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                  THE ROMANCE OF WILLS AND TESTAMENTS


                          BY THE SAME AUTHOR
                        SONGS AND LYRICAL POEMS
                                (1908)

                           _In Preparation_
                         SPIRITUAL TESTAMENTS
                                  OR
                       PRAYERS AND PREFACES FROM
                              WILLS, &c.




                                  THE
                           ROMANCE OF WILLS
                            AND TESTAMENTS

                                  BY
                            EDGAR VINE HALL

                            T. FISHER UNWIN
                        LONDON: ADELPHI TERRACE
                       LEIPSIC: INSELSTRASSE 20
                                 1912

                       (_All rights reserved._)

    “My Life’s my dying day, wherein I still
    Am making, alter and correct my Will.”
                          FRANCIS QUARLES.

    “Remember me when I am gone away,
    Gone far away into the silent land.”
                          CHRISTINA G. ROSSETTI.

    “Of Carthage wall I was a stone
    O’h Mortals Read with Pity
    Time consumes all it spareth none
    Man, Mountain, Town nor City.
    Therefore O’h Mortals now bethink
    You where unto you must,
    Since now such Stately Buildings
    Lie Buried in the dust.
                          THOMAS HUGHES, 1663.”

    _The Carthage Stone, S. Dunstan’s Church, Stepney._




PREFACE


By way of preface it is necessary to explain the sources from which
the material for the following pages is taken. The chief feature of
these essays consists, I think, in the large amount of original matter
rescued from the multitudinous MS. volumes of wills, &c., which are
preserved at Somerset House and elsewhere.

As in death, so in those volumes, small and great rest side by side.
Of the majority their wills, or, if they died without wills, their
intestacies, are their only memorials. But it is fascinating to come
suddenly upon some well-known name. In a volume of intestacies of
the year 1674, for instance, is an entry stating that administration
was granted to Elizabeth Milton, widow of John Milton, late of the
parish of St. Giles, Cripplegate, his nuncupative will not having been
proved—“testamento nuncupativo dicti defuncti ... per antedictam
Elizabetham Milton allegato nondum probato.”

Different types and times, the lighter or the more serious pages of
this book, will appeal to different readers. I would, for my part,
especially suggest attention to wills illustrative of times of plague
as likely to interest students of human nature and history. Time and
opportunity for research have been limited—not unfortunately, perhaps.
Amid greater abundance of material, choice would have been the more
perplexing.

It is desired to make full acknowledgment of the various printed books
which I have perused, and from which I have sometimes borrowed, viz.:
such books as “Wills from Doctors’ Commons” (Nichols and Bruce), “Fifty
English Wills” (Furnivall), “North Country Wills” (Surtees Society),
“Testamenta Eboracensia” (Surtees Society), “Testamenta Vetusta”
(Nicolas), “Testamenta Cantiana” (Duncan and Hussey), “Wells Wills”
(Weaver), “Lincoln Wills” (Gibbons), “Royal Wills” (Nichols), “A
History of English Law” (Holdsworth).

Again, there are books, not directly connected with the subject, in
which wills or pertinent tales occur. In this class I am indebted to
such books as Messrs. Maclehose’s edition of “An Historical Relation
of Ceylon” (Robert Knox), “Anna Van Schurman” (Una Birch), “Bygone
Leicestershire” (Andrews), “The Old Sea-Port of Whitby” (Gaskin),
“Beckenham Past and Present” (Borrowman), “Walks in Islington”
(Cromwell), “_Gentleman’s Magazine_,” “Table Book” (Hone), “London”
(Knight), “Ancient Monuments” (Weever), “Seventeenth Century Men
of Latitude” (George), “Ancestral Stories and English Eccentrics”
(Timbs), “Haunted Houses” (Harper), “Real Ghost Stories” (Stead),
“Naturalisation of the Supernatural” (Podmore), “Dreams and Ghosts”
(Lang), “Folk Lore and Folk Stories of Wales” (Trevelyan), “_The Annals
of Psychical Science_,” and “_The Occult Review_.”

Especial acknowledgment is due to Messrs. Constable and Co. for
permission to make use of articles in “_The Ancestor_”; to Mr. C.
L. Kingsford and the Delegates of the Oxford University Press for
permission to introduce the story of the last days of Elizabeth Stow,
as contained in Mr. Kingsford’s Introduction to his edition of Stow’s
“Survey”; and to Mr. R. de M. Rudolf for valuable illustrations drawn
from his book, “Clapham Before 1700 A.D.”

The idea of this book is the writer’s own. It was inevitable that the
idea should have been anticipated, but of such anticipation I was
unaware until the book was under weigh. The nearest approaches which I
have read are Mrs. Byrne’s “Curiosities of the Search Room: A Collection
of Serious and Whimsical Wills” (1880), and Walter Tegg’s “Wills of
Their Own: Curious, Eccentric, and Benevolent” (1876), to both of which
I acknowledge indebtedness. But those who are interested should repair,
if possible, to their entertaining pages. An earlier anticipatory
volume is G. Peignot’s excellent “Choix de Testamens Anciens et
Modernes, Remarquables par leur Importance, leur Singularité, ou leur
Bizarrerie” (1829).

Since these essays were written Mr. Virgil M. Harris, of St. Louis,
Missouri, has published at Boston, U.S.A., a large collection of wills
under the title, “Ancient, Curious, and Famous Wills,” a work, however,
distinct in scope and style from the present book.

Scattered about these pages are instances of wills, &c., gathered
from newspapers from time to time. This source, also, is gratefully
recognised. Lastly, I have to express my thanks to Mr. Fincham, of
Somerset House, for affording me facilities to introduce two or three
excellent illustrations of my theme.

Other references are mentioned in the text. If any work to which I am
indebted in any respect has not been acknowledged, I trust I may be
accorded a ready pardon.

                                                     E. VINE HALL.
    _Wimbledon._




CONTENTS


  CHAPTER                               PAGE
          PREFACE                          7
       I. THE ROMANCE OF WILLS            13
      II. WILLS NOT FULFILLED             59
     III. DR. JOHNSON’S WILL              69
      IV. DEATH-BED DISPOSITIONS          82
       V. WILLS BY WORD OF MOUTH          93
      VI. THE POLYCODICILLIC WILL        106
     VII. EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY PIETY       113
    VIII. THE DEAD HAND                  123
      IX. WILLS OF FANCY AND OF FANTASY  134
       X. STRIFE                         148
      XI. LOVE AND GRATITUDE             159
     XII. THE SERVANT PROBLEM            169
    XIII. ANIMALS AND PETS               178
     XIV. THE WAY OF ALL FLESH           187
      XV. BURIALS AND FUNERALS           197
     XVI. WILLS AND GHOSTS               230




The Romance of Wills and Testaments




CHAPTER I

THE ROMANCE OF WILLS


I

“The older I grow,” Mr. E. V. Lucas has said, “the less, I find, do I
want to read about anything but human beings.... But human beings, as
human beings, are not enough; they must, to interest me, have qualities
of simplicity or candour or quaintness.”

The words of the writer are peculiarly apt to describe the charm of
wills. But the older we grow, the more do men and women, by reason
only of their humanity, absorb our interest. In wills human nature is
most vividly and variously displayed. In wills the dead speak, and
in a manner live again. The poor and the rich, men learned and men
illiterate, all alike have made interesting wills. In some cases humour
and pathos are more unconscious, in others opportunity for effect is
greater; but in wills of every class, and of every age or form, there
is much worthy of remark.

Historically they are invaluable records. In them are reflected all
social, political, and religious revolutions. By them the history of
families or places is preserved and illuminated. As long ago as the
sixteenth century John Stow realised their value, and often referred
to them in his “Survey of London.” No local record to-day would be
complete without the wills of its worthies.

There is unrivalled scope for the imagination in perusing the last
dispositions of the dead. How easy it is, with these documents before
us, to picture the figures of each generation; the fervent Catholic
of the fifteenth century, the pious benefactor of the sixteenth, the
“heroic English gentleman” of the seventeenth, the Whig or Tory of
the eighteenth; and at all times the homely or eccentric testator who
allows many a secret comedy or tragedy to appear, many a prejudice
or foible, many a sentiment of resignation or revolt. Some give the
impression of peevishness and irresolution, of spite or hate; some of
sentimental or petty desires; some of serene care for the future, of
dignity and calm.

Little, indeed, in all literature is more arresting than the revelation
of personality, the unveiling of intimacies that are seldom seen: in
wills these intimacies occur, the veil is withdrawn, in a manner that
elsewhere can rarely be observed. Whether they be light or serious,
amusing or tragic, the occurrence of such vivid traits in a will gives
them a character peculiarly humorous or correspondingly sad. The
idiosyncrasy is magnified, the bias more distorted, when placed in such
a setting.

On the other hand, the interest of a will may arise not merely or so
much from its provisions in themselves, as from our knowledge of the
inner history of the testator’s life and death. Bishop Corbet, that
witty and jovial soul, was one of those fathers who, for all their
love and longing, for all their piety, are disgraced by their sons. In
his will, dated July 7, 1635, and proved on the 5th of the following
September, he wrote: “I commit and commend the nurture education and
maintenance of my son and daughter into the faithful and loving care of
my mother-in-law, declaring my intent by this my last will, as I have
often in my health expressed the same, that my desire is that my said
son be brought up in good learning, and that as soon as he shall be fit
be placed in Oxford or Cambridge, where I require him upon my blessing
to apply himself to his books studiously and industriously.”

He had in “health expressed the same” by verse: but the son Vincent,
in spite of prayer and admonition, was a ne’er-do-well, and after the
Bishop’s death a beggar in London. These lines were addressed to him
upon his third birthday by his fond but ill-requited father:—

   “I wish thee, Vin., before all wealth,
    Both bodily and ghostly health:
    Nor too much wealth, nor wit, come to thee,
    So much of either may undo thee.
    I wish thee learning, not for show,
    Enough for to instruct, and know;
    Not such as gentlemen require,
    To prate at table, or at fire.
    I wish thee all thy mother’s graces,
    Thy father’s fortune, and his places.
    I wish thee friends, and one at court,
    Not to build on but support;
    To keep thee, not in doing many
    Oppressions, but from suffering any.
    I wish thee peace in all thy ways,
    Nor lazy nor contentious days;
    And when thy soul and body part,
    As innocent as now thou art.”

Or take the case of the Gills, father and son. Alexander Gill, senior,
was High Master of St. Paul’s School from 1608 to 1635, and is famous
as having numbered Milton among his pupils. A degree of fame is also
his for the unsparing use of the rod, which he wielded even upon his
son, the under master:

    “‘O good Sir,’ then cry’d he,
     ‘In private let it be,
      And do not sauce me openly.’”

In his will we see that as he had ruled in his lifetime, so he would
have his wife rule after him. “And although it may seem needless to
charge my sons so professed how they should honour their mother, yet
I hold it fit in and by this my last will to leave this precept unto
them as my last remembrance, charging them as much as I can that,
as they hope for a blessing of God to be with them, to give her that
honour which is due as the law of God and nature bindeth them, and in
every thing to harken to her counsel and precept and to obey her and be
ruled by her.”

Nor is it surprising to find that another son, Nathaniel, “hath refused
my correction,” and that he has an “unthankful and injurious brother.”
“To my unthankful and injurious brother Simon Gill I freely forgive
all debts which he oweth me, with all demands for other charges of
food apparel losses and supplies in his want by which I have been much
damnified by him, which in a most charitable accompt would come to
above fifty pounds; I forgive, I say, all most freely except one bill
of eight pounds, which debt I give to my executrix, with hope she will
not be troublesome to him by suit thereof except he become troublesome
unto her or her children as his manner hath been towards me and others.”

There are other interesting passages, but as a final touch to the
will of this stormy nature it may be noticed that he gives “the dust
of this wicked carcase to be buried in the dust.” Altogether his will
confirms the opinion of Aubrey in his “Brief Lives,” that “Dr. Gill,
the father, was a very ingeniose person, as may appear by his writings.
Notwithstanding he had moodes and humours.”

Sometimes the circumstances suggest romance. “On the morning of the
action between the Portland packet and the Temeraire French privateer,
off Guadaloupe, on the 14th of October, 1796,” says Kirby’s “Wonderful
Museum” (1803), “Mr. Cunningham, a passenger, who, in a previous
engagement sustained by the Portland packet with another privateer, had
evinced great courage, observed to the captain that he felt a strong
impression that his dissolution was at hand; and on the enemy bearing
in sight, he went below and made his will, declaring his hour was come;
returning to his station on deck, in a few minutes a bullet verified
his prediction.”

So it has been again and again, from the case of Mary Stuart, writing
her will in her own hand during the last hours before her execution,
or of Archbishop Laud drawing up his will in the Tower, to the case of
Señor Ferrer, dictating his testament in the prison chapel at Barcelona.

II

Strange histories, it will be seen, lie behind wills, dull and similar
as at first sight the majority appears. The history may not always be
explicit, but the suggestion conveyed by some gift or revocation, some
phrase or fact, may often be completed by the reader’s imagination. So
Dorothy Skipwith, of Catesby, in Lincolnshire (will dated 1677), “did
revoke and declare void the legacy of twenty guineas mentioned to be
given to Mr. Shomoon, a Frenchman living in Whitehall, which she said
she so revoked in regard he refused to come to her in the time of her
sickness.”

At times we know something of that which lies beneath the surface of
the will. The Duchesse d’Angoulême (died October 19, 1851) forgives,
“following the example of her parents,” all who have injured her,
expressing her love for France and her gratitude to the Emperor of
Austria. And towards the end she states: “I wish all the sheets,
papers or books written by my hand, which are in my strong-box or my
tables, to be burnt by the executors of my will.” These, we are told,
were prayers, meditations, notes which might have caused hurt to the
feelings of others, lists of charities and books of account. The will
is signed in the name of “Marie Thérèse de France, Comtesse de Maines,”
the title which she took in her days of exile.

Anne Davis, spinster, whose will is dated November 14, 1803, reveals,
or half-reveals, some family trouble. She directs that “in case of my
demise my poor decayed body to be decently interred in the burying
ground of Marybone upon the grave where my late dear aunt and friend
lays; her name is on a stone, and I desire mine to be put on the
stone.... I desire to have a patent coffin lined on the outside with
the best black cloth, nails, etc., etc., and every thing that is proper
on this occasion, the best hearse and one coach with the black velvet
feathers and porters. I desire Mr. William Joachim, Mrs. Joachim, Miss
Joachim and Mrs. Toby ... to see my poor decayed body decently buried
upon my dear aunt’s grave,” and “I desire Mr. William Joachim, my
executor, will advertise for my brother Mr. William Davis. The last
time I ever saw him was the 8th of May, 1794, for he desired to see my
dear aunt when she lay dead. He said he was going down to Portsmouth
in the agency line. May God forgive him for all his unkindness to me;
I freely forgive him, and please God that he may make a proper use of
what I have left him.”

Edward Roberts, bachelor, of the parish of St. Clement’s Danes (but
when he made his will in July, 1664, on board the _Great Eagle_), was
open and emotional: “Whensoever it shall please God to call me out of
the world, whether I die by sea or by land, I do give will and bequeath
all that ever I have or shall leave behind me at my death ... unto
Elizabeth Jones whom I love with all my heart and above all women in
the world. And if I had a thousand pounds or neversomuch she should
have every groat of it.”

It needs no subtlety of imagination to diagnose his case; but one would
like to unravel the story of romantic tenderness that seems to lurk
behind the simple will of a Richard Mathews, servant to Hugh Hamersley,
of Spring Gardens, St. Martins-in-the-Fields. He died (was it of love?)
on or before the 10th of October, 1779. His will was dated October
5th, and after some legacies, including one to Mrs. Collis, his “late
worthy fellow-servant,” he continues: “It is my further desire that 5s.
apiece may be given to the men as carries me to church, and it is my
further desire to be buried in a decent manner and my body laid by a
young woman who died at the Rev. Mr. Ellet’s some time ago.”

That the lover is careful to choose suitably his last resting-place
we know from the will of Chrysostom in “Don Quixote.” “‘This morning
that famous student-shepherd called Chrysostom died, and it is rumoured
that he died of love for that devil of a village girl, the daughter
of Guillermo the Rich, she that wanders about the wolds here in the
dress of a shepherdess.’ ‘You mean Marcela?’ said one. ‘Her I mean,’
answered the goatherd; ‘and the best of it is, he has directed in his
will that he is to be buried in the fields like a Moor, and at the foot
of the rock where the Cork-tree spring is, because, as the story goes
(and they say he himself said so) that was the place where he first
saw her.’” With similar sentiment Sir Miles St. John, in Lord Lytton’s
“Lucretia,” by his will requested that a small miniature in his
writing-desk should be placed in his coffin. “That last injunction was
more than a sentiment: it bespoke the moral conviction of the happiness
the original might have conferred on his life.”

In fiction we may realise what terrible deeds or poignant memories are
revived and referred to by the clauses of a will. Thus in Mrs. Henry
Wood’s “George Canterbury’s Will” we know, when Mrs. Dawke’s will is
read, that her husband is the murderer of her child: “To my present
husband ... five-and-twenty pounds, wherewith to purchase a mourning
ring, which he will wear in remembrance of my dear child, Thomas
Canterbury.”

In real wills such knowledge is often hidden from us. Yet innumerable
touches, tender or strange, harsh or sweet, break through their
monotony; ways of life and attitudes of thought, records of deeds or
feelings long ago, are brought vividly before us. Do not the romance
and spirit of England live again in such a document as this? “Right
Worshipful, I safely arrived in the Downs from the Straits the 22nd day
of March last and got to London on Easter Eve, where I presented myself
to the Dean of Westminster and other friends. But on Easter Monday
I was engaged by Sir William Penn to go along with him to the Great
Fleet under the command of his Royal Highness the Duke of York, the
which I readily embraced as thinking it my duty to appear wheresoever
I may in probability do the Church, my Prince, and my Country, the
best service possible. I am at present constituted chaplain on board
the _Unicorn_ where the Lord Peterborough is to sail. Our fleet I can
assure you is in a gallant posture, lying not far from Harwich, at all
points ready for action. I freely refer myself to the goodness of my
God, who hath preserved me hitherto in many dangers (viz.) of battle
shipwrecks fire and storms, etc. And if I shall be taken out of the
world my desires are as heretofore (viz.) that such moneys of mine as
are in your Worship’s hands, or aught else that may be any ways due
to me from Christ Church, be about Michaelmas next, 1665, paid unto
Alexander Vincent, the eldest son of my brother Ambrose Vincent, or if
he shall not then be living unto my eldest surviving nephew whether by
brother or sister. I wish all prosperity and happiness to yourself, Dr.
Allestry and my friends in Christ Church, and remain your much obliged
and true friend and servant John Vincent. (From aboard the _Unicorn_
riding with the Fleet not far from Harwich April 12, 1665.)”

But the seafaring spirit has not always run so high, as the will of a
Richard French reveals. “At the Cowes in the Isle of Wight the 18th
of July, 1636. Whereas by reason of certain disabilities which I
have found in myself more than ordinary this voyage, every man being
almost disencouraged in respect of the smallness of the vessel and
desperateness of the journey, because that my mate Robert Anderson hath
by his no small industry and to the maintaining of my credit undertaken
this voyage with me and still carefully pursued, I do here in this
paper confirm and refer over unto him by deed of gift, conditionally he
goes this journey and I miscarry, all the goods belonging to me in the
pinnace.” Evidently the testator did miscarry, for the document was
proved on the 19th of August, a month and a day after its execution.

III

Thomas Eden, whose will is dated at Wimbledon, August 14, 1803, only
whets the appetite: “I, Thomas Eden, of sound mind and understanding,
though gradually failing in personal strength from advance in years
and what I have gone through in my life, do make this my last will and
testament.” But many curious items of biography emerge from wills.
Sometimes they are accidental or incidental; at other times the
testator makes much of them. Philip, fifth Earl of Pembroke, bequeathed
“to Thomas May, whose nose I did break at a mascarade, five shillings.”
Recently a legacy was left to one whom the testator had nearly burned
to death, another to one whom a testator had saved from drowning. “I
have been very unfortunate,” wrote a lady lately deceased. “I thought
to have a companion for the rest of my days by remarrying, but am once
more stranded and alone.”

Sir John Gayer, an illustrious seventeenth-century citizen of London,
is still remembered in an annual sermon at St. Katharine Cree,
Leadenhall Street, preached by direction of his will in commemoration
of his escape from a lion on the coast of Africa. Ezekiel Nash (will
dated March 27, 1800) left a charitable legacy for his preservation
in an engagement with a French frigate on March the 8th, 1762. A late
manager to a shipping company directed that on his tomb should be
inscribed the words:

    “Let on his soul kind judgment fall,
     Who did his best for one and all,”

and the following summary of his achievements: “He helped to change
paddle tugs to screw, to initiate high pressure and twin screws for
ocean-going steamers, to introduce the Steam line Conference with
the rebate system, and to start the Shipping Federation, the London
Shipping Exchange, and the British Empire League.”

Richard Forster, in his will dated November 15, 1728, opens with some
remarks on the Church and his position therein. “In the name of God
Amen. I Richard Forster, an unworthy minister of Jesus Christ, advanced
into the order of Christian priesthood according to the usage of the
Church of England, the soundest and best constituted part of the
Catholic Church, (a great number of whose parochial clergy have been
unhappily deprived of a great part of their revenues by the injurious
appropriation of tythes glebes and parsonage houses under the iniquity
of Popery,) and intending to spend the remainder of my days in the
communion and service of this Church, having by the providence of God
and the kindness of my friends been first promoted to the Rectory of
Beckly, in Sussex, and after to that of Crundale, in Kent, and lastly
to the Vicarage of Eastchurch, in Sheppey, (the defects of my duty
in all which parishes I pray God of His infinite mercy to pardon,)
and being advanced into the seventy-eighth year of my age by the
distinguishing favour of God with a sound mind and memory, though with
a weak body, I do make and ordain this my last will and testament.”

