the practitioners of it.
Notwithstanding the very large sums he distributed in charities and lent, he lived in comfort and died rich, leaving to the eight fatherless children of his niece, whom we have already alluded to, the bulk of his property to be equally divided.
It is with some degree of pain we mention that Mr. Day was never married, because with a heart replete with the milk of human kindness, and possessing an understanding at the same time solid and elevated, he wanted only the additional great characters of a husband and father to have made him more completely the great and good man.
Mr. Day had many eccentricities, but they were unoffending in their nature, and no man was ever splashed or injured by his hobby-horse. We should be doing injustice to his memory if we did not mention a peculiar and very high trait in his character, and that was, his kindness to his servants; in a few words, he was their friend. He had a widowed house-keeper who lived with him for thirty years, and died in his life-time at a very advanced age. She had two very strong attachments, one to her wedding-ring and garments, and the other to tea; when she died, Mr. Day would not permit her ring to be taken off—he said, “If that was attempted, she would come to life again,” and directed that she should be buried in her wedding suit, and a pound of tea in each hand; and these directions were literally obeyed.
This whim was highly illustrative of his good nature, for although he had an aversion to tea, and never drank it, he did not debar his servants the use of it; and in the instance of his old house-keeper, carried his liberality even into her grave, by providing her a commodity there, which she was so fond of here. And although a bachelor, no man honoured more the marriage state, as will be seen hereafter.
Mr. Day enjoyed as much as any man his friend and pitcher, but he was temperate and regular in his mode of living, and very fond of the exercise of walking; by this means he enjoyed an uncommon share of health, until his death.
We are now drawing towards that last scene which sooner or later must happen to the mighty and the weak, the rich and the poor, the good and the bad.
A few years before Mr. Day’s death, a branch of the Old Oak received a shock, either by decay, by lightning, or storm; this operated upon Mr. Day as the warning of an old friend—it pointed out to him the instability of life, and the effects of time; and he received the call with the resignation of a christian, and the fortitude of a man, who was conscious of having performed his allotted part with propriety.
He set about with alacrity, a task which to some men would have been an awful preparation for the journey: his first business was to provide the repository; by the favour of the lord of the manor, he procured the dismembered limb of his favourite tree: this being done, he employed a Mr. Clear, a carpenter, to measure him for a coffin, and to make it out of this oak. Mr. Clear executed his job, and brought home his work, which was neatly pannelled, and highly rubbed and varnished with bees-wax. Mr. Day viewed his future habitation with the utmost serenity and philosophy, and addressing himself to the carpenter, said, “Mr. Clear, I have heard that when a person dies he is much stretched, and consequently much longer than when living,” and, punning upon the man’s name, went on, “now, Mr. Clear, it is not very CLEAR to me that you have made this coffin long enough, but, however, we’ll try;” and laying himself down in the coffin, he found it too short. “Never mind it,” says the Stoic, “you must desire my executors to cut off my head and put it between my legs.”