John Wakring’s will, proved June 14, 1665, was written at Portsmouth
in the form of a letter from on board the _Resolution_, November 23,
1664: “Mistress Elizabeth, my kind love and best respects presented
unto you, hoping these few lines will find you in good health as I
was at the present writing hereof. I have presumed, hoping it will be
acceptable, to acquaint you of the receival of your letter wherein I
received much joy to hear of your welfare. I should think myself the
happiest man alive if I could attain so much time as for to see you
before my departure, but since God has decreed it otherwise by reason
of much business imposed upon me, nevertheless I would have you accept
of all that is mine as yours if God shall deal with me otherwise than
I do expect. In the meantime I would entreat you for to have a great
care of what you have in your custody, because it may stand you in good
stead hereafter, which is the letter of attorney which I left you in
for the receival of all that is due unto me and my servant from the
time I came out as clerk and everything else. Furthermore, I give you
to understand that I am at the time Sir William Barkley’s cook and am
in very much respect on all sides, and hope, for all these wars, I
shall see you in good estate if God permit. So with my humble duty to
your mother, and my kind love to your brother and sister and to all the
rest of my friends in general, I rest yours, if God bless and permit me
life, John Wakring.”

It is in these informal wills, naturally, that such delightful glimpses
are more frequently obtained, and perhaps one other example may be
tolerated. It is late in the next century, very different in tone
from the seventeenth-century heroes, John Vincent or John Wakring.
Jane Bowdler was an invalid, a spinster of Bath. The language of her
will, proved March 4, 1786, is characteristic of the century. “My
dear and ever honoured father, from the great indulgence you have
always expressed for me I am led to believe that it will still be a
satisfaction to you to comply with some little requests of mine, and
therefore I will mention a few things which I would beg you to do for
me after my death. And first I beg to repeat the sincerest assurances
of my duty love and gratitude to you and my mother, and I pray to God
to bless you and reward you for all your kindness to me. I wish these
sentiments had been better expressed in my lifetime, but I fear my ill
health and loss of speech have sometimes made me a burden to my friends
as well as in some degree to myself. These considerations will,
however, I trust contribute to reconcile them to my death, since the
enjoyment of society has long been in a great measure taken away. Let
us rejoice in an humble but comfortable hope that we shall meet again
in a far happier state to be separated no more. May God of His infinite
mercy grant it.”

IV

Above all, the thought that a will is nothing if not a preparation for
death gives to its study the ultimate significance. For what can be
more momentous than decisions then; what more humorous, in the older
and deeper sense, than foibles and follies at such an hour? What can be
more arresting than the persistence which prompts a man at the approach
of death to seal his life’s work, evil or beneficent, with the sanction
of his will? “Even on the verge of the grave he sought to slake his
ambition by unlawful means; and he succeeded,” says Dr. August Fournier
of Napoleon I. Charles V., in a codicil executed a few days before his
death, solemnly exhorts his son to extirpate the heresy of Luther.
Señor Ferrer dictates his will in the prison chapel at Barcelona,
emphasising the salient points of his belief. There is no retractation
or regret.

John Boyce, “he being desperately wounded in one of his legs the 25th
day of July, 1666, in the engagement with the Hollanders” sets his hand
and seal to his testament “first in the presence of my God above, and
in the presence of us John King, Robert Goulding.” There is a fine
simplicity and solemnity in that. The Noble Robert Dunant, whose will
is dated at Geneva, August 12, 1768, writes simply and solemnly too.
“I the underwritten Counsellor of State, having first humbled myself
before God and implored the assistance of His good Spirit to conduct me
wisely as well in the present as all the other acts of my life, have
made and do make my will in the following manner.”

But casual and worldly wills are common enough. A few words on a
picture-postcard, “All for mother” on an old envelope, have been
thought enough, or have proved enough for a valid will. Mrs. Lirriper’s
legacy, readers of Dickens will remember, was written in pencil on
the back of the ace of hearts. “To the authorities. When I am dead
pray send what is left, as a last legacy, to Mrs. Lirriper, eighty-one
Norfolk Street, Strand, London.”

With others the preparation for death is a pious literary task.
Recently a little volume found its way into the writer’s hands from
the Maison du Sacré Cœur de Beauvais, a “Testament Spirituel,” which,
though not executed for a court of law, must have found favour in
the courts of heaven. In wills, indeed, we see the romance of souls.
Catholic, Anglican, and Protestant dedications of the soul to God,
whether in the fifteenth or the sixteenth century, are often very
beautiful and touching. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries
the custom and tradition have departed. Only occasionally a Catholic
or a fervent Evangelical recalls forgotten days. Some examples of
eighteenth-century piety will be given later, but these essays would
not be complete without other illustrations.

As an example from Catholic England the following is typical: “In the
name of God, Amen. I Dame Anne Haydon, widow, being in my whole mind
and of good memory the XVIIth day of December in the year of our Lord
God 1509, and in the first year of King Henry the VIIIth, make this my
testament and last will in manner and form following, that is to say,
First, gracious Jesu, I as a sinful creature by reason of my demerits
not worthy to be accepted into the holy company of heaven to continue
in that holy place, Lord, without Thy great and large mercy and grace,
(the which through Thy Passion to every Christian man meekly and lowly
asking graciously grantest): Wherefore I now being in my full and whole
mind and in perfect love and charity, and in steadfast faith, ask and
cry Thee, Jesu, our Lady Saint Mary Thy blessed Mother, all the holy
company of heaven, and all the world, mercy, trusting verily that
through Thy Passion and with the succour and relief of that gracious
Lady Thy Mother and Maid to sinners to her calling for help of her
great pity greatly and very comfortable: Wherefore, blessed Jesu, I
commit my soul to Thee and to Thy blessed Mother our Lady Saint Mary
and to all saints of heaven through the mean and help of St. John
Baptist, St. Anne, St. Mary Magdalen and St. Christopher mine avouers.
And my sinful body to be buried in the Chapel of St. Luke in the
Cathedral Church of the Holy Trinity of Norwich, if I die in Norwich or
in Norfolk.”

Such is a common form, diversified by individual and expressive
variations, of wills in those days. The Reformation changed the form
but not the spirit of these avowals. “I render back,” wrote Sarah Ward
in 1662, “into the hands of my God and Creator the soul I received from
Him, humbly desiring His fatherly goodness for the infinite merit of
His Son Jesus Christ and His all-sufficient Passion, (on which I wholly
rely, disclaiming any confidence in saints or angels,) that He would
make it partaker of eternal life and a citizen of His heavenly Kingdom.
My body I bequeath to the earth whence it was taken, firmly believing
the resurrection of the dead, and that I shall rise again in the last
day, and see God in my flesh with the self-same eyes I now use and no
other. The manner of interring it I leave wholly to my executors ...
being no farther solicitous for so contemptible a remnant than as it is
yet the hospital of a reasonable soul.”

But with the fervent eloquence of Thomas Peniston, of St. Margaret’s,
near the City of Rochester, Esquire (proved the 5th of September,
1601), these considerations must be concluded. “In the Name of the
most holy and incomprehensible Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Ghost, in
Person three, in power one, almighty and everlasting God, Creator of
Heaven and Earth and all therein contained, to whose glorious Deity
I poor wretch His creature do from the bottom of my heart and soul
render most humble and most hearty thanks for all His innumerable
benefits bestowed on me, as my creation of nought, my redemption by
that divine mystery of the Incarnation and generous Passion of my sweet
Saviour Jesus Christ, when I was through the offence of my forefather
Adam become worse than nought, my continual preservation in the life
present, mine election to Salvation before the foundations of the
world were laid, my assured hope of glorification in time to come
through His infinite mercy by the mediation of Jesus Christ, and for
all whatsoever hath befallen me of good since my first entrance into
this vale of misery, acknowledging them all to have proceeded merely
of His unspeakable bounty and goodness without any spark of merit or
desert in myself, and so much the more am I bound to Him for the same,
most humbly beseeching His most glorious Majesty to accept in good part
this my sincere sacrifice of thanksgiving as the only oblation which
my poor sin-distressed soul in all humbleness of heart and ferventest
spiritual zeal can offer unto Him for all those His manifold graces
towards me, and that it will please Him for His mercy’s sake in the
blood of that immaculate Lamb of God, Jesus Christ, to vouchsafe to
continue His gracious goodness towards me both now and at all times
hereafter, and at the present by the assistance of His Holy Spirit so
to direct me in the setting down of this my last will and testament
as the same may best sort to His glory, my comfort, and the good of
those whom it may concern.... And first as the most principal part I
do with a free and cheerful heart bequeath my soul unto almighty God
the Creator and Redeemer thereof, most humbly beseeching Him for His
mercies’ sake through Jesus Christ the only begotten and well-beloved
Son of God the Father, in whom He is well pleased, to receive the same
into His most holy and gracious protection, cleansing and purging
the sinful deformities thereof with the precious blood of that my
only sweet Saviour, and to bury all my transgressions and offences of
what nature or kind soever in the bottom of the sea, that they never
rise up in judgment against me, but that I (though of myself the most
miserable sinner alive), through His infinite and unspeakable mercy by
His loving imputation of the perfect righteousness and true obedience
of that my most sweet Saviour Jesus Christ, who being perfect God
became man, and after full performance of God’s most holy laws and
commandments endured the most horrible tortures of death thereby to
save my poor soul from the intolerable and endless torments of hell
fire, which of itself (ah woe is me therefore) it hath deserved, and
to make it inheritable to the unspeakable joys in Heaven; of which His
most gracious favour being throughly assured by His holy Spirit in
my soul which continually warranteth me to sing all honour, glory and
praise unto my dear Father in Heaven, who in His mercy, (which by many
thousand degrees exceedeth my manifold transgressions,) hath created
and adopted me to be an heir of His heavenly and everlasting kingdom,
I most assuredly hope and undoubtedly expect that whenso it shall
please His incomprehensible Deity the fullness of time to be expired,
this poor soul of mine being through His all-working power knit again
to this my flesh which then shall be made incorruptible and immortal,
I shall without end in Heaven enjoy the sight of my most glorious and
everlasting God my Creator, Redeemer and Comforter, and there for ever
with the holy saints, angels and archangels, laud honour praise and
worship His most holy Name to my infinite unspeakable and sempiternal
comfort. And as concerning my body which I hope I shall be always at
the pleasure of my good God most ready to yield up, I will that after
my death the same shall be buried in decent sort by the direction of my
executors in the Cathedral Church of Rochester according to my degree
and calling.”

V

It will readily be realised how wills from time to time illustrate the
bare facts of history, with what vividness they might invest them if
more frequently cited. Thus Margaret, Lady Hungerford, in 1476 enjoins
her heirs not to disturb any of the alienations of her property, which
she had been obliged to make owing to “seasons of trouble time late
passed,” viz., the Wars of the Roses. Richard Lumley, Knight, Lord
Viscount Lumley, writes on the 13th of April, in the thirteenth year of
Charles II.: “And could I have done more for my family than I have done
I would; and had done much more for them had not I had so great losses
by the late calamitous times.”

Richard Burnand, of Knaresborough (1591), gives to his cousin “Dynnys
Baynebrigge and his wife two silver goblets, worth in value XLs a
piece, with my arms and name upon them, and they to have the use of
them during their lives; and after their deceases I give the same
goblets unto Anne Faux and Elizabeth Faux.” To Guy Faux he gives “two
angels, to make him a ring.” This Guy is the celebrated and almost
mythical figure in whose honour bonfires still flare on November 5th.
Anne and Elizabeth were his sisters, and Mrs. Baynebrigge, widow of
Edward Fawkes, their mother. Moreover, by the wills of Robert Wilcox in
1627, and of Luke Jackson in 1630, sermons were directed to be preached
yearly on November 5th in honour of the discovery of the plot.

In days to come, perhaps, peculiar interest will attach to the will
of Mlle. Meunier, the Frenchwoman who sympathised with the views of
Ferrer and left him a considerable legacy some ten years before his
execution. But who can estimate the value of Raisley Calvert’s legacy
to Wordsworth, whereby the poet was relieved of the deadening care of
money-making?

                          “A youth—(he bore
    The name of Calvert—it shall live, if words
    Of mine can give it life,) in firm belief
    That by endowments not from me withheld
    Good might me furthered—in his last decay
    By a bequest sufficient for my needs
    Enabled me to pause for choice, and walk
    At large and unrestrained, nor damped too soon
    By mortal cares. Himself no Poet, yet
    Far less a common follower of the world,
    He deemed that my pursuits and labours lay
    Apart from all that leads to wealth, or even
    A necessary maintenance insures,
    Without some hazard to the finer sense;
    He cleared a passage for me, and the stream
    Flowed in the bent of Nature.”

Changes and controversies in the Church find an echo in wills. Dr.
Sanderson, Bishop of Lincoln, whose will was made about three weeks
before his death (January 29, 1662-3) professes his faith at a
significant date: “And here I do profess that as I have lived so I
desire and—by the grace of God—resolve, to die in the communion of the
Catholic Church of Christ, and a true son of the Church of England:
which, as it stands by law established, to be both in doctrine and
worship agreeable to the word of God, and in the most material points
of both conformable to the faith and practice of the godly Churches of
Christ in the primitive and purer times, I do firmly believe: led so
to do, not so much from the force of custom and education—to which the
greatest part of mankind owe their particular different persuasions
in point of Religion,—as upon the clear evidence of truth and reason,
after a serious and impartial examination of the grounds, as well of
Popery as Puritanism, according to that measure of understanding,
and those opportunities which God hath afforded me: and herein I am
abundantly satisfied that the schism which the Papists on the one
hand, and the superstitions which the Puritans on the other, lay to
our charge, are very justly chargeable upon themselves respectively.
Wherefore I humbly beseech Almighty God, the Father of mercies, to
preserve the Church by His power and providence, in peace, truth, and
godliness, evermore to the world’s end: which doubtless He will do,
if the wickedness and security of a sinful people—and particularly
the sins that are so rife, and seem daily to increase among us, of
unthankfulness, riot and sacrilege—do not tempt His patience to the
contrary. And I also further humbly beseech Him, that it would please
Him to give unto our gracious Sovereign, the reverend Bishops, and the
Parliament, timely to consider the great danger that visibly threatens
this Church in point of religion by the late great increase of Popery,
and in point of revenue by sacrilegious inclosures; and to provide such
wholesome and effectual remedies, as may prevent the same before it be
too late.”

Similarly, Richard Ward, whose will is dated February 6, 1664-5,
bequeaths his “body to the earth whence it was taken, to be decently
and Christianly buried according to the order of the Church of England
... wishing and praying from my very soul that this sinful and
unthankful kingdom may never forget or forfeit that most miraculous
mercy of God in restoring and establishing it.” Such contemporary
comments are fascinating; so, too, the spirit of the same testator who
dedicates his “young tender and only son George Ward” to the service
of the Church, “if God shall so dispose his heart, which I trust He
will because I am not without hopes that God Almighty did accept of my
solemn dedication of him before he was formed in the womb. And the good
God be his guide and portion.” It is not surprising to find this gentle
spirit “languishing under the fatherly visitation of my most gracious
God, to whose good pleasure I with all cheerfulness submit,” and
speaking of his “dear sweet wife” and “dear and tenderly loving wife.”

The Restoration is a landmark in history. But there are passages in
wills which recall the clash of controversialists forgotten now, yet
provocative of fierce animosities in their time. Edward Evanson, who
became Rector of Tewkesbury in 1769, was a modernist and innovator,
a Richard Meynell of his day. In reading the services he would adapt
words or phrases at pleasure, and in the lessons point out errors of
translation. But a crisis was provoked by a sermon on the Resurrection
preached at Easter, 1771. He was prosecuted in the Consistory Court
of Gloucester, for “depraving the public worship of God contained
in the liturgy of the Church of England, asserting the same to be
superstitious and unchristian, preaching, writing, and conversing
against the creeds and the divinity of our Saviour, and assuming to
himself the power of making arbitrary alterations in his performance
of the public worship.” Finally the charge fell through, on technical
grounds, in 1777, but Mr. N. Havard, town clerk of Tewkesbury,
published a narrative of the case. After a life of controversy Evanson
died on September 25, 1805.

We can trace out bequests both for and against this troubler of the
peace. Penelope Taylor, of Worcester, a widow with views beyond the
circle of her home, gave by a codicil dated July 5, 1776, to Mr. Havard
£200 to testify her approbation of his conduct “in the prosecution
against Mr. Evanson, Vicar of Tewkesbury, and toward the expense of
that laudable suit in the defence of Christianity.”

But Dr. Messenger Monsey, with no measured language, in his will
dated twelve years later, upholds the other side. The controversy was
not forgotten. Dr. Monsey was a contemporary of Dr. Johnson, one who
“talked bawdy” in the latter’s less than elegant phrase. His will, in
several respects noteworthy, must appear again. He had given, he says,
by a previous will an annuity of £50 to Mr. Evanson; but since he had
declined it, the testator substituted a nominal gift of £10 per annum,
to manifest his great regard “for my friend Mr. Edward Evanson, and
the opinions I have of his abilities and integrity in standing forth
so ably as he has done in support of reason and true religion against
the nonsense jargon and impiety so avowedly professed by a set of A.
B————ps, D————ns, P————ts, and D————cons, who stood forth in defence of
creeds articles and subscriptions without suffering or promoting any
reformation for establishing the purity and simplicity of reasonable
Christianity.”

Last of all died Evanson. His will is disappointing. It opens thus:
“I Edward Evanson think it my duty under present circumstances to
dispose of that portion of worldly property with which it hath pleased
the divine providence of God to bless me.” Otherwise there is no
reference to religion, none to his stormy life, save this incidental
remark: “Conscientious objections to the Liturgy of the Established
Church having prevented my standing godfather for my brother-in-law
Mr. William Alchorne’s son, which I should otherwise have done, in
lieu of the customary baptismal gifts I now give and bequeath to Mr.
Wm. Alchorne aforesaid the sum of £50 in trust and for the sole use of
his son Evanson Alchorne.” His wife Dorothy was residuary legatee, and
the will, witnessed by three servants, was dated April 8, 1805, and
proved on October 16th. He was a fighter; but not one of those who make
militant wills, proclaiming, as it were with the last breath, their
prepossessions and beliefs.

VI

   “When London’s plague, that day by day enrolled
    His thousands dead, nor deigned his rage to abate
    Till grass was green in silent Bishopsgate,
    Had come and passed like thunder—still, ’tis told,
    The monster, driven to earth, in hovels old
    And haunts obscure, though dormant, lingered late,
    Till the dread Fire, one roaring wave of fate,
    Rose, and swept clean his last retreat and hold.”
                                      WILLIAM WATSON.

It was to be expected that the plagues would leave their mark on these
records, and very tragic such traces are. Many were driven to make
their wills while still in health, but others delayed till the sickness
had seized them. Of the latter more will be quoted hereafter; a few of
the former may here illustrate the plague of 1665. It is strange that
Defoe did not embellish his narrative with documents so vivid.

Death came swiftly, nor was it possible always to set the will down
in writing. “Memorandum that on or about the nineteenth day of July
in the year of our Lord God 1665 Edward Thompson, late of the parish
of St. Paul’s in Covent Garden in the County of Middlesex, shoemaker,
being then of good health of body and of good or perfect memory, but
his house being then shut up and visited with the plague, and one of
his children shortly before dying in the house of the same disease, he
declared his last will and testament nuncupative, or by word of mouth,
in these or the like words following, that is to say: It is my last
will and desire that, if it please God to take me out of this world
by this present visitation, that then my loving friend and cousin,
Mr. Andrew Caldwall, shall take care of my son Alexander Thompson,
(being then his only surviving child) and shall bring him up and put
him forth an apprentice, and when my said son shall come to full age
to give him a just account of my estate and pay unto him what shall be
then remaining thereof in his hands. But if it shall please God that
my said son Alexander shall die also, then after the death of my said
son I give to my two brothers in Scotland and to their children 1/-
apiece. And all the rest of my goods, chattels and estate whatsoever I
give and bequeath unto the said Andrew Caldwall, in regard I have been
more beholding unto him than to my brothers or to any friend in the
world.” Evidently he was struck down swiftly, for on the 5th of August
following this will was proved.

We see the fear of death hanging over the town, and how hastily wills
were prepared. “My mother desired me on her death bed to be a brother
to my sister Mary Grover, and if she lived to give her in money ten
pounds, (and) a gold ring which was my mother’s.... If it should please
God to take me away, and my sister alive, I desire she should have all
that is her’s.... John Hunt will be one to see that it be not baffled
away but carefully looked to for the good of my poor sister.... And my
desire is that she be defrauded of none, but that care be taken for the
child’s bringing up. As for my burial accordingly to the discretion of
my overseers: if healthy times decently, if other times according to
their appointment. This I writ myself for fear I should be deprived by
sudden death.... The trunk at Mr. Hall’s and chest and box are top full
of the best of linen and other things, and my trunk is top full at the
Tavern.... If I die I pray let this be engrossed and put for my will in
court. Written 1st September, 1665.” (John Grover, proved May 13, 1666.)

Henry Dickens, of St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields, cordwainer, makes his
will “being at this present sick and weak in body, but of sound and
perfect mind and memory, for which I give all possible praise and
thanks to Almighty God, and not knowing what may befall me in these sad
times of God’s heavy visitation with the plague, (dated September 6,
1665, proved May 4, 1666);” Ralph Tymberlake, tallow chandler, “calling
to mind the great uncertainty of this life, especially at this time
when the arrows of God’s wrath are amongst us,” (dated September 9,
1665, proved September 20th); and John Garland thus: “The Lord’s hand
being evidently gone out against this city, and not knowing how soon
the stroke of death may be my portion, in order thereunto I make this
my last will and testament. And in the first place I commit my soul
into the arms of my Saviour the Lord Jesus in hope of His appearing
at the resurrection of the dead, that when He appears I also may
appear with Him in glory; and my body to be buried in a decent place
and without funeral pomp, and so deep in the earth as not unnaturally
to take up other men’s bones or too easily to scratch up my own by
others.” (Dated August 15, 1665, proved January 5th following.) What
bitter irony that at such a time he wishes to be buried “without
funeral pomp”!

But peculiarly pathetic is the will of Henry Mabank. It is a letter to
his mother, in the country, perhaps, and dreading every hour to hear
that her son was stricken. It was proved on May 4, 1666. “Dear Mother,
my duty to you remembered, and my love to my brothers and sisters and
to Mr. Rudd and Mistress Rudd and Billy and to Henry Chandler, hoping
you are all in good health as I am at this present writing, thanks be
to God. Dear Mother, my desire and will is, that if you never see me
more that my brother George and sister Betty and sister Ann shall have
£100 which is upon bond equally divided between them.... Dear Mother,
if it please God that I live till the 7th of August there will be £10
due to me from my master and £3 due the 20th of August upon bond. This
£13 I will leave to your disposing. I am not afraid of the sickness,
yet it is very near our house. I pray excuse me from writing every
week; you shall hear of my welfare in Mrs. Rudd’s letters. So in haste
I rest, Your dutiful son till death, Henry Mabank. July the 20th,
1665.”

Finally, the horrors of the plague and its attendant heroisms are
recalled by the will of Sir Edmund Bury Godfrey, proved April 14, 1679.
His will is otherwise remarkable, consistent with his fine independent
character, and this opportunity may be taken for quoting it in part.
How little his wishes were observed students of his life will know,
and they will know also how peculiar were the circumstances of his
death, which are briefly related at the close of the following essay.
“I desire my executors ... to cause my body to be privately buried in
the meanest place of burial belonging to that parish or place wherein
I shall die but not in the Church, this to be performed without pomp
or pageantry, not to be accompanied with numerous attendants either
of friends or relations the which as I affected not in my lifetime I
would not have imposed on me being dead: to that end, and to avoid
being troublesome to the world and especially to the streets when dead,
I desire to be buried very early in the morning or very late at night
with as much privateness as may be, without any solemn invitation
of my acquaintances or kindred as also without any funeral sermon
or other harangue, which I do hereby forbid, any monument or other
memorial of stone or brass to be made for me, hoping that my failings
will be buried with me in the grave without any partial remembrance
of evil or good actions, if any such have been, which are so called
at the relator’s pleasure. As for the Charity which I have for some
years bestowed on the poor of the parish of St. Martin’s in the Fields
aforesaid, viz. 10/-in bread on every Lord’s Day or on some day at the
beginning of each week, my will is that my executors ... do jointly and
severally take care and continue to do the same by themselves for the
space of ten years from and after the time of my decease.... And I do
further will that the Charity by me given of 2/-per week in bread to
the poor of the parish of Selling being the place of my birth[1] ...
be weekly continued to be given ... in the same manner during the same
time and on the like terms as are already mentioned in the behalf of
the poor of the parish of St. Martin’s in the Fields aforesaid, and
be continued after the determination of twenty-one years on the same
terms therein expressed at the discretion of my executors their heirs
or executors and no otherwise. Item: I give unto my brother Mr. Peter
Godfrey, if he shall be living at the time of my death and not else,
one hundred pounds instead of my great silver flagon once intended him
whereon are engraven His Majesty’s Royal Arms with my own adjoined, and
was so given unto me by order of the King and Council in memory of the
service which God enabled me to perform towards the visited poor in
that dreadful year of plague 1665, the which I am always to remember
with humility and true thankfulness.... And I do particularly give unto
my brother Mr. Michael Godfrey my great flagon aforementioned of the
King’s gift.”

After the plague, the fire. That naturally does not loom large in
wills, but references may be found. Thus Edmund Calamy, “minister of
the gospel,” whose will was dated October 4, 1666, and proved November
14th, gave to his “dear and loving wife,” Anne Calamy, “all the ground
whereon my house stood which was lately burned down, called or known
by the name and sign of the Rose, and was situate and being in St.
Nicholas Lane, London, and all the timber and all the materials which
did belong to the same that yet remain unburned, (if any be).” “And as
for the manner of my burial, my desire is to be buried in the ruins of
Aldermanbury Church; and in regard of my many children my will is that,
besides mourning unto my relations, nothing be given at my funeral, not
doubting that my friends and acquaintances, who shall come to perform
their last office of love to me, will not come out of expectation of
anything, but out of pure love and respect to the memory of their
deceased friend.” This Edmund Calamy was committed to Newgate on
January 6, 1663, the first Nonconformist who suffered for disobedience
to the Act of Uniformity. Set free by order of the King, he was driven
through the ruins of London, and the sight, it is said, broke his
heart. He died on October 29, 1666, and was buried in the ruins of his
church, “as near to the place where his pulpit had stood as they could
guess.”

Lastly, Thomes Rich (dated July 31, 1672), devised a messuage and
premises in Lime Street, St. Andrew Undershaft, the rents to be
distributed as to 40s. yearly to the minister of the parish to preach
there two sermons, one on New Year’s Day, the other on the third
Tuesday in September, in thankfulness to God for the preservation of
the parish from the Fire.

VII

Appended to the will of Thomas Appletree, a lengthy document, is the
following memorandum: “Be it remembered that on Saturday the one and
thirtieth day of March last past before the date hereof (April 27th,
1666) Thomas Appletree, of Dadington, ... Esq., lying sick in his bed,
(his brother William Appletree of Dadington aforesaid, Gentleman,
being by his bedside, and Lettice Appletree daughter of the said
Thomas Appletree being in the same chamber,) his said brother William
Appletree said thus unto him:—Brother I know you have made your will,
pray where is it? His answer was:—It is in the little trunk at my bed’s
feet.”

In this case the survivors seem to have been more anxious than the
dying man that the will should not be mislaid. They were not subject
to the delicacy of feeling of Mr. Weller in a later age. “Samivel,”
said Mr. Weller accosting his son on the morning of the funeral, “I’ve
found it, Sammy. I thought it wos there.” “Thought wot wos where?”
inquired Sam. “Your mother-in-law’s vill, Sammy,” replied Mr. Weller.
“In wirtue o’ vich, them arrangements is to be made as I told you on
last night respectin’ the funs.” “Wot, didn’t she tell you were it
wos?” inquired Sam. “Not a bit on it, Sammy,” replied Mr. Weller.
“We wos a adjestin’ our little differences, and I wos a cheerin’ her
spirits and bearin’ her up, so that I forgot to ask anythin’ about
it. I don’t know as I should ha’ done it indeed, if I had remembered
it,” added Mr. Weller, “for it’s a rum sort o’ thing, Sammy, to go
a hankerin’ arter anybody’s property, ven you’re assistin’ ’em in
illness. It’s like helping an outside passenger up, ven he’s been
pitched off a coach, and puttin’ your hand in his pocket, vile you ask
vith a sigh how he finds hisself, Sammy.”

The danger of a will’s loss or destruction preys upon some minds, a
subject which must be recurred to in the last chapter of this book.
Various expedients to facilitate the finding of the will are adopted.
Dr. Thomas Cheyney, Dean of Winchester, whose will was proved in 1760,
began a codicil thus: “Whereas by my last will (which may be found in
the innermost part of a little walnut bureau with one glass door in my
long gallery)....” Lord St. Leonards, the lawyer, made every effort for
the safety of his will, it being carefully kept in a strong-box and
securely guarded, as was thought; but when he died in 1875, and the box
was duly opened, the will was missing after all.

“Thackeray,” says G. W. E. Russell in “Seeing and Hearing,” “did not
traffic very much in wills, though, to be sure, Jos. Sedley left £1,000
to Becky Sharp, and the opportune discovery of Lord Ringwood’s will in
the pocket of his travelling-carriage simplified Philip’s career. The
insolvent swindler, Dr. Firmin, who had robbed his son and absconded
to America, left his will ‘in the tortoiseshell secretaire in the
consulting-room, under the picture of Abraham offering up Isaac.’”

A missing will is the novelist’s delight. In Miss Everett Green’s “A
Will in a Well,” among the incoherent sentences of a dying man, the
words “Search well” are overheard. But it needed an acute intellect to
realise, after every effort had been made to find a satisfactory _last_
will, that it was a disused well that should have been scoured for the
document. In Mrs. Wilfred Ward’s “Great Possessions” a lost will is
found, and redeems the testator’s reputation.

No hiding-place is too unlikely. When Lord Hailes died in 1792 no
will was to be found. The daughter and only child had given up hope
of possessing the mansion-house, but when her servants were locking
it up and closing the shutters, from behind a panel there fell the
will which secured her the estate. Harris Norman, a pedlar, who died
worth over £11,000, left a will which was found in a silk hat; and
lately a curious story was told in the Probate Court of a will found
in a clock. The deceased’s husband, it was stated, made a search for a
will, but was for some time unsuccessful. As the greater part of his
wife’s property consisted of freeholds, in which under an intestacy he
would take but a curtesy interest, it was with anxiety that the search
was made. Eventually, at the back of a clock on the mantelpiece, the
will was found, betrayed by the stopping of the clock. Not unnaturally
a charge of forgery was set up. It is certainly dangerous, for more
than one reason, to hide a will securely away. In this case the judge
pronounced in its favour. “What more likely than after the deceased had
been worried to make a will for little Hilda (her niece), she thought
that she would leave her property to her husband? Was it likely that
she would tell any one? Was it not likely that she would put it in some
place—as in the back of the clock—which would not be opened for some
days after her death?”

On the other hand, the High Court of Bengal, in 1903, refused to admit
to probate a will which was stated to have been searched for and found
in a tin box formerly in the possession of one who was said to have
been the custodian of the will in his lifetime, and the Court said: “We
hold that fraud and deceit were practised at the finding of the will.”
Certainly wills are given sometimes to friends for custody, and then
themselves bequeathed. Charles Johnson, for instance, seaman of the
frigate _Coventry_, in his will dated 1778, stated that he had two
wills in his possession, and these at his death he gave to his friend
Henry Dye, belonging to the same ship.

“Memorandum, that on the three and twentieth day of July, 1595, this
will was found in the little black trunk of the said Elenor Clarke
standing at her bed’s foot, being found locked and opened in the
presence of us John Worsopp, William Payne, John Smithe.” The heirs
of Charles William Minet, who died in 1874, a descendant of a family
which had fled from France at the persecution of Protestants in 1686,
were not so fortunate. No will could be found, and his manor-house was
sold. But in 1905, on a death in another branch of the family, some
neglected cases were examined, and in one of them lay the will. It
showed that the estate had been settled in tail, and it was accordingly
repurchased, that the testator’s intentions might not be frustrated.

But intentionally or unintentionally, a will may be destroyed. The
romance of wills breathes from this codicil to the will of a West
Indian merchant. “Grenada, 20th March, 1795. I Simpson Strachan, of
said Island, and in the town of St. George Northant, do make this
codicil to my last will and testament dated 1786, the day and month I
do not at present recollect nor can I have recourse to said will by
reason of its being buried under ground to prevent its being burnt
by the enemy.” Sometimes a happy chance may preserve the tenour of a
will. The estate of a testatrix who died in 1872 being at the time
valueless, her will was not proved. But recent improvement in certain
property made probate a necessity. The original will, however, had been
destroyed in a fire, and only the copy of a copy remained. This copy,
though imperfectly transcribed, was admitted to probate, subject to
obvious emendations.

At other times a more serious problem is presented. A will may be
destroyed by the testator, or in his presence, but not necessarily
so as to revoke or annul it. Upon this point interesting actions
turn from time to time, and curious family histories are disclosed.
It is very difficult to decide in some cases whether the deceased
himself destroyed the will or whether at the time he approved of its
destruction; the time and temper lost, the publicity involved, show how
foolish it is to die intestate. If one wishes the estate to devolve
under the statutes for the distribution of intestates’ property, it
is still possible to make a will stating that this is the testator’s
desire.

As foolish is it to die intending that a torn will shall be valid. In
1908 a Yorkshireman died, leaving as his will one that had been torn
in fragments by his wife. Next day she pinned the pieces together, and
the matter was dismissed as a joke. The testator only laughed when it
was suggested that trouble might ensue through the tearing of the will.
“By the Wills Act a will might be revoked by tearing by the testator or
by his authority and in his presence. This will had undoubtedly been
torn up in his presence, but there was no evidence that it had been
done by his authority; indeed the evidence was all the other way.... No
will could be revived except by a duly executed document, and similarly
the testator could have revoked his will by another will had he wished
to do so. It was, however, clear that he always regarded the torn will
as a good one and examined it to see if it was legible. Something had
been said as to all Yorkshiremen being lawyers. They were a hard-headed
people, and the testator’s view was quite correct.” So said the learned
Judge.

Of all acts which exasperate the human sense of piety and justice,
perhaps the most exasperating is the destruction of a will after the
death of the deceased. The destruction of the will of George I. by his
son George II. is famous in history, but in view of evidence recently
adduced we need not enlarge upon the traditional interpretation. Some
wills, indeed, are better destroyed.

For the purposes of poetry, drama, and fiction, this theme is obvious
but not negligible. There is a remarkable similarity between the
atmosphere of Sir Arthur Pinero’s dramas and George Crabbe’s poems.
Each, too, has chosen in one instance the criminal destruction of a
will to build upon, and while Crabbe’s poem, “The Will,” is slight and
Pinero’s drama, “The Thunderbolt,” is subtle, yet poet and dramatist
are worth comparing.

In “The Will” a father wishes to disinherit his unworthy son and leave
his estate to a worthy friend. The friend dissuades him, but keeps the
first will in case the father should revive it.

   “The Will in hand, the Father musing stood,
    Then gravely answered, ‘Your advice is good;
    Yet take the paper, and in safety keep;
    I’ll make another will before I sleep,
    But if I hear of some atrocious deed,
    That deed I’ll burn, and yours will then succeed.
    Two thousand I bequeath you. No reproof!
    And there are small bequests—he’ll have enough;
    For if he wastes, he would with all be poor,
    And if he wastes not, he will need no more.’
    The Friends then parted: this the Will possess’d,
    And that another made—so things had rest.”

Until the father died.

   “Unhappy Youth! e’er yet the tomb was closed,
    And dust to dust conveyed in peace reposed,
    He sought his father’s closet, searched around,
    To find a will: the important will was found.
    Well pleased he read, These lands, this manor, all
    Now call me master! I obey the call!
    Then from the window looked the valley o’er,
    And never saw it look so rich before.
    He viewed the dairy, viewed the men at plough,
    With other eyes, with other feelings now,
    And with a new-formed taste found beauty in a cow.
    The distant swain who drove the plough along
    Was a good useful slave, and passing strong!
    In short, the view was pleasing, nay, was fine,
    ‘Good as my father’s, excellent as mine!’
    Again he reads,—but he had read enough;
    What followed put his virtue to a proof.
    ‘How this? to David Wright two thousand pounds!
    A monstrous sum! beyond all reason!—zounds!
    This is your friendship running out of bounds.
    Then here are cousins, Susan, Robert, Joe,
    Five hundred each. Do they deserve it? No!
    Claim they have none—I wonder if they know
    What the good man intended to bestow!
    This might be paid—but Wright’s enormous sum
    Is—I’m alone—there’s nobody can come—
    ’Tis all his hand, no lawyer was employed
    To write this prose, that ought to be destroyed!
    To no attorney would my father trust:
    He wished his son to judge of what was just,
    As if he said, My boy will find the Will,
    And, as he likes, destroy it or fulfil.
    This now is reason, this I understand—
    What was at his, is now at my command.
    As for this paper, with these cousiny names,
    I—’tis my Will—commit it to the flames.
    Hence! disappear! now am I lord alone:
    They’ll groan, I know, but, curse them, let them groan.’”

Needless to say, Wright inquires for the will, and is told that
there is none. After expostulation and discreet delay, the friend is
satisfied that the will is destroyed: to the son’s consternation a copy
of the first will is produced, and David Wright becomes the lawful heir.

In “The Thunderbolt” the simple theme is drawn out with quiet but
subtle skill. An elder brother dies, rich and with one child only, a
natural daughter. The family, upon whom nature has showered neither
excellence nor wealth, assembles with all the gloom and all the
curiosity appropriate to the occasion. It appears that there is no will
forthcoming; the daughter therefore will have no share in the estate,
the brothers and a sister being entitled between them. But when all is
thought to be settled and safe, when each has devised a new scheme and
scale of life, a brother breaks in upon the smug conclave announcing
that there was a will, but that he had destroyed it. His story breaks
down, and the act is traced to his wife who nursed the deceased on
his death-bed, accidentally found the will, and after his death
deliberately destroyed it. The poor daughter finds that her father has
not forgotten her; the selfish family is thunderstruck. Such is the
character, and hence the name, of the play.

In Sir Arthur Pinero’s drama no lawsuit follows, all parties agreeing
in a compromise. But in real life probate actions are a rich source of
intimate dramas and revelations. From them innumerable details emerge:
threats and cajolery, rights and wrongs, loves and hates, stand out
with all their tender or terrible insistence. In fiction inevitably
they find a place. In “Mr. Meeson’s Will” Sir Henry Rider Haggard has
discovered an extraordinary theme, but he has not shown the art which
made the ordinary theme of “The Thunderbolt” a subtle and telling play.
Mr. Meeson is outraged by his nephew’s plain-speaking, which reminds
him of his unrighteous dealings, and in a rage cuts him out of his
will. The girl on whose behalf the nephew was to be disinherited is,
by a strange course of events, thrown with Mr. Meeson on a deserted
island, with two sailors and a child only besides. In terror of death,
which swiftly overtakes him, Mr. Meeson would revive his former will,
but there is nothing with or upon which to write it. The only possible
method is to tattoo the dying man’s desires upon human flesh, and this
is done by one of the sailors upon the back of the tortured girl. She
is rescued by a passing ship; and on returning home a probate action,
such as never yet had been, was fought out to a triumphant conclusion.

Another story, scarcely less remarkable in its own way, is revealed
by Edmund Gosse, in “Father and Son,” of an action set in motion by a
son who was grievously wronged by one of the “saints”—the sect among
whom Mr. Gosse’s father held an honourable place. This member of the
community had persuaded a rich man, well on in years, to board with
him, and when he died a will was produced leaving his entire fortune to
the “saint” with whom he lodged. Yet the old man had a son surviving.
In time the son came home from overseas, and the universal legatee
of the will was arrested. The trial disclosed that the old man had
been “converted” by the “saint,” and had disinherited his son as an
“unbeliever.” The “saint” had traced the signature to the will by
drawing the testator’s fingers over the document, when he was already
comatose. To the last the “saint” declared his belief that he had
done no wrong, that it was righteous to wrest the money to pious and
charitable uses. _Tantum religio potuit suadere malorum._

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The “Dictionary of National Biography” says: “Born December 23,
1621, probably at Sellinge, Kent.”




CHAPTER II

WILLS NOT FULFILLED


   “Fallax saepe fides, testataque vota peribunt;
    Constitues tumulum, si sapis, ipse tuum.”
                                 ANCIENT EPITAPH.

It is impossible for a will to be always and in all events binding. If
Virgil’s will had been scrupulously observed, his fame would have been
grievously curtailed; for the “Æneid” should never have been published.
It is said that he gave directions for its burning, and that his
executors, Varius and Tucca, received his manuscripts on condition that
they published nothing he had not edited himself.

“For Poetry is nothing if not perfect,” and the three years which he
was to devote to its polish and perfecting were not granted in his
allotted span. But Augustus, and Virgil’s executors, were wiser than
he himself, though the touch of the vanished hand could not mould its
beauty to perfection. It was unfinished: but only as Turner’s “Canal at
Chichester,” or Schubert’s “Symphony,” are unfinished.

There are such occasions: but it is easy to understand with what desire
the testator desires his wishes to be fulfilled. His will, he feels,
should be inviolable. “Finally,” says George Ludewig Count von der
Schulenburg in 1774, “as I hope that this my disposition and last will
will be strictly and inviolably observed by my dear children, provided
they do not mean to merit my paternal displeasure and the wrath and
punishment of the supreme Being, so on the other hand I heartily wish
them every fatherly blessing and the grace of the Almighty, and do
earnestly recommend them to His omniscient guidance.”

Thomas Rigden, of the County of Kent, shows a lively desire that
nothing should be done amiss. “June 24th, 1746. This in the name of
God, the Father Son and Holy Ghost. I Thomas Rigden, having a very
great desire that my last will and testament may be fulfilled after
that I am dead, for the good of my wife and children, have taken upon
me to write these few lines. Now this is my desire as follows. Now with
my free will do I give all that I have or all that I shall leave ...
to my wife Alice Rigden, for her use and for the use of bringing up my
children. And my desire is by all means that my children may all agree
and live in love one with another, which I pray God grant they may all
do. So fare you all well, my dear wife and my dear children. This is my
last will, and I hope you will fulfil it.”

Times without number the most insistent thought of mortal man must be,
whether his wife and children will be kindly treated when he is gone.
How can a parent endure the thought of such scorn and suffering as a
Jane Eyre is forced to undergo? “As I remember, Adam,” says Orlando in
the opening of “As You Like It,” “it was upon this fashion bequeathed
me by will but a poor thousand crowns; and, as thou say’st, charged my
brother on his blessing to breed me well: and there begins my sadness.”
_Hinc illae lacrimae._ There indeed begins the sadness, it may be
feared, of many outside fiction and the drama, in spite of prayer or
threat.

Elenor Clarke (_Cp._ p. 52), widow of Bartholomew Clarke, of Clapham,
whose will was proved in 1594, gave the custody of her son Francis
to her brother John Haselrigge, “charging my said brother as he will
answer before the Tribunal seat of God to deal honestly and faithfully
with him and by him.” But how he fared we do not know. “And I charge
you Ed. Lascelles my sole executor before God to be punctual,” says
Robert Knox, for twenty years a captive in Ceylon, “in performing all
this that I have given, lest the cries of the widow and fatherless
come up to heaven against you, and your lot be a curse instead of a
blessing” (1711: died 1720).

Bishops and kings of old were next to none in the vigour of their
language. Theodred, Bishop of London in Edgar’s reign, is aggressively
violent: “And whosoever takes from my testament, may God take him from
the Kingdom of Heaven, unless he amend it before his death.” In the
same spirit, if with less directness, Henry VI. requires the fulfilment
of his will: “And that this my said will in every point before
rehearsed may the more effectually be executed ... I ... not only pray
and desire, but also exhort in Christ require and charge, all and every
of my said feoffees, my executors and surveyor or surveyors, in virtue
of the aspersion of Christ’s blessed blood and of His painful passion
that they having God and mine intention before their eyes, not letting
for dread or favour of any person living of what estate degree or
condition that he be, truly faithfully and diligently execute my same
will and every part thereof, as they will answer before the blessed and
dreadful visage of our Lord Jesu in His most fearful and last doom,
when every man shall most strictly be examined and deemed after his
demerits. And, furthermore, for the more sure accomplishment of this
my said will, I in the most entire and most fervent wise pray my said
heirs and successors and every one of them, that they show themselves
well willing faithful and tender lovers of my desire in this behalf;
and in the bowels of Christ our altogether just and strict judge
exhort them to remember the terrible comminations and full fearful
imprecations of Holy Scripture against the breakers of the law of God,
and the letters of good and holy works.”

If Bishops and Kings must write with such vehemence, how shall the
humble citizen fare? The possibility of the deceased’s wishes being
neglected or overridden was so real that old writers advise the
charitable to exercise their charity in their lifetime, and not to
trust to executors or friends. Their faithlessness had even passed
into a proverb: “three executors make three thieves.” Thus John Stow,
in his “Survey of London,” remarks how often wills were proved but not
performed: “Thus much for famous citizens have I noted their charitable
actions, for the most part done by them in their lifetime. The residue
left in trust to their executors. I have known some of them hardly (or
never) performed, wherefore I wish men to make their own hands their
executors, and their eyes their overseers, not forgetting the old
proverb:

    “Women be forgetful, children be unkind,
     Executors be covetous, and take what they find.
     If any body ask where the dead’s goods became,
     They answer, So God help me and holydom, he died a poor man.”

Jeremy Taylor, in “The Rule and Exercises of Holy Dying,” has the same
thought and the same proverb in his mind: “He that gives with his
own hand shall be sure to find it; but he that trusts executors with
his charity, and the economy and issues of his virtue, by which he
must enter into his hopes of heaven and pardon, shall find but an ill
account when his executors complain he died poor: ‘think on this.’”

This interesting proverb was written upon a wall in St. Edmund’s
Church, Lombard Street, and is thus quoted in Weever’s “Funeral
Monuments”:—

    “Man, the behoveth oft to have this in mind,
     That thow geveth wyth thin hond, that sall thow fynd.
     For widowes be sloful, and chyldren beth unkynd,
     Executors beth covetos, and kep al that they fynd.
     If eny body ask wher the deddys goodys becam,
                 They answer,
     So God help me and Halidam, he died a poor man.
                           think
                        on       this.”

Other proverbial lines are quoted by Thomas Fuller, and a fresh turn is
given to the thought, in his “Cambridge History.” “It is the life of
a gift, to be done in the life of the giver; far better than funeral
legacies, which, like Benjamin, are born by the loss of a parent. For,
it is not so kindly charity, for men to give what they can keep no
longer: besides, such donations are most subject to abuses.

     “Silver in the living
      Is gold in the giving;
      Gold in the dying
      Is but silver a-flying;
    Gold and silver in the dead
    Turn too often into lead.”

It is pitiable to think how many elaborate and kindly dispositions
never bore fruit, and legitimate to believe that executors are more
honest now. But, in spite of failures, English life and customs are
largely bound up with bequests. Innumerable gifts meant for perpetuity
never took effect or have passed into oblivion; but a goodly number
remains, to which year by year additions are made. Picturesque
survivals may often be traced to some will, no less than studentships
or professors’ chairs, almshouses or doles, institutions or the
treasures that adorn them. Such a record as Johnson’s “Annuities to the
Blind” suggests how much one class owes to beneficent testators.

For nearly two hundred years a quaint custom has marked February 2nd
at Wotton, in Surrey, in pursuance of the will of William Glanvill.
Boys of twelve to sixteen stand bareheaded round the testator’s tomb,
recite the Lord’s Prayer, the Ten Commandments, and the Apostles’
Creed, read the 15th chapter of the First Epistle to the Corinthians,
and write down two verses therefrom. After these tests five boys are
selected, and receive 40s. apiece. As an instance of a school founded
by a will, John Neville, Lord Latimer (1542), may be quoted. “After my
decease the Master and Vicar (of Well, in Yorkshire) shall take all the
rents of the parsonage of Saint George Church in York, for the term of
forty years, and therewith to find a schoolmaster at Well for keeping a
school and teaching of grammar there, and to pray for me and them that
I am most bounden to pray for.” The school exists, but does the master
pray for the worthy founder still?

There are various reasons why wills should sometimes not be fulfilled.
The estate, for instance, may not be adequate. It is strange how vague
are the ideas of some testators in this respect, and one recalls
what Dr. Johnson said of a certain bequest to erect a hospital for
“ancient maids” that the word _maintain_ should be expunged and
_starve_ inserted, so insufficient were the funds. It is amusing (to
the outsider) when legacies are given with effusive expressions of
admiration or gratitude, while all the time there is no money to pay
them.

Some admit frankly that they have no material blessings to bestow.
Thomas Johnson, otherwise John Plummer (proved January 22, 1780),
left everything to his “dearly beloved and most deservedly esteemed
ever loving affectionate friend Ann Watson ... being thoroughly
sure she will take good care of the dear boy, J. H. Plummer, to
whom unfortunately I have nothing to leave but the wide world to
seek his fortune, excepting my prayers for his success.” Queen
Elizabeth Woodville, in her will dated April 10, 1492—a death-bed
will—pathetically says: “Whereas I have no worldly goods to do the
Queen’s Grace, my dearest daughter, a pleasure with, neither to reward
any of my children, according to my heart and mind, I beseech Almighty
God to bless her Grace, with all her noble issue; and with as good
heart and mind as is to me possible, I give her Grace my blessing, and
all the aforesaid my children.” _Maeonides nullas ipse reliquit opes._
Even Homer died penniless.

Another cause of non-fulfilment may be a legal barrier. There is no
legal method of enforcing a testator’s wishes for the disposal of his
body, except for anatomical purposes. The bequest is void if money be
given to expend the interest in keeping up a grave. In England there
is a legal obstacle against a bequest for the celebration of masses
for the repose of the soul: it is termed a “superstitious trust”
and is invalid. The famous decision in 1835 in the case of _West v.
Shuttleworth_ has not been superseded. The Master of the Rolls, Sir
Charles Pepys, afterwards Lord Cottenham, held that in this country
gifts to priests “that I may have the benefit of their prayers and
masses,” or “for the benefit of the prayers for the repose of my soul,
and that of my deceased husband,” were void, and void such bequests
remain.

Personal reasons, lastly, may bring about the breaking of a will.
Sir Edmund Bury Godfrey’s recommendations for his funeral have been
quoted: he desired to be buried in the meanest place, without pomp or
pageantry, without numerous attendants either of friends or relations,
very early in the morning or very late at night, as privately as
possible, without sermon or harangue. But the excitement and notoriety
of his end, the passions that it aroused or signified, could not suffer
him so to depart. His death and funeral are part of the history of his
time. On October 12, 1678, he disappeared: on the 17th he was found
dead in a ditch on the southern side of Primrose Hill. The funeral was
postponed till the 31st, when his body was borne to Old Bridewell, and
publicly lay in state. A solemn procession accompanied it through Fleet
Street and the Strand to St. Martin’s Church, where it was buried and a
sermon preached by the vicar, William Lloyd. Thus was his will wholly
set at nought—a remarkable but perhaps a pardonable violation.




CHAPTER III

DR. JOHNSON’S WILL


“My readers,” writes Boswell, “are now, at last, to behold Samuel
Johnson preparing himself for that doom from which the most exalted
powers afford no exemption to man.” There can be few sights more
fascinating. In the case of Johnson there is an especial fascination,
since for many years he felt, and at times expressed, fear and horror
of death in a degree to which most men are strangers. He said “he
never had a moment in which death was not terrible to him.” But toward
the end this horror abated, so that there is a peculiar beauty in the
opening of his will, which he made but five days before his death. “In
the name of God, Amen. I, Samuel Johnson, being in full possession
of my faculties, but fearing this night may put an end to my life,
do ordain this my last will and testament. I bequeath to God a soul
polluted with many sins, but I hope purified by repentance and I trust
redeemed by Jesus Christ.”

He calmly anticipates the acceleration with which he advances towards
death. But, now as formerly, he will not dogmatise on his salvation; he
“hopes” and “trusts.” “A man may have such a degree of hope as to keep
him quiet,” he had observed on one occasion; but on another, “No man
can be sure that his obedience and repentance will obtain salvation.”
He might have prayed, as did Sir Francis South in his will dated
November 14, 1631, “beseeching Him for the all-sufficient merits and
infinite mercies of His only Son and my alone Saviour Christ Jesus to
accept of this my poor sacrifice, and freely to pardon and forgive me
my many multiplied sins and transgressions, and in the love of His most
blessed Spirit to give me some comfortable assurance thereof during my
time in this vale of flesh, that I may joyfully and willingly part with
this miserable world to live with Him for ever in His eternal rest.”

It was this “comfortable assurance” that Johnson needed. To the last
he seems logically to have maintained the distinction between hope and
belief, but emotionally to have discarded it. Certainly at the end he
was resigned.

But Johnson could not comfort himself with the idea, prevalent
in his century, of the infinite goodness of God. He dismissed it
as inapplicable to his case, a few months before his death, in a
conversation with Dr. Adams. “‘As I cannot be _sure_ that I have
fulfilled the conditions on which salvation is granted, I am afraid I
may be one of those who shall be damned’ (looking dismally).” But it
is made a frequent ground of hope (for want of a better) in wills of
the time. John Murton, in a will proved the year of Johnson’s death,
thus begins: “In the Name of God, Amen. I, John Murton, of Milton next
Sittingbourne in the County of Kent, grocer, being advanced in years
and in an indifferent state of health, but of sound and perfect mind
memory and understanding, (praised be Almighty God for the same,) and
considering the uncertain continuance of this mortal life, and the many
hazards and dangers that we frail beings are daily liable and incident
unto, do make publish and declare this my last will and testament in
manner and form following, (that is to say:) First and principally of
all I commend my soul into the hands of Almighty God who gave it, in
all humble hopes and with a firm assurance of its future happiness as
in the disposal of a Being infinitely good.” Forty years previously
Pope employed the same sentiment and almost the same phrase: “I
Alexander Pope, of Twickenham in the County of Middlesex, make this my
last will and testament. I resign my soul to its Creator in all humble
hope of its future happiness as in the disposal of a Being infinitely
good.”

Boswell mars the rhythm of Johnson’s formal act of faith, and the
depths of meaning it conveys (to those who remember Johnson’s delicate
apprehension of Christian terms), by writing “but I hope purified by
Jesus Christ” in place of the fuller form “but I hope purified by
repentance and I trust redeemed by Jesus Christ.” A namesake, the Rev.
Samuel Johnson, whose will is dated November 8, 1777, and was proved on
June 3, 1784, has a similar clause in words that strongly recall the
theological arguments and vocabulary of the Doctor. “My soul I commit
and commend altogether to the mercy of God in Christ Jesus trusting
through His merits and powerful mediation to be saved from that eternal
punishment whereof I am deserving on account of my sins, and to inherit
all that eternal life promised in the Gospel to all them that obey Him:
even so, Lord Jesus.”

It is true that such expressions are still frequent in wills of the
latter half of the eighteenth century, and to some extent formal;
but they are not so much a matter of course as in earlier days, and
therefore all the more worth attention. “A few years ago,” wrote
Sir John Hawkins in his Life of Dr. Johnson, “it was the uniform
practice to begin wills with the words ‘In the Name of God, Amen,’
and frequently to insert therein a declaration of the testator’s hope
of pardon in the merits of his Saviour; but in these more refined
times such forms are deemed superfluous.” The will of Lucy Porter,
Johnson’s step-daughter, is devoid of such pious expressions; indeed,
wholly unsentimental save for a desire to be buried “under or near the
tombstone of Catherine Chambers,” and a request that the funeral “may
be performed in the afternoon before sun-setting.” The will of Anna
Williams, who was for twenty years as a sister to Dr. Johnson, and
died the year before he died, is also devoid of piety, save for the
conventional preface “In the Name of God, Amen.” Even of many divines
and doctors of divinity the same may be said: they plunge _in medias
res_, without any ascription of praise or uplifting of the heart to God.

The Rev. Samuel Johnson appears to have made his will betimes. But of
Dr. Johnson Boswell has to say: “It is strange to think that Johnson
was not free from that general weakness of being averse to execute a
will, so that he delayed it from time to time; and had it not been for
Sir John Hawkins repeatedly urging it, I think it is probable that his
kind resolution (to provide for Francis Barber) would not have been
fulfilled.” But Sir John was not satisfied with the Doctor’s will when
made. The deficiencies that he detected therein he attributed to its
late execution. We may, however, leave Boswell and others to settle
this controversy.

Yet it is strange that any should jeopardise the fortunes of others,
and frustrate his own desires, by tarrying to set his house in order:
it can be explained only by neglect or superstition. Dr. Johnson did
not take to heart his lines in “London”:—

    “Prepare for death, if here at night you roam,
     And sign your will before you sup from home.”

He may have put it off from sheer indolence, but it is not unlikely
he felt something of the common superstition against making a will,
unreasonable though it may be and unwise. When Charles Lamb wished to
make his first will he wrote: “I want to make my will, and to leave
my property in trust for my sister. _N.B._ I am not going _therefore_
to die.” But Lamb had not Johnson’s peculiar dread of death. The
superstition is not yet defunct; its rise and origin would be difficult
to trace. “It is received,” says a writer in the sixteenth century,
“for an opinion amongst the ruder and more ignorant people, that if a
man should chance to be so wise as to make his will in his good health
when ... he might ask counsel of the learned, that then surely he
should not live long after.”

It is curious that it should sometimes be a case for jocularity if a
man make his will betimes. Possibly this light-heartedness is assumed
as a cloak to hide from ourselves the gravity of our inevitable end.
If this be so, it is not surprising to find Dr. Johnson convulsed with
hilarity when his friend Langton made his will. But the story is an
extraordinary one. “He now laughed immoderately, without any reason
that we could perceive,” says Boswell, “ ... called him the testator;
and added, ‘I dare say he thinks he has done a mighty thing. He won’t
stay till he gets home to his seat in the country, to produce this
wonderful deed: he’ll call up the landlord of the first inn on the
road; and, after a suitable preface upon mortality and the uncertainty
of life, will tell him he should not delay making his will.... He
believes he has made this will; but he did not make it; you, Chambers,
made it for him. I trust you have had more conscience than to make him
say, ‘being of sound understanding’; ‘ha, ha, ha! I hope he has left
me a legacy. I’d have his will turned into verse, like a ballad.’ ...
Johnson could not stop his merriment, but continued it all the way
till he got without the Temple-gate. He then burst into such a fit of
laughter, that he appeared to be almost in a convulsion; and, in order
to support himself, laid hold of one of the posts at the side of the
foot pavement, and sent forth peals so loud, that in the silence of the
night his voice seemed to resound from Temple-bar to Fleet-ditch.”

In spite of Dr. Johnson’s amusement, the early making of a will has
long been of grave concern to moralists. As Donne in one of his sermons
says, the execution of a will at the last may be a heavy business, but
the addition of a codicil, if necessary, may be easily dispatched. But
in wills themselves the most elaborate language is employed to force
home this precept. The will of Dame Jane Talbot, dated in the 20th
year of Henry VII., thus begins: “I Dame Jane Talbot, widow late the
wife of Sir Humphrey Talbot knight, calling to remembrance that the
gracious passage and departing from this transitory life dependeth and
ensueth upon a discrete will made by good deliberation in good and
virtuous order; and that I and all other Christian people be mortal and
must depart from the wretched uncertain and unstable life, the hour
and time of which departing from the same unstable life is uncertain;
and also that I and any other mortal person, be apt by the sending and
visitation of God to receive and take such infirmities and sickness
whereby I might, in or immediately before the article or pain of death,
lack or fail sure and perfect mind and reason to order and make my last
will and testament according to the meritorious and wholesome intent to
the will of my soul: wherefore I the said Dame Jane Talbot, being of
perfect health, whole mind and good memory, to the honour of God and
health of my said soul ordain and make this my testament and last will
in manner and form following; that is to say, First I bequeath and give
my soul unto my Lord God, Father of Heaven, which of His inestimable
and infinite mercy and goodness hath made it assemblable to His own
image, and of His infinite mercy with His precious blood hath redeemed
it, and to His blessed Mother the Virgin Saint Mary and also to the
charitable tuition and keeping of all the saints in Heaven.”

Johnson had not wife or children of his own to provide for, but he
had many friends. As already hinted, some of these he offended by
the omission of their names. For this reason also he displeased Lucy
Porter. Boswell (himself omitted) says that she should have considered
that she had left nothing to Johnson, though her will was made in his
lifetime. But it is fair to remark that she mentions few names in all,
and that her will was not executed until September in the year of
Johnson’s death.

Thus even so simple a document as Johnson’s will occasioned searchings
of heart, a result that some strive heroically or pathetically to
avoid. “I again desire that all things may be composed with peace
honour and honesty,” wrote Dorothy Eve, of Canterbury, in 1691.
A merchant, James Clegg, whose will was proved the same year as
Johnson’s, declared that he made his testament “to explain my last
will for the distribution of what shall result to be my property and
to me belonging at the time of my decease, in such manner that I hope
not to embroil those persons who will have the pleasure of surviving
me.” Wills that stir the passions and sting the memory are indeed of
frequent occurrence. Wills that satisfy every friend must surely be few.

To what an extent the remembrance of friends may be carried is
illustrated by a will made a few years after Johnson’s death. While
Johnson bequeathed books to less than a score of friends, Martha
Shorte, in a list which must long have engaged her thoughts, bequeaths
mementoes to more than a hundred beneficiaries. “The small trifle,”
she says in one place, “is only to denote that all my kind neighbours
lived in my memory.” In some cases it may be surmised, or at least the
suspicion will cross the mind, that her friends were not unaware of her
testamentary tendencies. To one, for instance, she gives “two mahogany
stools that she used to like,” to another, “an old inlaid Chinese
cabinet that she always admired,” to another the “yew-tree card-table
which she admired.” But there is a danger in lavish remembrance: for if
one be omitted where many are comprised, the sting is so much the more
sharp.

Johnson left the residue of his estate to his negro servant, Francis
Barber. Even this raised dissent. Sir John Hawkins, says Boswell,
seemed not a little angry at this bequest, and muttered a caveat
against ostentatious bounty to negroes. Barber had once been a slave,
but had received the gift of liberty under his master’s will. The
latter years of his liberty Johnson hoped to provide for.

Simpson Strachan, the merchant whose will was buried for fear of the
enemy, may illustrate the case of Barber. “My will and my intention is
that my negro man ... in virtue of his faithful services be made free
of all slavery whatever, and I do hereby order and ordain and request
my executors to pay all the expenses attending his freedom from my
estate, and that they give him the sum of £330 currency to his own
use and behoof as a reward for his fidelity and attachment to me.”
Most would agree with Boswell that a faithful servant, in lieu of near
relations, is peculiarly entitled to enjoy

    “A little gold that’s sure each week,
      That comes not from his living kind,
    But from a dead man in his grave,
      Who cannot change his mind.”

Nor was it his master’s fault if Barber made so ill a use of his money
as Hawkins affirms.

Provision for old servants is still a frequent, even an outstanding,
feature of wills, accompanied often by graceful expressions of
gratitude. Perhaps it has always been so. The Rt. Hon. Humphry Morice,
of the Privy Council, was writing a codicil by way of instruction to
his executors, shortly before the year of Johnson’s death. He makes us
feel vividly what Johnson must have owed to his faithful servant: “My
diamond shoe and knee buckles I mean to include in my wearing apparel
left to Richard Deale, also gold-headed canes, as his attention and
fidelity increases every day, and sorry I am to say he is the only
servant I ever had who seemed sensible of good treatment and did not
behave ungratefully.”

To the ordinary reader Dr. Johnson’s other bequests appear
thoughtful too, though Hawkins considered them ill-proportioned and
ill-calculated. To the Rev. Mr. Rogers, of Berkeley, near Frome, he
gave £100, “requesting him to apply the same towards the maintenance
of Elizabeth Herne, a lunatick”; to his god-children, “the son and
daughter of Mauritius Lowe, painter, each of them £100 of my stock in
the 3 per cent. consolidated annuities, to be applied and disposed
of by and at the discretion of my executors, in the education or
settlement in the world of them my said legatees”; and to “Mr. Sastres,
the Italian master, the sum of £5, to be laid out in books of piety
for his own use.” But uppermost in his mind, it would seem, was
the debt of gratitude he owed, for his father’s sake, to Innys the
bookseller; for him he remembered in his will made in the immediate
apprehension of death, while most of his bequests occurred in the
codicil executed on the following day.

One of the strangest characteristics of man is that, in the face of
death, he can without a qualm speak bitter words and cherish hard
feelings, a characteristic which sometimes distinguishes or disfigures
wills. Dr. Johnson’s will is free from any such taint. Yet he retained
a certain roughness of language to the last. “Treat thy nurses and
servants sweetly, and as it becomes an obliged and a necessitous
person,” says Jeremy Taylor. Boswell speaks of Johnson’s “uncommon
kindness to his servants.” But, asked one morning how he liked a new
attendant who had sat up with him, Johnson replied with a touch of his
old humorous self: “Not at all, Sir; the fellow’s an idiot; he is as
awkward as a turnspit when first put into the wheel, and as sleepy as a
dormouse.”

When Burke heard how Langton could convict the Doctor of nothing worse
than a roughness of speech or manner, he said: “It is well if, when
a man comes to die, he has nothing heavier upon his conscience than
having been a little rough in conversation.” It does seem that Johnson
was not unworthy of some such eulogium in spite of certain charges
raised against him, and in spite of his fear of death. It is grateful
to consider that Johnson’s words may be applicable to himself: “The
better a man is, the more afraid he is of death, having a clearer
view of infinite purity.” Boswell says that the word _polluted_ in
Johnson’s will may to some convey an impression of more than ordinary
contamination, but mentions that the same word is used in the will of
Dr. Sanderson, Bishop of Lincoln, who was purity itself. A man would
indeed be ignorant of human nature, not to mention the phraseology of
wills, if he were to attach importance to the words _polluted with
many sins_; he would indeed be blind to the “view of infinite purity.”
It may be of interest therefore to compare the will of Dr. Sanderson
with Dr. Johnson’s in this respect. “First, I commend my soul into
the hands of Almighty God, as of a faithful Creator, which I humbly
beseech Him mercifully to accept, looking upon it, not as it is in
itself—infinitely polluted with sin—but as it is redeemed and purged
with the precious blood of His only beloved Son, and my most sweet
Saviour Jesus Christ.”

When John Selden died, his barber had a mind to see his will: “For,”
said he, “I never knew a wise man make a wise will.” The will of Dr.
Johnson, that great and good, wise and humorous, figure, may be read
in Boswell or Hawkins, in the _Gentleman’s Magazine_, or at Somerset
House. It leaves a savour wholly sweet, and is in every item dignified.




CHAPTER IV

DEATH-BED DISPOSITIONS


        “Because mention is made of Death in men’s wills and
      testaments, I warrant you there is none will set his hand
      to them, till the physician hath given his last doom, and
      utterly forsaken him.”—MONTAIGNE.

Among the wills of Kentish folk there is one of a John Crampe, who
lived in the parish of St. Peter the Apostle, Isle of Thanet, by
calling a husbandman. He was one of those whose last hours are troubled
by the “heavy business” of a death-bed disposition. We read that “on
or about the 3rd day of September, 1727, the said John Crampe, now
deceased, being then sick in bed, did give directions or instructions
to him the deponent, George Witherden, ... for the making of the last
will and testament of him the said deceased.... And the said deceased
then attempted to sign the said will, but was so weak that he could not
guide the pen, and so died without signing the same.”

Or again. On the 27th of January, 1717, there appeared Margaret Preston
and Ellis Kyffin to depose that they “being together at the lodgings
of Mrs. Priscilla Blake, widow, in Crown Court, in the parish of
St. James’s, ... who then lay very ill, severally saw her the said
Priscilla Blake, who was then of sound mind memory and understanding
and well knew what she did, execute her last will and testament; ...
which will had, as they believe, been drawn up the day before by her
directions, and but just then read over to her; for the deponent, Ellis
Kyffin, asking her if she was satisfied with it all the time she was
going to make her mark to the same, the testatrix answered she was.
With that the deponent said, ‘God strengthen your hand,’ to which she
again replied, ‘Amen,’ and then made her mark to the said will as now
appears, and took a seal from the wax dropped near the same, and said
that that was her will: in testimony whereof this deponent Ellis Kyffin
subscribed her name as a witness thereto, but the deponent Preston, not
being able to write her name, was the reason that her name was not put
as a witness thereto.”

Of such cases the following, too, is picturesque and significant. The
affidavit accompanying the curt and curious will of Henry Harding, a
Staffordshire worthy, explains its formality, and reveals a touching
death-bed scene in the early morning of Easter Sunday, 1761. It
begins without preamble. “Mr. Harding gives to his two nephews Henry
and William, and his niece Mary Harding, the sum of £100 apiece.” He
proceeds to give “to his dear cousin Abramaria Harris his work chair
bottoms and his best hangings of his best bed; ... to his servant John
Johnson all his clothes (except his silk stockings).” He desires his
executors to take care of his servant George Clarke during his life.
The residue of his estate, subject to a few other bequests, he leaves
to his brother.

This will is sworn to by one Samuel Wilcock and by Abramaria Harris.
It was made at two o’clock on that Easter morning. The testator,
feeling the approach of death, sent for the said Samuel Wilcock, of
Abbots Bromley. About 1 a.m., it would seem, he arrived, and to him
Mr. Harding gave instructions to draw up his will in writing. Mr.
Wilcock accordingly wrote down the instructions of the dying man, and
then prepared to write out the will in more formal and regular style.
But before the draft could be completed, about four o’clock the same
morning, Henry Harding passed away. Truly a strange hour and a strange
time to make a will, and a harassing task for a man’s last moments on
earth. But to his negligence or superstition we owe this picture of an
Easter morning, a hundred and fifty years ago.

From the will of William the Conqueror, which was set down at his
death-bed, to that of an entombed miner, recently, who wrote: “May the
Holy Virgin have mercy on me. I am writing in the dark, because we have
eaten all our wax matches. You have been a good wife. All my property
belongs to you,” such incidents have always been occurring, and, it
may be imagined, always will occur. The Probate Court reveals them now
and then. Recently a testator, suffering from pneumonia, and near the
point of death, about 3.30 in the afternoon, dictated to his doctors
his testamentary dispositions. The document was written in pencil, and
the dying man made his mark thereto, which was duly witnessed. A copy
was then made in ink, but certain words were omitted, and, owing to the
sudden necessity of administering oxygen, not finally inserted. This
second document was executed by the testator, but, one of the witnesses
not seeing him make his mark, it could not be admitted to probate.
About 5.30 the testator died. On application to the court, probate was
granted of the pencil will.

In these cases there is something extremely distressing. When a man’s
thoughts should be composed, as far as possible, in the consideration
of his final end and on the prospects of another world, he is tied to
earth by his efforts to settle his temporal affairs. It is no wonder
that moralists and theologians have insisted on the necessity of making
a will betimes: the wonder is that any should be found to neglect their
admonitions, or be surprised by sickness and sudden death. “They are so
fearful to die that they dare not look upon it as possible, and think
that the making of a will is a mortal sign, and sending for a spiritual
man an irrecoverable disease; and they are so afraid lest they should
think and believe now they must die, that they will not take care
that it may not be evil in case they should.” Maurice Barrowe, whose
will was proved in 1666, may have read Jeremy Taylor’s “Holy Dying”;
certainly his sentiments would have found favour with the great divine.
“In the Name of God Amen. I Maurice Barrowe, of Barningham, in the
County of Suffolk, Esquire, duly weighing the mutable condition of this
life and certainty of death manifested by daily examples, to prevent
cares of the world at that time, (those distracting interrupters of a
dislodging soul,) now in my perfect health and entire memory, to the
glory of God, quiet of my mind, designing of my heirs, satisfaction of
my debts, remembrance of my friends and recompense of my servants, do
make and ordain this my last will and testament.”

Pathetic, indeed, death-bed wills too often are. Here is the cry of
a humble inhabitant of Kent in 1608. “Loving father, my humble duty
remembered unto you. It hath pleased God to visit me with sickness,
so as I think not to see you any more in this world: wherefore I pray
you to be good to my wife and children.” Or take another more than a
hundred years later. “Queenborough, May 12th, 1721. Brother John Smith,
I am very bad, so bad that I cannot tell whether I shall live or die.
So in case of death I desire you to be executor to take care of the
things and the girl. I cannot write, but this shall stand in as full
force as if in any other form drawn.”

More explicit, indeed of a painful preciseness, are the last words
of Denham Castle, who died of smallpox in 1709. “Sir, I am very much
obliged to you for enquiring after me in so particular a manner. My
circumstances are very bad, and smallpox come out as thick as they
can. I have not had a wink of sleep, and am choked almost with the
phlegm. If some method is not taken to rid me of the phlegm and give
me some speedy relief, I shall not be able to hold out. I would desire
the favour to acquaint my father with it, who is at Sheperton beyond
Hampton Town in Middlesex, but I would not have him or any of my
sisters come near me, for it will be of no use to me. If I should do
otherwise than well, I have some money in a box in my study, the only
box there: it is under lock and key. Some part of it which is gold is
put up within the lids of my pocket-book, which will be found wrapped
up in some linen. There are also [some other sums]: that money will
bury me privately; and if there is any remaining, I desire my youngest
sister and Nanny who is a prentice in London may have it, as being the
worst provided for.”

Well worth comparing with the last is the will of Thomas Dixon, “late
of the parish of St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields.”


                                               “LONDON.
                                     “_June the 28th, 1718._
        “MY DEAR LIFE,—This is to let you understand
      my to help myself in any respect, or move either hand or
      foot, no more than had I been quite dead, being seized all
      over my body with the dead palsy, and now lying in St.
      Thomas’ Hospital in Southwark; and for my comfort they
      tell me I shall never be cured. My Dear, there would be
      nothing more pleasing, or a greater satisfaction to me,
      than to see you here by me before I part with this life,
      which I do not doubt but you will consider as soon as this
      comes to your hands. Pray, my Dear, I desire you may make
      my sister a present of three pounds: you know what you are
      to have when you come here, not that I think it too much
      for you but wishes it were more for your sake. Likewise,
      my Dear, be pleased to give my coat, waistcoat and two
      pair of breeches to my father, my silver buckles to my
      uncle Garrott, and the razors belong to my master: as for
      all the rest, you may do as you think convenient, but this
      I desire you’ll fulfil; and likewise give one of my shirts
      to my cousin John Monachon, and a pair of shoes: my sister
      will tell you who he is.

      “My duty to my dear father and mother, and I earnestly
      crave their blessing, and the prayers of my brother and
      sisters and all friends, and my love to them all, and the
      blessing of God be with them. I desire you may let my
      sister see this as soon as it comes to your hands, and to
      hasten your coming as soon as possible you can get ready;
      for to delay any time, and knowing my condition, you may
      perhaps not overtake me alive; for if I got England, I
      cannot put a bit of anything to my mouth, but as I am
      fed by others. This is all, my Dear, I can say, but I
      begs you will fulfil all that I desire in this, which
      is the earnest request of him who is, (without the
      miraculous assistance of my good God and Saviour,) on his
      death-bed.—Your constant and loving husband till that
      hour, THOMAS DIXON.”

The veil is lifted from the last days of a dying man, but lifted for
the moment only. Did the letter reach his wife in time? Did she hasten
and reach him alive? We may hope she did, for Thomas Dixon lingered
until the 8th of July; but thus wills constantly tantalise us, while
they leave the more to the imagination.

In 1603 the plague, which was to mark the century with its
devastations, carried off in London over 41,000 souls. Nor did the
neighbouring villages escape. As witnessed by the parish register, the
Rector of Clapham, with his family, fell a prey. Within one month there
died:—

    Edward Coochman        Parson of Clapham      3rd September.
    Judith his wife                               4th    ”
    Edward his son                               12th    ”
    Elizabeth his daughter                       15th    ”
    Judith     ”     ”                           18th    ”
    Susan his maid servant                       24th    ”

In view of this list the Rector’s will, signed the day before he died
in the presence of his maid, Susan Bennet, “and of one old Joane his
keeper,” has an added pathos. “Brother Gabriel Coochman, I commend me
unto you. I am at the point of death and have no hope ever to see you
in this world. My will is that you shall have all my goods and chattels
for the use of my wife and children. And I do hereby make you my sole
executor for the use aforesaid, and do earnestly pray and desire you
to have a fatherly care for the bringing up of my poor children, as my
trust is in you. And so I bid you heartily farewell, till we meet in
heaven; this second of September, 1603, your loving brother.”

The death of Susan, the maid, is recorded, though as she died last of
all we need not ascribe it to her witnessing the will. But probably
such a kindly act often cost a man his life. Possibly the parson
himself contracted the illness thus, or at least in visiting some
afflicted parishioner. For it is noticeable that of the family he was
the first to die. We can go back to July, 1515, for such an act of
devotion by the parish priest, when the will of one Gefferey Salesbury,
of Leicestershire, was witnessed by the priest only, “and no more for
fear of the plague of pest.”

To the difficulty of obtaining witnesses was added the unwillingness of
scriveners to attend. “Memorandum that upon Wednesday, the 9th day of
November, 1625, Edward Blackerby, citizen and clothworker of London,
and of the parish of St. Stephen in Coleman Street, in London, being
sick in body and in danger of death, but of perfect mind and memory,
being desirous to make his last will, sent divers times for a scrivener
of his acquaintance to write the same, and in the meantime, in the
presence of John Frank and William Blackerby, did very oftentimes
pronounce and say that he made his wife his executrix. At the length,
perceiving that the scrivener of his acquaintance which he so often
sent for was fearful to come unto him in his sickness, he thereupon
caused another scrivener to be sent for to write his will; but before
his will could be written, his memory was so decayed and so weak
that he could not finish what he intended.” Similarly Henry Ludlowe,
“late of the parish of St. Martin’s in the Fields, ... goldsmith,
being sensible of the hand of God upon him during the late contagion,
his family being visited and himself dangerously ill of the sickness
whereof he died, and having a desire to declare his will and mind, ...
no scrivener being then to be had to put his will into writing, upon a
Monday happening about the middle of August last past (1665) ... did
cause one of his nurse keepers to call up the others into his chamber
on purpose to be witnesses to what he had to say.”

With the intimate and pathetic will of Francis Mountstephen we revert
to the plague of 1603. It was proved on the 29th of August that year.
“I repose trust in you, brother Nicholas, concerning the executorship.
Brother Nicholas, since it hath pleased God to visit me with his rod,
which I pray God that rod I may take with patience, you writ unto
me concerning the suit which I ever well liked; and the cause of my
sending to you a Sunday morning was to that end, and to have made
straight those things which you requested. For that bond of £50 you
speak of I am content you should have it, upon condition that you would
see the rest equally bestowed upon the rest; but, if your discretion
think it good, let my two younger sisters have somewhat the greater
share, for they have the most need withal. Remember my uncle Baldiom
because of my promise. And so referring the rest to your discretion,
I commit you to the Lord God, (I end,) whom I desire to release me of
my pains which I intolerable do bear. From the pesthouse, this two and
twentieth of August, 1603. Your loving brother F. M. If it please God
that I do die, I owe to Edward Smith 10/-: I pray you pay it for me.
F. M. I pray you take 8/-of Elizabeth Price when she cometh to town.
Witnesses, Henry Chitham, keeper of the pesthouse, Rose Gibb and Robert
Smith.”




CHAPTER V

WILLS BY WORD OF MOUTH


After various bequests, including the interesting one of $100 “unto
the redemption of the poor English captives in Constantinople,” the
will of James Peckett, merchant, made in Smyrna, May 3, 1634, breaks
off suddenly, and we read: “The aforegoing is as much as was delivered
by Mr. James Peckett, who afterwards falling weaker in body and his
memory decaying, it was propounded unto him whom he should make choice
of for to be his executors in trust, whereupon he nominated Mr. Richard
Chambers of London, Merchant, and Mr. Lawrence Greene, Consul for
the English nation in Smyrna, and afterwards for his overseers, not
knowing who to nominate through his weakness there was propounded unto
him whether he would accept of Mr. Rainsbrow and Mr. Thomas Moody of
London, merchants: unto the which he answered ‘Yea.’”

This will is, therefore, a mingling of the written and unwritten
testament. The nuncupative will, the will by word of mouth, was common
in former times; but since the stricter methods of the Wills Act, 1837,
it has been mainly in abeyance. Attempts are still made from time to
time to establish the words of dying men. A recent action in the Court,
to legalise some strangely made codicils, reminds us of James Peckett’s
acquiescence and of older methods. “Don’t you want to leave something
to me?” the testator was asked. He answered, “Yes,” the question was
put, “How much?” and a codicil straightway prepared.

The prevalence of such wills, without even the necessity of a written
record signed by the testator, must have led to much abuse. But not
always were testators so complaisant. Roger Potter, of Mildenhill,
Suffolk, a bachelor “in the time of his last sickness (viz.) upon or
about the 12th day of November 1664, did make and declare his last
will and testament nuncupative as followeth. He being moved to make
his will, he answered ‘With all my heart.’ And then, being asked or
demanded whom he would make executor, he replied ‘Executrix,’ and named
Mall, meaning as was understood by those present Mary Potter, his
brother’s grandchild, whom he especially regarded. And then being moved
what he would give to any of his friends, he expressed an unwillingness
to do any more, saying ‘Why do you urge me?’” So, too, Reginald Greene
“on a Sunday, being the fifth day of July A.D. 1635, ... being then
very sick but of good and perfect mind and memory, with an intent to
make his last will and testament nuncupative spake these words, or the
like in effect, as followeth, viz.: He gave all his goods chattels and
debts unto his cousin John Greene ... and his son John Greene. Judith
Springatt being present did desire that she might be remembered in his
will and to have a legacy therein: he replied ‘No, no,’ and said he had
been always beholding to his cousin John Greene and that he and his
boy, meaning his said son John Greene, should have all that he had.”

How often a dying man may have fallen a prey to the designs of friends
or foes one could not hazard a guess: it is remarkable, on the other
hand, what powers of resistance a man in his last sickness may show.
Two instances have just been given, but still more interesting is the
final will of Henry Akerman, a victim of the plague. What perturbation
of mind for a dying man to suffer! “Memorandum that at or upon the
VIth day of August A.D. 1603, and between five and six of the clock in
the afternoon of the same day, or thereabouts, Henry Akerman, of the
parish of St. Giles Without Cripplegate, London, being weak in body and
visited with the sickness, but of perfect mind and memory, did, with
an intent absolutely to revoke all former wills before by him made,
make and declare his last will and testament nuncupative in manner and
form and by the words following, or the like in effect, viz.: ‘Whereas
this day I did unadvisedly make a will in writing by the procurement
of some of my friends, and named therein John Dardes and Jarvice Pitt
to be my executors, I do now upon better consideration clean revoke
that will, for that I distrust and find that I had done my children
wrong thereby. And therefore now I make Mary my well beloved wife my
executrix. And I give will and bequeath my goods and chattels, and
whatsoever else hath pleased God to bless me withal, to be equally
divided betwixt my said wife and my children according to the custom of
the City of London’: and these or the like words in effect he spake in
the hearing of divers credible witnesses.”

The temptation to postpone a will, to refuse to look death in the face,
must have been great when a few dying words were valid. To some how
hard is the Horatian theme: _divitiis potietur heres_!

    “I’m growing old, and hence ere long shall fare,
     How I should love to be my only heir,”

a Hebrew epigrammatist makes a miser say. Pope depicts the miser
clinging at the last moment to his lands and his cash, only with his
latest breath, reluctantly, making some disposition of his goods.

    “‘I give and I devise’ (old Euclio said,
      And sighed), ‘my lands and tenements to Ned.’
     ‘Your money, sir?’ ‘My money, sir, what, all?
      Why,—if I must’—(then wept) ‘I give it Paul.’
     ‘The manor, sir?’—‘The manor! hold,’ he cried,
     ‘Not that,—I cannot part with that’—and died.”

Nuncupative wills are, in fact, often of a vividness as keen as Pope’s
example. The friends, interested or otherwise, who gathered round the
testator in a moment of peril or in the hour of death, reproduced his
words or actions with quaint exactitude. Sometimes it is in times of
peril. “Memorandum that James Dixon, late mariner to His Majesty’s
ship the _Pearl_, but in His Majesty’s hired sloop the sloop _Jane_,
bachelor, deceased, did on or about the 22nd of November 1718 in the
morning of the said day, he the said James Dixon being in the hole
(_sic_) of the said sloop and then about to engage with a pirate
called the _Adventure_ sloop, did in the presence of several credible
witnesses utter and declare his last will and testament nuncupative or
by word of mouth in the words following, or to that effect: Messmate,
being going to engage which God knows whether of us shall live, but
if it please God it is my misfortune to die first, I desire that you
would take care and demand all my wages prize money and what shall
be due to me from this day, and the longest liver of us to take all;
meaning and speaking to Evender Mackever who was then his messmate on
board the said ship.... And the said sloop _Jane_ about half an hour
after engaged their enemy, and in such engagement the said James Dixon
received a shot, who immediately died.”

Such is the end of the adventurer’s life. At another time we are
present at the death-bed of the village blacksmith. Thus it is deposed
of John Silkwood, a blacksmith residing at Chartham, that he “did on
Thursday the 17th day of February, 1691 (S.A.), lying very sick in his
then dwelling-house in Chartham aforesaid of the sickness whereof he
died, being of perfect mind and memory, and having an intent to make
his will and dispose of his estate, declare the same by word of mouth
in these or the like words following, viz.: taking his wife by the
hand, and putting her wedding ring on her finger, said to her, ‘Thus we
have lived together in love, and all that I have both within doors and
without I give unto you, and make you executrix of my will.’ ...”

Nor did humble folk only thus make or amplify their wills. It is
recorded of Sir Giles Dawbeney, Knight, that on March 3, 1444, he
wrote his will, but made no disposition of the residue. “Wherefore
afterwards, that is to say the XIth day of January, the year of our
Lord 1445, at Barington, to the said Sir Giles lying in his sickness,
whereof he died soon after the same day, Sir Robert Wilby, priest, his
ghostly father, said: ‘Sir, ye have made a testament and bequeathed
many things to divers persons, making no mention who should have the
residue of your goods that be not bequeathed; will ye vouchsafe to say
who shall have it?’ Forthwith the said knight, without any tarrying,
said: ‘My wife shall have it.’ This was his last will.”

It is inevitable that we should again turn to times of plague to
illustrate the theme. Early in the seventeenth century there died of
the plague a certain Thomas Robinson and his wife Joanna, of Uxbridge.
The husband was the first to die. “Memorandum that Thomas Robinson,
late of Uxbridge in the County of Middlesex, deceased, on Good Friday
or thereabouts in the year 1609, being sick of the plague but of
perfect mind and memory, did declare his last will and testament
nuncupative in manner and form following, viz.: he said unto his wife
Joanna Robinson, ‘I give thee all that ever I have, and all is too
little for thee’; or the like in effect, and these words he spake in
the presence and hearing of his maid Isabel and divers others.”

But that “little” Joanna was not to enjoy for long. “Memorandum that on
Sunday, the 7th May, 1609, or thereabouts, Joanna Robinson, late wife
of Thomas Robinson, of Uxbridge in the County of Middlesex, deceased,
being sick of the plague but of good and perfect memory, did make and
declare her last will nuncupative in manner and form following, viz.:
She looked out at the window of her house in Uxbridge, and said unto
Agnes Gyles (wife of William Gyles) dwelling in Fleet Lane, London, she
being then in the street in Uxbridge, this or it in effect, viz.: ‘Here
now I give unto you all that I have’; and then threw out her keys unto
the said Agnes, and said, ‘Look unto it, it is all thine; saving I give
unto Bessie Crippes, my husband’s cousin, half a dozen napkins, a pair
of sheets and a table cloth, and to her father I give my husband’s best
suit of apparel, and to my husband’s sister I give my gown a hat and
a smock, and to my maid Isabel I give my frifado petticoat and some
of my work-a-day clothes besides.’ Then being put in the said street
and hearing the premises William Day, and Elizabeth Day his wife, John
Kirton, Julian Tanner, and many others.”

These wills, spoken by those stricken with the plague and in many
cases carefully recorded, show that the poor creatures were not always
deserted in their sickness. Writers make much of the many devices to
escape contagion, but Nicholas Holmes actually did not hesitate to
take a legatee by the hand. “Memorandum that Nicholas Holmes, late of
the parish of St. Dunstan’s in the West, Gent., upon the third day of
October in Anno Domini 1636, being taken sick of his last sickness
whereof he died, being in perfect mind and memory, did publish and
declare his last will and testament nuncupative in manner and form
following, viz.: he said that he was suddenly taken so sick that he
thought he should die of the sickness, and thereupon he took Mary
Willowe, the daughter of John Willowe of the said parish, clockmaker,
by the hand and said, ‘Mary, if I die I do give thee an hundred
pounds’: and he further said that he did not know how his landlord
might be prejudiced by his death, in case he should die of the sickness
in his house; therefore he said that, if he died of the sickness, he
would give him threescore pieces.”

A landlord who did not turn away one who was sick of the sickness
might merit gratitude, as surely would masters who did not dismiss
their servants. There was no Insurance Act in those days. “The case of
poor servants was very dismal,” says Defoe of the plague in 1665, and
doubtless it was so at every visitation. Servants, it is said, were the
chief frequenters of astrologers and quacks, who hung out their signs
in almost every street. “Oh! Sir,” they would ask, “for the Lord’s
sake, what will become of me? Will my master, or mistress, keep me, or
turn me off? Will they stay here or go into the country? Will they take
me with them, or leave me here to be starved and undone?” Poor William
Aspinall was one of the unfortunates. “Memo. that at or upon the 17th
day of July, 1603, or thereabouts, William Aspinall late servant unto
Richard Leaver of the parish of Allhallows, Barking, in London, being
visited with the sickness, but of perfect mind and memory, made and
declared his last will and testament nuncupative in manner and form,
or to the like effect here following, viz.: he bequeathed his soul to
God, and his body to the earth. And as concerning his master Richard
Leaver before mentioned, he said he had done him the best service he
could, and had dwelt with him a long time, and had served him truly
and honestly to the uttermost of his power; and in requital thereof
his said master had dealt very unkindly with him, and in the time of
his first sickness did forbid him his house and bid him seek lodging
elsewhere, and by no means would in that his first time of need suffer
him to lodge within his doors, which he took very unkindly.” It is
only fair to mention that, on the Friday following, he relented to the
extent of giving to his master and mistress each a pair of gloves, to
be bought at ten shillings the pair.

The will of a sailor about to engage a pirate has been quoted, and
perhaps among sailors the nuncupative will was most prevalent. Often we
may catch a glimpse, particularly vivid, of the rough-and-ready life of
the British tar. “Memorandum that on or about the five and twentieth
day of February, 1683, (English style) John Jacques, late belonging
to the ship _St. Thomas_, (whereof Augustine Fincham is now master,)
bachelor, being of sound and perfect mind and memory, and with an
intent to make his last will and testament nuncupative, did utter and
declare these or the like words following, viz.: being asked by Mary
Anderson, his landlady, how she should be paid what was due to her, the
said deceased made answer, namely: ‘What I have I give to you as soon
as I am dead; do you go and administer and take my wages and that will
satisfy you.’”

Perhaps some novelist might weave his web round this landlady and her
lodger. Another sailor gives all to his landlady, one evidently who
knew how to please. “Memorandum that upon or about the month of October
in the year ... 1665, Richard Blackman, late of the parish of Stepney,
... mariner, deceased, ... made published and declared his last will
and testament nuncupatively or by word of mouth: ... ‘I give leave and
bequeath all and singular my goods chattels debts and estate whatsoever
unto my loving landlady Elizabeth Cooke, the wife of Thomas Cooke
mariner.’”

Witnesses to such wills frequently forgot the adage _de mortuis nil
nisi bonum_. They seem to add touches which are unnecessary and show
the deceased, even at such an hour, not in his most amiable light. But
we owe to them many a curious picture, many an amusing trait of human
nature. At this distance of time the coarser details are humorous
rather than distressing.

In the will of Edward Newby we are not let into any family secrets,
though curiosity is aroused. “Memorandum that on or about the three
and twentieth of March, 1683, (S.A.) Edward Newby late of the ship
called the _Grafton_ upon the seas, bachelor, being of perfect mind and
memory, did, with a serious intent to make his last will and testament
nuncupative, nuncupate utter and declare these or the like words, viz.:
‘If it should please God that I should do any otherwise than well on
shipboard I give all my wages, and whatsoever else belonging unto me,
unto my messmate, (meaning Thomas Foster), and I make him executor of
all that I have. And if it please God that I live to come on shore none
of my relations shall be one penny the better of what belongs to me.’”

In the following we are able to pry a little further into the life of
a mariner, as far back as the sixteenth century. Its vigour smacks of
those adventurous days, if not wholly edifying for one about to take
leave of land and sea for ever. “Memorandum that Thomas Smith, late
whiles he lived of London, gent., being captain at sea of a frigate or
ship called the _Morning Star_, belonging to the Earl of Cumberland,
being the 26th, 27th, and 28th of August A.D. 1594 or thereabouts
chased upon the high seas by a fleet of Spaniards of twenty two sail or
thereabout ... and in great danger of taking, and having escaped that
peril, within a day or two was demanded and asked by some that were
in the frigate what he would have done with his goods and substance,
and how he would have the same bestowed if he should happen to die or
be taken or slain in that dangerous voyage. Whereupon the said Thomas
Smith answered and said that, ‘in case I shall die be taken or slain
in this voyage, I give all that I have to my brother Edward Smith,
for that he hath followed me in these actions and applied himself to
my business, and hath been at the getting of part thereof.’ And being
asked whether he had any other brother, and what he would give him, he
replied that ‘as for my other brother, let him content himself with
that he hath had already, for he shall have no more,’ saying further
that ‘he hath had a great deal of money of me already.’ And being put
in mind of his wife and asked whether he would give her nothing, he
answered cursing her and said that she had played the lewd woman, and
that she hath had enough already, and should suffice herself with that
she had, for more she should not have; adding further, ‘my brother
Edward, if I die, shall have all that I have,’ or the like in effect:
which words the said Thomas did speak and utter in the presence of John
Thomas, William Trigger, James Bell, George Lone, Thomas Foster, and
others.”




CHAPTER VI

THE POLYCODICILLIC WILL


    “She bequeaths, she repeats, she recalls a donation,
     And ends by revoking her own revocation;
     Still scribbling or scratching some new codicil,
     Oh! success to the woman who makes her own will.”
             “ANCIENT, CURIOUS, AND FAMOUS WILLS.”

In preceding papers examples have been given of wills delayed till the
eleventh hour: but to some the making of wills and codicils becomes,
at times, a hobby, if not an obsession. “What is a poor woman with no
family to do? Affection for nieces must fluctuate.” “You can always
make a codicil,” answered the lawyer, in the “Light Side of the Law.”
Changes and counter-changes in wills have not been neglected by writers
as a source of literary material. Revocations made in anger or in sheer
vacillation of mind are excellent bases for tales of adventure or love.

The title of this essay has been taken from a passage in R. C.
Trevelyan’s operatic fable “Sisyphus.” The king Sisyphus is dying, but
there is still a fear that he may revive sufficiently to tamper with
his testamentary writings. Even now his last will may be annulled.

    _Chorus._ “Hush! Beware! Beware!
               But now his thin lips stirred.
               Have a care!
               He liveth still.
               Speak no rash word,
               Lest ye be overheard,
               And your expectations crossed,
               When he alters a tenth time to your cost,
               With a last bitter codicil,
               His nine-times-altered will.

    _Sisyphus._ ‘My wife, my sons, draw near my bed, for I
                 Once more would speak with you before I die,
                 Where is my lawyer? Let him fetch my will.
                 I wish to add another codicil.’

    _Chorus._      Another codicil!
                   Another still
                 To his polycodicillic will!
                 Ah! what may this portend?
                ’Tis the tenth he hath penned.
                 Soon may death seal an end.”

To discover the real wishes and intentions of a testator is often a
difficult matter, when, in addition to an already voluminous will,
codicil after codicil is added, clause after clause revoked. At a first
reading wrong impressions may easily be taken and bitter disappointment
caused. Only those who have handled such documents can realise the
confusion which may arise by the indiscreet addition of codicils. It
often happens, too, that while the will is legally and carefully drawn
and attested, the codicils are carelessly and inadequately framed.
Among the Romans there was an informal will called _codicillus_, but
the English codicil requires as strict formality as the will. It is
wiser to start afresh.

Anne Judith Bristow, in 1784, at the age of 76, saw the necessity of
adjusting her will to events. It is translated from the French. “This
is the sixth will which I have made since the year 1776, some changes
having happened which made me strike out and obliterate, without,
however, writing it wholly again: this I hope will be the last, for I
have completed the age of 76 years. I every day expect death. I dread
dotage still more. Therefore, without losing time, here is that which I
wish to be carried into execution at my decease.” She lived four more
years, and the changes and chances of her mortal life were such that
she had, after all, to make two codicils, in the first of which, dated
19th of July, 1788, we learn that a daughter mentioned in the will was
now dead. The second codicil was dated September 7, 1788. Soon after
that she must have died, for on January 26, 1789, the will and codicils
were proved.

A curious case was brought before the court not long ago, in which
there were many wills, and the validity of a will made forty-four
years before the death of the testator was upheld. It was the case of
a lunatic, who, during the period of his lunacy made six wills, none
of which (as being those of a person of unsound mind) had any force.
The deceased, not being of a dangerous disposition, had some liberty,
and availed himself of his opportunities to deposit wills at Somerset
House. Depositories for the wills of the living are provided under the
Wills Act of 1837: and there they were by him solemnly placed, and the
Registrar’s receipt was duly given. Other testamentary documents were
deposited elsewhere. The making of wills seems certainly with him to
have been an obsession. It is strange to think that it was necessary
to go back forty-four years to find a valid will, and that for all
the latter part of his life he was, as it were, non-existent. But how
narrow is the line which distinguishes the sound from the unsound mind
is shown by innumerable actions in the Probate Court! It was not for
nothing that in olden days testators affirmed their sanity and thanked
God for it.

A good instance of an ordinary polycodicillic will is that of Margaret
Evans, who, during the ten years from 1775 to 1785, made a will with
twelve codicils annexed. Each codicil she introduces as a “memorandam
[_sic_] by way of addition” to her will. But as an instance of
something more than ordinary it would be hard to surpass the wills and
testamentary papers, proved in 1760 and 1761, of Dr. Thomas Cheyney,
Dean of Winchester. These papers range in date from 1724 to 1759, a
nightmare, doubtless, to his luckless executors and friends.

The irony of this case is that the Dean wished his affairs to be
administered privately. “I desire my three executors, as far as
practicable, to keep all or any resolutions they shall take relating
to my affairs secret among themselves, as I design and desire in all
things they may remain accountable to their own consciences and to each
other, and not to any other person in any place whatsoever.” But such
was the chaos of documents that it was necessary to take the directions
of a Court of Equity, the executors stating that they “from the
multiplicity of the said papers, and the contents of the same, find it
impracticable for them to administer and transact the said testator’s
affairs with that privacy and secrecy, as he seems by the general
tenor of his said will and codicil to have designed, ... and that it
will be necessary for them to take the directions of a Court of Equity
concerning the same.”

It is impossible to give a just idea of these documents, covering a
period of thirty-five years of changeful life. He is constantly putting
on patches, until the whole becomes a piece of motley. He seems to have
expected death more than once. The first paper, dated 13th of April,
1724, begins: “I Thomas Cheyney, fellow of the College near Winchester,
being by God’s will at this time of a sound mind, though labouring
under great bodily infirmities, which daily call upon me to remember
my latter end, have ... wrote this my last will and testament.” The
second paper, dated November 3rd of the same year, is addressed to his
mother. “Hond. Madam, As I have by will given the greatest part of my
estate entirely into your disposal (being desirous you should enjoy it
and be made as happy as possible while in this world) I make no doubt
but, if you survive me, you will as well out of regard to justice as
my request immediately after my death make a will, and therein take
effectual care of what I here recommend to you.... This I have writ in
haste to supply the defects of my will now made, in case I die before I
make a new one, which I intend in a few months when my affairs will be
better settled, if it please God to spare me so long.” The fourth paper
is dated June 5, 1732, and begins, “Now about to go to London, in case
I never return.”

But the last papers, which he regarded as his real will and codicil,
were made when death was not far from him, on July 4 and 6, 1759.
The will begins: “I Thomas Cheyney, Dean of the Cathedral Church of
Winchester, being now of sound mind and not forgetful of my mortality
do make and declare this to be my last will and testament, hereby
revoking all other wills formerly by me made, which however are not
destroyed, because they may, though of no validity in law, be of some
use to my executors. And first I recommend into Thy hands, Almighty and
Everlasting God, my immortal soul, beseeching Thee in all changes to
keep it close unto Thyself, and that I may in the day of Judgment find
such mercy as I shall stand in need of, thro’ the merits of a blessed
Redeemer.” It is in the codicil that he desires secrecy, as already
mentioned, and he concludes by desiring his executors to “destroy
unread all such letters as they know or suspect to be of the Duchess of
Devonshire’s writing, and to take all proper care that no other letters
may be divulged.”




CHAPTER VII

EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY PIETY


    “Thou say’st thy _will_ is good, and glory’st in it,
     And yet forget’st thy Maker ev’ry minute:
     Say, _Portio_, was there ever _Will_ allow’d
     When the testator’s _mem’ry_ was not good?”
                                               QUARLES.

It was said that such expressions of religious faith as those of Dr.
Johnson and his namesake were still frequent in the eighteenth century,
and still to some extent formal. There is an interesting commentary
on this in the will of the Rev. Philip Doddridge, D.D., the famous
writer and divine. His will is dated June 11, 1741, and was proved with
a codicil on the 31st of December, 1751. “Whereas it is customary on
these occasions to begin with recommending the soul into the hands of
God thro’ Christ, I do it not in mere form but with sincerity and joy,
esteeming it my greatest happiness that I am taught and encouraged to
do it by that glorious Gospel, which having most assuredly believed I
have spent my life in preaching to others, and esteem an infinitely
greater treasure than all my little worldly store, or possessions ten
thousand times greater than mine.”

In his will dated 13th of May, 1751, and proved in December the same
year, another divine, the Rev. Obadiah Hughes, D.D., recommends
his soul to God in a peculiarly touching dedication. We cannot but
believe in its sincerity and strength. “In the name of God, Amen. I
Obadiah Hughes, of Aldermanbury, London, Minister of the Gospel and
Doctor in Divinity, (being sensible of the frailty and uncertainty of
life, and reckoning it a duty of very great importance incumbent upon
every man to set his house in order, as well as his heart, before he
dies,) do make this my last will and testament in manner following.
I recommend my soul into the hands of God, to whom I am humbly bold
thro’ Jesus Christ to claim a relation as my God and my Father; and
though conscious to myself of great unworthiness, yet I hope to be
accepted in the beloved Son of God, and for His sake to obtain mercy
and pardon and life eternal. This Jesus I have endeavoured to serve in
the Gospel, with great sincerity, I trust, tho’ with many infirmities
and too much remissness; with Him I have long ago lodged my everlasting
concerns, and I do now most solemnly in the views and expectation
of another world declare that I receive Christ Jesus by faith as my
Lord, and repose an unshaken confidence in Him as my all-sufficient
Saviour; and according to the constitution of the Covenant of Grace,
as a penitent returning believing sinner, I hope for Christ’s sake to
be made a partaker of an inheritance with the Saints in light, at that
awful season when my soul and body shall by death be parted. And in
those regions of immortal bliss I hope with inconceivable joy to meet
the departed spirit of my late most dearly beloved wife, which I doubt
not has safely reached its heavenly home upon its dislodgment from the
body—Lord Jesus Christ, let not this hope leave me ashamed, nor my soul
finally miscarry.”

Truly in wills we are delighted with intimacies that elsewhere are
seldom seen. Here, again, is a familiar touch in one of Dean Cheyney’s
many codicils, already quoted in part: “Hond. Madam, As I have by will
given the greatest part of my estate entirely unto your disposal (being
desirous you should enjoy it and be made as happy as possible whilst
in this world), I make no doubt but, if you survive me, you will as
well out of regard to justice as my request, immediately after my death
make a will, and therein take effectual care of what I here recommend
to you.... This I have writ in haste to supply the defects of my will
now made, in case I die before I make a new one; which I intend in a
few months when my affairs will be better settled, if it please God
to spare me so long. I have nothing to add but that I shall with my
last and earnest prayers commend you to the providence of God, hoping
that He will, in such way as He knows best, supply the loss of friends
and have you always in His holy keeping, and conduct you in His own
appointed time to those happy mansions where all tears will be wiped
away from your eyes. If you fix your thoughts here, (as you ought,) you
will soon learn to despise the world and all its uncertain goods. Have
no thought of me, but if any let it be that I am taken out of a very
miserable life, and wish me not out of that happiness everlasting which
through the merits of Christ Jesus I hope to be made partaker of in
another world. Adieu! Your dutiful son, Thomas Cheyney. Nov. 3rd, 1724.”

The Dean seems to have lived in constant apprehension of death: in
April, 1724, he was “labouring under great bodily infirmities which
daily call upon me to remember my latter end”; but he lived till 1759,
being in that year “of sound mind and not forgetful of my mortality.”
Twice in his testamentary papers he commends his soul to God in prayer.
“And so I once more commend myself to Thee, O Father of Spirits,
professing myself to die, however wickedly and unprofitably I have
lived, in the Christian religion as taught in the Church of England,
lamenting her divisions and disputes about obscure and unnecessary
things, being in peace and charity with all the world.” (1735.) “And
first I recommend into Thy hands, Almighty and Everlasting God, my
immortal soul, beseeching Thee in all changes to keep it close unto
Thyself, and that I may in the day of Judgment find such mercy as I
shall stand in need of through the merits of a blessed Redeemer.” Wills
sometimes begin or break out thus in prayer. “Good God direct me in
this and all other good things which I shall go about,” cries Phillippa
Jones in 1768, and Samuel Gillam in 1787: “O Lord, Thou art great and
good, but I am a vile sinner; give me all the mercies I stand in need
of for time and for eternity, for the sake of Jesus Christ; and through
Him accept all my thankgivings for whatever I have and hope for: To the
Father Son and Holy Spirit be eternal glory, Amen.” The Rev. Richard
Forster (1728) most humbly commends his soul “into the hand of God the
faithful Creator, most earnestly beseeching Him that through the merits
and mediation of the merciful Redeemer who purchased it by His blood,
being purged and cleansed from all the defilement contracted in this
miserable and naughty world, the lusts of the flesh, or the wiles of
Satan, and being sanctified by the Holy Ghost, it may be precious in
the sight of the glorious Trinity, and be presented without spot in the
presence of the Divine Majesty.”

Of peculiar interest, again, are some of the wills of French
Protestants in this century. Two may be quoted as differing types,
which yet help to illustrate one another as well as the times
they represent. The first is that of John Lacombe, translated
(indifferently) from the French and proved on May 4, 1702. “In the
name of the Father of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, Amen. I John
Lacombe underwritten, born in the city of St. Hipolite, ... having
settled my house and lived the greatest part of my time in the city
of Paris, after having received so many graces and favours from the
mercy of God in all the course of my life, and chiefly in this time of
affliction and grief for His Church in which so many persons do sigh
after the liberty of serving Him purely according to the motives of
their conscience, I render Him my most humble actions of grace, and
desire that one may know after me that I do bless Him eternally from
the profoundest of my heart, for the kindness which He hath done me for
conducting me through His providence in this city wherein I find the
pureness of His service, and the means to render Him my adorations, in
mind and truth according to His word. I am come into it with the five
children which it hath pleased God to leave me of a greater number
which He had given me. I have still in France Elizabeth Beauchamp my
wife, their mother. I hope that God shall grant me grace to see her in
this country to end together the few days which remain to us: to live
and to die in it in peace and tranquillity, that is the prayer which I
make daily to God. And as I am advanced in years, being in my seventy
fifth year, very infirm of body, but of sound mind and understanding by
the grace of God, and that the hour of my death is as much uncertain
as it is sure, I am upon the watch expecting the time of my going off.
I beg instantly to my God the forgiveness of my sins, and to grant
me mercy for the sake and through the merits and intercession of our
Lord Jesus Christ, my only Redeemer. I invoke all the adorable Trinity,
one only God, eternally blessed. And desiring to live and die in the
profession of the reformed religion, I pray God when my time shall be
come to receive me in His rest.”

The will of Isaac Rigoullott (1720), translated out of Dutch, is more
truculent. “In the Name of God, Amen. Because death is certain and
the hour thereof uncertain, after having recommended my body and soul
to God by Jesus Christ our Lord through His Holy Spirit, and being
come out of France by reason of the persecution against our holy
Christian religion, forcing us to worship the Bread and Wine as being
the flesh and bone of our Lord Jesus Christ, making us to believe in
the invocation of Saints, the imaginary fire of Purgatory, and other
falsehoods inspired by the spirit of the Devil, to worship the true God
in spirit and in truth as He hath commanded us in His holy word in the
Old and New Testament, I Isaac Rigoullott ... give,” &c.

We are sometimes surprised, considering their characters, with the
lack of this or that feature in the wills of well-known men; but it
would, indeed, have been a surprise and a disappointment if Alexander
Cruden, the writer of the famous “Concordance,” had not expressed in
his will something, at least, of his doctrinal views and pious soul.
Written with his own hand, and signed and sealed at Aberdeen, April 10,
1770, his will thus begins: “In the name of God, Amen. I Alexander
Cruden, late a citizen and stationer of London, now living at Aberdeen,
being through the goodness of God sound in body and mind, do make and
ordain this to be my last will and testament. I acknowledge that I am
a miserable sinner by nature and life, being descended from the first
Adam, who by his fall in sinning against God hath involved himself and
his posterity in sin and misery. And I desire grace at all times, by
a true and saving faith, to look for redemption and salvation through
the blood and righteousness of our Lord Jesus Christ, the second Adam
and God Man Mediator, who by His wonderful incarnation obedience and
death hath satisfied divine justice, and purchased salvation for all
who are enabled truly to believe in this all sufficient and suitable
Saviour, and to receive Him as their Prophet Priest and King, and to
rest and rely upon Christ and His Righteousness alone for pardon and
eternal Salvation. And I desire that my body may be decently buried in
the Church yard of Aberdeen, where my pious father and his family are
interred.”

These are elaborate instances of piety in the eighteenth century; short
and general phrases as “I resign my soul into the hands of my Almighty
Creator, in the hopes of a glorious resurrection through the merits and
mediation of His blessed Son Jesus Christ, our Saviour and Redeemer,”
contained in the will of John Pybus (1789), are frequently to be found.
More uncommon is the confession of George Baker (1770), considering
the usual tone of contrition and penitence in wills. “In the Name of
the Eternal and Everlasting God the great Creator and Disposer of all
things, Whose divine law has been my study and His sacred paths my
supreme delight, I George Baker, of the Inner Temple, London, Esquire,
do make this my last will and testament.”

In Mrs. Gaskell’s “Sylvia’s Lovers” is the following passage: “Has
thee put that I’m in my sound mind and seven senses? Then make the
sign of the Trinity, and write ‘In the name of the Father, the Son,
and the Holy Ghost.’” “Is that the right way o’ beginning a will?”
said Coulson, a little startled. “My father and my father’s father,
and my husband had it atop of theirs, and I’m noane going for to cease
fra’ following after them, for they were godly men, though my husband
were o’ t’ episcopal persuasion.” It would be necessary to remember
how largely tradition and custom count, if we were to examine wills
carefully and thoroughly for the purpose of studying the piety of this
or that period of English life. Yet it can be seen how valuable these
prefaces are. Elaborate or simple, there is much to learn and mark in
them. But it is curious to observe that George Herbert (to leave the
eighteenth century for a moment), and William Law, two of the most
pious souls of their periods, use very few words in their religious
dedications. The first says simply: “I George Herbert, recommending
my soul and body to Almighty God that made them, do thus dispose of
my goods.” William Law, in terms only a little more elaborate, thus
begins: “I William Law, of Kings Cliffe, in the County of Northampton,
Clerk, being I bless God in good health of body and soundness of mind,
do make this my last will and testament in manner and form following,
that is to say: Imprimis: I humbly recommend my soul to the mercies of
God in Christ Jesus, and my body I commit to the earth to be interred
in the Church yard of Kings Cliffe aforesaid, at the discretion of my
executrix.”




CHAPTER VIII

THE DEAD HAND


    “With this thread from out the tomb my dead hand
     shall tether thee!”
                               FRANCIS THOMPSON.

John Oliver Hobbes, in “The Dream and the Business,” makes Firmalden’s
uncle leave to him £5,000 a year, on condition that he should become
and remain a Congregational minister. “My uncle meant well by his
will,” Firmalden said, “but I must have my independence. That money
binds me hand and foot. I have no rage against wealth as wealth. I like
it. But I must either earn it or inherit it unconditionally.”

In “Maid’s Money” Mrs. Dudeney makes “old Aunt Eliza” leave to Amy and
Sarah, cousins, her wealth and her house in Cornwall on the condition
that they always live there together and unmarried. “Listen!” says
Diana to David in Mrs. Barclay’s “The Following of the Star.” “There
was a codicil to Uncle Falcon’s will—a private codicil known only to
Mr. Inglestry and myself, and only to be made known a year after his
death, to those whom, if I failed to fulfil its conditions, it might
then concern. Riverscourt, and all this wealth, are mine, only on
condition that I am married within twelve months of Uncle Falcon’s
death. He has been dead eleven.”

Mrs. Craigie’s, Mrs. Dudeney’s, and Mrs. Barclay’s imaginary wills
are no less binding and coercive than many real wills seek to be.
Conditional legacies are indeed become a byword, and are often of a
difficult, not to say preposterous, nature.

G. K. Chesterton in “Orthodoxy” has a fanciful but suggestive passage,
in which he conceives of life itself as so strange a legacy that man
must not gape or wonder if the conditions too are strange. “If I leave
a man in my will ten talking elephants and a hundred winged horses, he
cannot complain if the conditions partake of the slight eccentricity
of the gift. He must not look a winged horse in the mouth.” Legally,
it may be of interest to note in passing, a devise of property on an
impossible condition will not take effect. If a man is to inherit lands
on condition that he goes from Britain to Rome in an hour, he will not
(until flying-machines are more perfect) ever succeed to the lands.

Such provisions are stock material in the drama, from Shakespeare to
“The New Sin.” “So is the will of a living daughter curbed by the will
of a dead father,” sighs Portia in “The Merchant of Venice.” Lesser
comedy and melodrama are much indebted to conditional wills. To take
two recent examples: In “The Pin and the Pudding” the rich uncle of the
poor hero Malkin leaves him his riches—on condition that he has never
been in prison: whereby hangs the tale. In “The Beggar Girl’s Wedding”
Jack Cunningham only inherits his father’s fortune if he is married by
the time he is twenty-five: whence a thrilling plot develops.

But to study real life. A legacy of £20,000 was left recently by a
father to a son if, within ten years of the testator’s death, he should
have returned to the religious faith in which he was brought up. The
difference between the two sects appeared to be slight, but the legacy
was under such conditions intolerable. Another strange distinction or
definition is that of “member of the Anglican Catholic Church,” as
opposed to “member of the Evangelical Protestant Church”: but recently
a testator stipulated that no one should take a benefit who deserved
the former appellation.

More intelligible is the distinction between Roman Catholicism and
Protestantism, and in this respect the dead hand is apt to lay heavy
restrictions on the living. That any legatee becoming a Roman Catholic
or marrying a Roman Catholic shall forfeit all interest is a common
provision: it has even been stipulated that if a daughter’s husband
should become a Roman Catholic she herself should forfeit. More
comprehensive was the will of a testator who cut down the benefit
of any child who should join the Roman Catholic Church, or become
associated with the Peculiar People, Faith Healers, or Christian
Scientists or any similar religious or quasi-religious body, he
“well knowing the harm, trouble and misery caused in homes thereby.”
Comprehensive, too, was the will of a minister who recorded his
“detestation of all state establishments of religion, believing them to
be anti-scriptural and soul-ruining. I have for years prayed the King
of Zion to overthrow the politico-ecclesiastical establishment of the
British Empire, and I leave the world with a full conviction that such
prayer must ere long be answered. I thirst to see the Church brought
down, the Church by man set up, for millions are by it led on to drink
a bitter cup.... Heaven dash all error sin and the devil from the
earth, and cause truth holiness and Christ everywhere to prevail.”

It is strange that any should think it a moral act to strive to bind
and bribe the consciences of their children or heirs. It is pleasant
to turn to the story of Henry More’s inheritance, where tolerance was
shown in an intolerant age. The Calvinism of his parents could not
appeal to the dreamy, intellectual youth, and they perceived how he was
drifting away from their manners and beliefs. But it is said that his
father seeing him one day among his books at Cambridge—not Calvinistic,
we may be sure—was so taken by his looks and manner that he went away
and set him down for a substantial legacy in his will.

But not only in religion the effort to shape destinies is shown.
Legacies are made conditional, for instance, on the recipient
remaining single, on not marrying a person named, or one not approved
by the testator’s wife and sister-in-law, a first cousin, an Irishman.
An American heiress ten years of age was to forfeit the fortune of her
grandmother if she travelled unaccompanied by a maid or chaperon of
education and refinement, or if she married a divorced man or an actor.
Recently a legacy was left on condition that the donee should marry a
lady in society.

It is not surprising that wills should occur in which distrust or
horror of alcohol is prominent. “My experience,” says one, “acquired
as a large employer of labour and as a Justice of the Peace, and my
observation of what is hourly taking place, have convinced me that
the present facilities for the sale of intoxicating liquors operate
to the prejudice, both morally and materially, of large masses of
the community, and that these facilities ought to be curtailed.” He
therefore directs that his real estate shall be sold only on condition
that the purchaser allows no building to be erected thereon for any
purpose connected with intoxicating liquors. The condition was to last
“for twenty-one years after the decease of the longest lived survivor
of her late Majesty Queen Victoria,” and the term would have been
extended had the law allowed.

A brewer, on the other hand, provided that, should the licence of
any one of forty-four public-houses and twelve off-licence shops
belonging to his company be forfeited between the date of his will and
his death, an equivalent amount should pass to a University instead
of to the town for whose benefit he left his residuary estate. His
reason, he stated, was that if the licence was lost through the conduct
of the frequenters of the house, their action would cost the town a
considerable sum, while if it were lost through the action of teetotal
magistrates the town would be punished. A total abstainer, he declared,
had no more right to compel a temperate man to abstain from drinking
his particular beverage than the temperate man had a right to compel
the total abstainer by force of law to drink it. But he hoped the first
contingency would make the inhabitants careful of their conduct.

Curious glimpses of life in olden days are given in conditions which
now and then are enjoined. Edmund Clifton (1547) gave to Sir Geruys
Clifton, knight, “the standing cup of silver and gilt and a goblet
parcel gilt, which he hath already in his custody, upon condition that
he help and assist my wife, and do not enforce her nor be about her
to take any husband but such as she shall willingly be pleased and
contented with, nor be about to do her any other displeasure, neither
by word nor deed; and if he do anything contrary to this condition,
then this bequest to be void.” He also gave 40s. to Jane Mering “of
this condition, that she shall profess and knowledge herself not to
have done her duty to me and my wife, before Mr. Parson and four or
five of the honester men in the parish.” He seems to have had the
spark of eccentricity in him, and perhaps Jane Mering was not wholly
in the wrong. Would that we had the sequel of the story!

Other conditions and stipulations might be quoted at length, as that
racehorses should not be kept, moustaches should not be worn, a certain
profession should be followed, a certain house occupied for part of
the year, a certain person precluded from living in the house, or
“that in the event of the death of her husband, she shall not come
to reside within twenty miles of Charing Cross.” Daniel Seton (1803)
leaves his son Andrew as residuary heir “on condition he goes to Europe
on his mother’s death and marries and settles: in failure of him I
give the option to Daniel.” Francis Gybbon (1727) of Bennenden, Kent,
late merchant of Barbados, gives to his “kinsmen Leonard Gybbon and
his brother—Gybbon, the wheelwright, both of Gravesend in Kent, sons
of Arthur Gybbon, all that tract of land called Mount Gybbon upon
the branches of Unknown Creek near Cohansey, in the province of West
Jersey in America, to them and their heirs for ever, provided they go
and settle upon it: if they do not in three years, then to revert to
Francis Gybbon my executor, ... the quantity being 5,600 acres.”

But frequently the testator only states his inmost beliefs and desires,
leaves a prayer or sermon as his solemn admonition when he shall have
passed away. A military man, recently deceased, expressed such beliefs
and desires in his will: “I desire to bring home to the minds of my
sons and of each and every young man who may hereafter take benefit
in my property under this my will, how strongly I hold to the view
that every man should during some substantial portion of his life,
and certainly during his early manhood, have some definite occupation
and lead a useful life, and should not suffer wealth or any accession
of wealth or other temptation to tempt him into idleness and a mere
loafing and useless existence. I might have so framed this my will as
to have made idleness operate to forfeit the interests hereby conferred
on my sons, or other young men, in my property, but I foresee that such
a provision might, in some cases, work hardships, and I prefer to hope
and to trust, as I do, that no son of mine, and no other young man who
may, under this my will, succeed to the enjoyment of any property of
mine, will so disregard my views herein expressed as to lead the life I
so strongly deprecate.”

A Welsh clergyman asked his legatees to remember the motto of Burns,
“An honest man’s the noblest work of God,” and the word of a greater,
“Owe no man anything,” an inspired command which we are bound to obey.
Baron Bertrand de Lassus, lately deceased, who left the residue of his
estate to his brother, closes with a noble exhortation: “I entreat
him to remain faithful to our family traditions in the South, to love
Montrejeau as I have loved it myself, to attach himself to it, to do
there all the good that he will be able to do, and to maintain intact
and without a stain the honour and name of our ancestors, and I urge
him to continue all the charitable work which I am keeping up in our
district, to do it better and more completely if he thinks he can
do so, to love the Pyrenees and our South with the same ardent love
with which I have loved them, and to remain faithful above all to our
old traditions of religion and the honour of our house.” But desire,
however ardent, cannot instil love and worship in another’s soul.

Parents’ solicitude for their children is often touchingly expressed.
The dead hand is raised in blessing and yearning. A Jewish testator
exhorted his son to beware of the vanities and great things of this
world, bearing in mind the saying “_tout passe, tout casse, tout
lasse_,” and in his happiest hours never to forget the poor. Viscount
Lumley, in his will dated the 13th year of Charles II., says: “And out
of the great love and care I have to my grandchild and heir I strictly
charge him to follow his studies in his youth, that he do shun ill
company gaming debauchery and engagements, by such unhappy means having
known many noble men and gentlemen ruined. And I especially enjoin him
to take the advice of his mother and other friends in his marriage,
when it shall please God he be fit for it, if I live not to see it, and
I pray God to bless him. And could I have done more for my family than
I have done I would, and had done much more for them, had not I had so
great losses by the late calamitous times.”

Thomas Hobbes, of Gray’s Inn (1632), had also one especial object of
his anxiety and affection. “And whereas the Lord hath left me now
one only tender plant for raising my posterity, whose religious and
virtuous education and transplanting into some godly family in a fit
season of marriage is my greatest worldly care, my humble request
unto the Right Honourable the master of his Majesty’s ward and his
associates is, that the wardship of my sole daughter and heir and of
her lands may be granted to my approved loving cousin Peter Phesant
of Gray’s Inn, and Richard Bellingham of Lincoln’s Inn, Esquires. And
my earnest desire and serious charge to them is, that they permit my
said daughter to be continually abiding and educated with my worthy
respected friend Mrs. Moore, if she shall be pleased to perform so
great a kindness, and in testimony of my grateful respect to her
undertaking the said charge of my daughter I bequeath to her my best
diamond ring.... And I further wish that my said friends ... as shall
educate my said daughter, as is aforesaid, during her wardship, shall
have the further government of her after her wardship expired until her
age of one and twenty years.... And I do expressly charge and command
in the Lord my said daughter, her weak and tender constitution of body
well considered, that she consent not to be married to any whomsoever
before her age of eighteen years at the soonest, nor after such her
age and before her age of one and twenty years without such consent
as hereunder I require; nor to any man whensoever, but such as is of
an approved holy just and sober conversation, preferring one of a
competent estate and degree, fearing the Lord, before the greatest that
may be, being profane or licentious.”

Of Bishop Corbet’s solicitude for his son we have seen something, nor
could anything exceed the kindliness of John Pybus (v. p. 166). Such
feelings are summed up in the prayer of Anne Covert, widow of Sir
Walter Covert, in the eighth year of Charles I. “And for my children,
O God, I give and bequeath them all into Thy gracious protection, most
earnestly desiring Thy temporal and spiritual blessings to continue
with them both here and hereafter.” So human and emotional these old
wills often are.




CHAPTER IX

WILLS OF FANCY AND OF FANTASY


It is said that Lord Eldon, in early days, would wrest pieces of poetry
into the form of legal instruments, and that he succeeded in reducing
“Chevy Chace” into the style of a bill in Chancery. The opposite
tendency, it may be imagined, is the more common, and from the history
of England to the last will and testament there is little that has not
been converted into verse from time to time. It is rumoured that the
essential points of those prosaic documents, the acts relating to Death
Duties, have been versified: certainly the “Canons of Descent” are in
verse and in print. Their quality is not high.

                    _Canon I._

    “Estates go to the issue (item)
     Of him last seized in infinitum;
     Like cow-tails, downwards, straight they tend,
     But never, lineally, ascend.

                    _Canon II._

     This gives the preference to males,
     At which a lady justly rails.

                    _Canon V._

     When lineal descendants fail,
      Collaterals the land may nail;
    So that they be (and that a bore is)
     De sanguine progenitores.”

Little better is the style of most wills which have appeared in verse.
Of these the rhyming will of Will Jackett (1789), who died in North
Place, Islington, is well known:—

    “I leave and bequeath
       When I’m laid underneath,
     To my two loving sisters most dear,
       The whole of my store,
       Were it twice as much more,
     Which God’s goodness has granted me here.

       And that none may prevent
       This my will and intent,
     Or occasion the least of law racket;
       With a solemn appeal
       I confirm, sign, and seal,
     This the true Act and Deed of Will Jackett.”

Such wills have naturally been seized upon by collectors of verse and
oddities. But for the most part they are scarcely worth transcription
in full, so that space and time may be saved by quoting a few fragments
only. A will, “found in the house of an old Batchelor lately deceased”
according to “The Muses’ Mirror” (1783), begins thus:—

    “With a mind quite at ease, in the evening of life,
     Unencumbered with children, relations, or wife;
     Not in friendship with one single creature alive,
     I make my last will, in the year sixty-five;
     How I leave my affairs, though I care not a straw,
     Lest a grocer should start up my true heir-at-law;
     Or of such in default, which would prove a worse thing,
     My land unbequeathed should revert to the king,
     I give and bequeath, be it first understood,
     I’m a friend, and a firm friend to the general good,
     And odd as I seem, was remarked from my youth,
     A stickler at all times for honour and truth....”

Four years later Nathaniel Lloyd, Esquire, of Twickenham, followed the
“old Batchelor’s” example.

    “What I am going to bequeath,
     When this frail part submits to death;
     But still I hope the spark divine
     With its congenial stars will shine:
     My good executors fulfil,
     I pray ye, fairly, my last will,
     With first and second codicil!...
     Unto my nephew, Robert Longdon,
     Of whom none says he e’er has wrong done;
     Tho’ civil law he loves to hash,
     I give two hundred pounds in cash....
     To Sally Crouch and Mary Lee,
     If they with Lady Poulet be,
     Because they round the year did dwell
     In Twick’nham House, and served full well,
     When Lord and Lady both did stray
     Over the hills and far away;
     The first ten pounds, the other twenty,
     And, girls, I hope that will content ye.
     In seventeen hundred and sixty-nine,
     This with my hand I write and sign;
     The sixteenth day of fair October,
     In merry mood, but sound and sober;
     Past my threescore and fifteenth year,
     With spirits gay and conscience clear;
     Joyous and frolicksome, tho’ old,
     And, like this day, serene but cold;
     To foes well-wishing, and to friends most kind,
     In perfect charity with all mankind.”

More modern, but in its touches of human nature not of this age only,
is the will of one Sarah Smith.

    “I, Sarah Smith, a spinster lone,
     With little here to call my own,
     Few friends to weep at my decease,
     Or pray my soul may rest in peace,
     Do make my last and only will,
     (Unless I add a codicil,)
     My brother Sam to see it done
     For he’s the right and proper one.
       I give the kettle that I use
     At tea-time, and the little cruse
     That holds hot posset for a guest
     To Martha, for she’s homeliest;
     Perhaps she’d like the picture too
     In needlework of Auntie Loo
     (So like her,) and of Uncle Jim,
     She always was so fond of him.
     Then there’s the parlour chair and table,
     I give them both to you, dear Mabel,
     With love, and when you sit thereat
     Remember there your Sarah sat.
     My poor old spectacles will be
     More use to you, alas, than me,
     So take them, Polly, and they may
     Perhaps sometimes at close of day
     Grow dim when memories arise
     Of how they suited Sally’s eyes.
     Pussy will not be with you long,
     But while she lives do her no wrong,
     A mug of milk beside the fire
     Will be the most that she’ll desire.
     There’s little else I have to mention,
     For, when I’ve spent my old-age pension,
     Not many crowns disturb my sleep,
     But what there is is Sam’s to keep:
     He’s been a brother kind and good
     In all my days of solitude.
     And so farewell: no word of ill
     Shall stain my last and only will;
     But, friends, be just and gentle with
     The memory of Sarah Smith.”

Genuine wills in rhyme are naturally rare, but literature is full of
imaginary or fantastic testaments, as well in prose as in verse. To
such a one Sir Walter Scott refers in a letter to Lady Anne Hamilton:
“I always remind myself of the bequest which once upon a time the wren
made to the family of Hamilton. This magnanimous, patriotic bird, after
disposing of his personal property to useful and public services, such
as one of his legs to prop the bridge of Forth and the other to prop
the bridge of Tay, at length instructs his executors thus:—

    “And then ye’ll take my gallant bill,
       My bill that pecks the corn,
     And give it to the Duke of Hamilton
       To be a hunting horn.”

Whether in prose or in verse—verse not seldom prosaic—a striking
similarity of idea runs through them, from the will of the _cochon_ of
the fourth century, who gives his teeth to the quarrelsome, his ears to
the deaf, his muscles to the weak, down to the will of Chatterton in
the eighteenth century, who gives “all my vigour and fire of youth to
Mr. George Catcott, being sensible he is most in want of it,” and “from
the same charitable motive ... unto the Rev. Mr. Camplin, senior, all
my humility.”

On earth all things decay and have their period, so all things may make
their wills.

    “Omnia tempus edax depascitur, omnia carpit,
     Omnia sede movet, nil sinit esse diu.”

The idea may be indefinitely extended. Among the writings of Thomas
Nash, for instance, is a fantasy entitled “Summer’s Last Will and
Testament.”

                 _Summer loquitur._

    “Enough of this, let me go make my will....
     The surest way to get my will performed
     Is to make my executor my heir,
     And he, if all be given him, and none else,
     Unfallibly will see it well performed.
     Lions will feed, though none bid them fall to,
     Ill grows the tree affordeth ne’er a graft.

           *       *       *       *       *

     This is the last stroke my tongue’s clock must strike
     My last will, which I will that you perform:
     My crown I have disposed already of.
     Item, I give my withered flowers and herbs
     Unto dead corpses, for to deck them with;
     My shady walks to great men’s servitors,
     Who in their masters’ shadows walk secure;
     My pleasant open air, and fragrant smells,
     To Croydon and the grounds abutting round;
     My heat and warmth to toiling labourers,
     My long days to bondmen and prisoners—
     My fruits to Autumn, my adopted heir,
     My murmuring springs, musicians of sweet sleep,
     To murmuring malcontents, with their well-tuned ears,
     Channelled in a sweet falling quatorzain,
     Do lull their ears asleep, listening themselves....”

Peignot, in his “Choix de Testaments” (1829) made a beginning of a
bibliography of imaginative or imaginary wills, among which he cites
the last will of the _Ligue_ in the “Satyre Ménippée.” It has eloquent
and poignant passages.

    “Plus, suivant la coutume et anciennes lois,
     Je fais mon heritier tout le peuple françois;
     Je lui laisse les pleurs, le sang, les pilleries,
     Les meurtres, assassins, insignes voleries,
     Les veuves, orphelins, et les violemens,
     Les larmes, les regrets, et les rançonnemens,
     Les ruines des bourgs, des villes, des villages,
     Des chateaux, des maisons et tant de brigandages,
     Les ennuis, les douleurs et tous les maux reçus
     Par surprise ou assauts, par les flammes et feux,
     Bref de son cher pays les cendreuses reliques,
     Reste de mes labeurs et secrètes pratiques.”

Peignot showed what possibilities lay in this research; perhaps
of poetic wills his countryman Villon’s “Testaments” are the most
noteworthy. English literature, too, has many poems of this nature, and
John Donne’s poem called “The Will” is characteristic of its author and
of its kind.

    “Before I sigh my last gasp, let me breathe,
     Great Love, some legacies; I here bequeath
     Mine eyes to Argus, if mine eyes can see;
     If they be blind, then, Love, I give them thee,
     My tongue to Fame; to ambassadors mine ears;
     To women or the sea, my tears:
     Thou, Love, hast taught me heretofore
     By making me serve her who had twenty more,
     That I should give to none, but such as had too much before:

     My constancy I to the planets give;
     My truth to them who at the court do live;
     Mine ingenuity and openness,
     To Jesuits; to buffoons my pensiveness;
     My silence to any who abroad hath been:
     My money to a Capuchin:
     Thou, Love, taught’st me, by appointing me
     To love there, where no love received can be,
     Only to give to such as have an incapacity....”

It can be seen how readily the mock will lends itself to satire or
wit; but as a last example of poetic wills may be quoted one of quite
another nature, one which savours of the piety and the spirit of
seventeenth-century testaments.

    “Here in the presence of my God
     While yet He spares me from His rod,
     Of perfect memory and mind
     And wholly to His will resigned,
     Not knowing how my lot shall be,
     Or if my soul may suddenly
     The summons hear to haste away
     Unto the realms of deathless day,
     Ere mortal flesh and spirit faint
     Or sickness all the senses taint,
     Before I lose the good intent,
     I make my will and testament.
       And first my soul to God I give,
     In whom all souls and spirits live,
     That He would set it in the place
     Prepared of His eternal grace,
     Though stained with many a spot it be,
     Nor fit for saints’ society,
     Until my Saviour wash it white
     And worthy of its Maker’s sight:
     Sweet Jesu, may this faith prevail,
     Nor at the last Thy Presence fail.
       My body to the fire or earth
     I give, without remorse or mirth,
     That without pomp or any pride
     The trammels may be laid aside
     That hemmed the soul in, but with meet
     Solemnity in church and street,
     Due reverence that moves the heart
     Of him who sees the dead depart,
     And tells the living he must come
     At last himself unto the tomb.
       And since there have been granted me
     Some goods of this world’s currency,
     (An earnest as I hope and trust
     Of goods that perish not in dust,)
     And since of higher weight and worth,
     The first felicity of earth,
     There has been granted me a wife
     With ecstasy to crown my life,
     To calm my spirit in distress
     And put a term to loneliness,
     I give, devise, bequeath, dispone,
     All that I have or call my own,
     (Though only for the meanwhile lent,)
     My goods, my stock, my tenement,
     Unto her use that she may crave
     No substance when I reach the grave:
     Though would that it were thrice the more
     To bless her with an ampler store.
       Item. The essays of my pen,
     All thoughts or poems, all that then
     May perfect or imperfect be,
     The records and remains of me,
     I give her to destroy or keep,
     The chaff to burn, the grain to reap,
     I give her all sweet thoughts that passed
     Betwixt us from first days to last,
     All words of soft and tender guise,
     All tears and smiles of heart or eyes,
     To brood on and to dream upon
     When I the unknown way am gone.
       Item. I give, all else above,
     My fervent and unchanging love
     To have and hold without restraint
     To her own use, not far and faint,
     But near and burning, not removed
     With the dear presence that she loved.
     Therefore her spirit I entrust
     To God’s tuition, till the dust
     And scales of earth fall from her eyes,
     And she awake in Paradise.
       Lastly, revoking every will,
     Without a wish or thought of ill,
     Praying for pardon from the great,
     Nor less from those of less estate,
     For word or deed, that I may be
     Remembered but with amity,
     Praying beyond all and above
     Pardon of His unbounded love,
     In perfect charity with all,
     Awaiting the great change and call,
     Hereto I set my seal and hand,
     That at the last my will may stand
     Inviolate, and none contest
     My mind and meaning manifest.”

That sweet spirit Eugénie de Guérin, at the entry in her Journal
for March 31, 1838, suddenly muses on the making of a will: “Let us
see how I would make my will. To you, my Journal, my pen-knife, the
‘Confessions’ of Saint Augustine. To Father, my poems; to Érembert,
Lamartine; to Mimi, my rosary, my little knife, ‘The Way to Calvary,’
‘The Meditations of Father Judde.’ To Louise, ‘The Spiritual Conflict’;
to Mimi also my ‘Imitation’; to Antoinette, ‘The Burning Soul.’ To you
also my little strong box for your secrets, on condition that you burn
all mine, if there should be any in it. What would you do with them?
They are affairs of conscience, some of those matters that lie between
the soul and God, some letters of counsel from M. Bories and that good
Norman curé whom I have mentioned. I keep them as a souvenir, and
because I require them; they are _my papers_, which, however, must not
see the light of day. If, then, what I write here for amusement should
come to pass, if you become my heir, remember to burn all the contents
of this box.”

Kenneth Grahame, forgetting for a moment his Eugénie de Guérin, asks
in “Dream Days”: “Who in search of relaxation, would ever dream of
choosing the drawing-up of a testamentary disposition of property?” But
this sudden craze he gives to little Harold. He was shy of showing his
“death-letter,” as he called it, but it came out after a tussle. It was
not the first will to cause dissension. “My dear Edward, when I die I
leave all my muny to you my walkin sticks wips my crop my sord and gun
bricks forts and all things i have goodbye my dear charlotte when i die
I leave you my wach and cumpus and pencel case my salors and camperdown
my picteres and evthing goodbye your loving brother armen my dear
Martha I love you very much i leave you my garden my mice and rabets my
plants in pots when I die please take care of them my dear—”

But will-making may have a sinister attraction, a suspicion of
something hardly sane. Fragments of Chatterton’s will have already
been quoted. Apprenticed to an attorney, he strove to get free, and
as a last means to induce his master to dismiss him, he left in the
office this strange document, dated April 14, 1770, in which his
approaching suicide was announced. It had the effect desired. “All
this wrote between 11 and 2 o’clock Saturday, in the utmost distress
of mind. April 14, 1770. This is the last will and testament of me,
Thomas Chatterton, of the city of Bristol; being sound in body, or
it is the fault of my last surgeon, the soundness of my mind, the
coroner and jury are to be judges of, desiring them to take notice
that the most perfect masters of human nature in Bristol distinguish
me by the title of the Mad Genius; therefore, if I do a mad action,
it is conformable to every action of my life, which all savoured of
insanity.” There follow directions for tomb and tablets, and bequests
of satirical or bitter humour. “I leave also my religion to Dr.
Cutts Barton, Dean of Bristol, hereby empowering the Sub Sacrist to
strike him on the head when he goes to sleep in church.... I leave my
moderation to the politicians on both sides of the question.... I give
my abstinence to the company of the Sheriff’s annual feast in general,
more particularly to the Aldermen.... I leave the young ladies all the
letters they have had from me, assuring them that they need be under
no apprehension from the appearance of my ghost, for I die for none of
them.... I leave my mother and sister to the protection of my friends,
if I have any. Executed in the presence of Omniscience this 14th day of
April, 1770.”

But probably of imaginative and fantastic wills the most remarkable
is one said to be the work of a lunatic in America, more surprising
for its beauty than are others for their satiric or malicious
inventiveness.[2]

“ ... I leave the children for the term of their childhood the flowers,
fields, blossoms, and woods, with the right to play among them freely,
warning them at the same time against thistles and thorns. I devise to
the children the banks, the brooks, and the golden sands beneath waters
thereof, and the white clouds that float high over the giant trees, and
I leave to the children long long days to be merry in, and the night
and the moon and the train of the Milky Way to wonder at.

“I devise to the boys jointly all the useful fields, all the pleasant
waters where one may swim, all the streams where one may fish or
where, when grim winter comes, one may skate, to have and hold the
same for the period of their boyhood.... I give to the said boys each
his own place by the fireside at night, with all the pictures that may
be seen in the burning wood, to enjoy without let or hindrance and
without any encumbrance or care.

“To lovers I devise their imaginary world with whatever they may need,
as stars, sky, red roses by the wall, the bloom of the hawthorn, the
sweet strains of music, and aught else they may desire.... To the loved
ones with snowy crowns I bequeath happiness, old age, the love and
gratitude of their children, until they fall asleep.”

FOOTNOTES:

[2] A few passages are here quoted from this will as it appeared in
the _Daily Telegraph_. It seems that its appellation “The Lunatic’s
Will” is erroneous and that it was a deliberate literary composition.
See Harris’s “Ancient, Curious, and Famous Wills” referred to in the
Preface. In that book it is quoted in full and its real origin given.




CHAPTER X

STRIFE


Thomas Penistone, in the preamble to his will quoted in “The Way of
All Flesh,” insists on the confusion or disputation an intestacy
might cause. The regular formula, occurring over and over, is that
the will is made for avoiding controversies after death; or, as one
John Nabbs says (1665), “the unhappy controversies usual in default
of such settlements.” Robert Collyer, whose will was proved November
8, 1665, makes a peculiarly interesting addendum as to the law in his
day: “the reason why I trouble not myself with witnesses is because a
will so made by a man himself, although many imperfections in regard
of form and the like may be in it, yet it is as good in law as if it
were published and declared before many witnesses; which if people did
but take notice of, many wills would be made that are not and much
contention prevented; which I heard Serjeant Maynard plead for law in a
case between Master Christopher Coles and Master Walter Bartellott at
Westminster Hall.”

There is a pathetic fallacy in this expectation. Some controversies may
be avoided, but bitter disputes too often are aroused—disputes about
the will’s validity, the meaning of its provisions, the capacity of the
testator, the legality or interpretation of a bequest, its justice or
injustice, and so on interminably. Such a work as Theobald’s “Law of
Wills” illustrates, by the thousands of decisions it brings together,
what questions and queries arise on the legal and interpretative sides
alone.

Some seem to foresee trouble, or “fuss in the way of quarrel,” as one
testator puts it. A clause is frequently inserted barring disputants
from any benefit. George Spence (1587) expresses this well: “I will
that if any person or persons shall not be content with such gifts as
given to them by virtue of this my will and testament, shall be clearly
and utterly voided out of the same, and they shall have no commodity
or profit by virtue of the same.” And Anthony Wayte, of Clapham, whose
will is dated September 10, 1558, believes in an original remedy—a
short way with disputants. “If any dispute as to the meaning of my
will, I will two or three unlearned husbandmen of my parish of Clapham
to interpret my meaning as they or two of them shall think in their
conscience.” It is a delightful touch of sarcasm and sagacity.

It was no wonder that Sir George Hervey, of Thurleigh, Bedfordshire,
who died about 1536, took his friends and even his servants into his
confidence, acquainting them with the tenor of his will. For it was
found, when the will was taken from its place of custody in a coffer
“standing in the house of one Richard Holt, draper, dwelling in Watling
Street,” that he had left his estates, his manors, and lands in
Huntingdon, Bedford, Buckingham, Hertford, and Oxford, to his reputed
son Gerard, to the exclusion of his generally recognised son and
daughter, Nicholas and Elizabeth. Needless to say the will was called
in question, but the affidavits of Sir George’s friends and servants,
in whom he had confided, secured its admission to probate.

Thus one witness said that “about ten or twelve days before the death
of the said Sir George, this deponent was eftsoons in hand again with
the said Sir George, that he should be good unto Nicholas Hervey;
to whom the said Sir George answering this deponent, showed of a
displeasure that was grown between him and the said Nicholas, and said
that he had given him a dash with a pen, and that he should never have
groat of him, and this deponent saith also that he was present when the
late Abbess of Elstow went unto the said Sir George instanted and moved
the said Sir George to be good unto the said Elizabeth, whereunto the
said Sir George utterly refused to do her any manner of good, saying
that she was not his daughter.”

Thomas Smith Panuwell, of Tonbridge, seems not to have had much faith
in peaceableness and honesty: to his will is appended the following:
“As the above written was copied from a will written by me some time
before the above date, (1779) but not witnessed as I lay very ill of
a fever, I was dubious and revolving it in my mind whether it was
authentic, I had it written afresh by an attorney in form of law;
... but as I am now sensible my brain was then in perplexity through
weakness, the authenticity of this will might be questioned and
possibly for the benefit of trade by the man who wrote it, I hereby
declare it is my will, now it has pleased the merciful Almighty to
raise me from the jaws of Death and bless me with opportunity to
endeavour to attain through a sincere repentance and reform the
salvation of my spirit; and I am in perfect and sound mind and memory.
Witness my hand and seal this 20th day of February, 1780.”

Few cases in the courts are more interesting than doubtful or disputed
wills. But, however romantic, there is much that is sordid and
miserable in probate actions, much lamentable bitterness of spirit. It
may be hoped that when these cases are heard the testator has drunk
deep of the Lethean stream. But the controversy may begin before the
testator’s death, and cruel such wrangling is.

The story of the last days in the life of Elizabeth, mother of John
Stow, is a curious tale at once comic and distressing. John appears
not to have been on the best of terms with his family, and especially
to have irritated his younger brother Thomas. Elizabeth Stow, in 1568,
was living with Thomas and his wife, but one day chanced to go and
visit her son John. She was refreshed with the “best ale and bread, and
a cold leg of mutton was put before her, whereof she ate very hungerly,
and thereafter fell both to butter and to cheese.” On leaving, she
promised John not to slight him, as he was her eldest son. But Thomas
and his wife would give her no rest till she had told them all that
she and John had spoken together. It leaked out that John had insulted
Thomas’s wife, whereupon he “would never let my mother rest” (John
tells the story himself) “till he had forced her to break her will,
wherein she bequeathed me X li., (equal with all the younger children,
except Thomas, which had all indeed) and to put me in nothing at all.”
But she found that her friends would not witness the will, nor did they
until Thomas pretended he had restored the £10, though he put down £5,
in fact. “And so they set their hands to it, and after heard it read,
wherein they found the V li. and would have withdrawn their hands
again, but it was too late.”

Thomas took great offence at John’s insult to his wife: but soon
afterwards he himself thrust her out of doors, and she, getting in
again, “he beat her and threw her again into the street; and all the
neighbours could not get him to take her in again, yet again she was
conveyed into the house, and at X of the clock at night, he being
bare-legged searched and found her and then fell again a-beating of
her, so that my mother lying sick on a pallet was fain to creep up, and
felt about the chamber for Thomas his hosen and shoes; and crept down
the stairs with them as well as she could, and prayed him to put them
on lest he should catch cold. So my mother stood in her smock more than
an hour entreating him for the Lord’s sake to be more quiet: so that at
this time my mother took such a cold that she never rose after, but he
and his wife went to bed and agreed well enough.”

Then began a long wrangling about the will, the minister who attended
her much misliking it, and Thomas and his wife neglecting no device
to keep the poor mother to the will. Her son-in-law, Rolfe, a priest,
also tried to persuade her to do justice to John, but “she always bade
him hold his peace, or else speak softly, for her son’s wife was in
one corner or other hearkening, and she should have a life ten times
worse than death if Thomas or his wife should know of any such talk.”
Soon after this the brothers professed to patch up the quarrel, and
John mustered courage himself to entreat his mother to put him back for
£10, and he read her the 133rd Psalm, asking her to persuade Thomas
to read it too, “which she said she dared not do. The psalm beginneth
thus: ‘Behold how pleasant and joyful a thing it is, brethren, to dwell
together and to be of one mind,’ &c., and this is a special note to
be marked; all the time that I was talking with her, to break me of
my talk she lay as she had been more afeared than of death, lest her
son Thomas or his wife should hear any of our talk. And still she
cried to me: ‘Peace, she cometh; speak softly; she is on the stairs
hearkening,’” &c.

Still the storm raged round the unhappy woman’s couch; her brother,
and the overseer of the will, both protested against its provisions.
But in vain; at last she died, worn out and embittered, we may very
well imagine, by the broils of her last days on earth. Truly a pitiable
tale, but perhaps not unparalleled. We may still read how £5 only was
given to John, for the will is extant. It suggests what feuds and
sorrows lie behind the phrases of many a will.

Such feuds and sorrows struck the imagination of Dickens, when he
visited Doctors’ Commons, where the wills which now rest at Somerset
House were stored in his day. “We naturally fell into a train of
reflection as we walked homewards, upon the curious old records of
likings and dislikings; of jealousies and revenges; of affection
defying the power of death, and hatred pursued beyond the grave, which
these depositories contain: eloquent by striking tokens, some of them,
of excellence of heart and nobleness of soul; melancholy examples,
others, of the worst passions of human nature. How many men as they lay
speechless and helpless on the bed of death, would have given worlds
but for the strength and power to blot out the silent evidence of
animosity and bitterness, which now stands registered against them in
Doctors’ Commons!”

It is curious how quickly a man turns to his will in the event of
coolness or misunderstanding. Cardinal Vaughan has told how his
friendship with Cardinal Manning died down. “We consulted one another
and told one another everything. Well, he had appointed me to be one of
his executors. On one occasion when I was staying with him in London,
we got into a discussion; I could not accept his views, and I suppose,
on the contrary, strongly maintained my own. I saw he was a little bit
put out—but what do you think he did? He went upstairs, took out his
will, and struck his pen through my name as executor.”

An uninitiated reader of Elizabeth Stow’s will would never have
known what bitterness lay behind that £5 legacy; but sometimes such
bitterness is evident enough. Harry Staple, of Ospring, Kent, whose
will is dated February 19, 1691, is curt and downright: “To the widow
Hall of Ospring and unto my three undutiful daughters, Mary and
Elizabeth and Martha one shilling apiece.” John Braibroke, of Cooling,
in 1535 requested his son Thomas “not to meddle with nothing of my
testament or last will, nor my wife Alice to meddle with nothing that
is or hath been between me and my son Thomas from the beginning of
the world unto the present day.” A startling bequest was that of 3½d.
to a son for the purchase of a rope for his wife, to be used as soon
as possible. And another son to reap trouble was Freeman Ellis, whose
father’s will was proved in 1664.

     “Memo. that Freeman Ellis late of the parish of St. James
      Clerkenwell ... having a very great love and affection for
      Bridget Fanny and Judith Ellis who had always been very
      kind and loving to him, and being very much displeased
      with his son Freeman Ellis, who had been undutiful to him
      and married without his consent and was gone away from his
      wife, would and did several times in his life time ... say
      and declare that whenever he died he would make his said
      sisters ... his executrixes and leave his estate to their
      sole ordering and disposing.”

Wives fall under a full share of abuse. A London bookseller, in 1785,
left a legacy of £50 to “Elizabeth whom through my foolish fondness
I made my wife, without regard to family fame or fortune, and who
in return has not spared most unjustly to accuse me of every crime
regarding human nature, save highway robbery.” Robert Frampton also
had unhappy experiences. He describes himself as of Woodley, in the
parish of Sonning and county of Berks, and his will was dated in London
December 18, 1677. “I do devise and bequeath to my wife Ann £1000 to
be paid her out of my personal estate, not being able to leave her
more by reason of her extravagancy in all things, embezzling the money
given her for her apparel and leaving what she bought for that use upon
the score, which I was forced to pay, and her running me into debt a
good sum besides whereof she would never give any account. She hath
also from time to time given her gossips a great part of what bought
for herself the children and necessaries for the house and of the
provisions thereof to the huge increase of my expenses and great damage
of my estate; yea, in all things she hath ever been a profuse imperious
and unkind wife unto me, and sundry times bound herself under a curse
to ruin me if she could and necessitate the children to beg and starve.”

Sir Humphrey Style, in 1658, was more reticent in his misfortune. He
gave to his wife £20 to buy mourning for him if she pleased, and a
further sum of 5s. only “for good reasons best known unto myself, but
not for her honour to be published.” But doubtless the gossips wagged
their tongues no less.

A Spanish lady, not long since, included all her relations in one
condemnation. “Nothing shall come to them from me, but a bag of sand to
rub themselves with. None deserves even a goodbye. I do not recognise
a single one of them.” But not only within the family is animosity
shown. John Bacon Sweeting, of Honiton, surgeon, whose will was proved
November 10, 1803, in a codicil thus complains: “Be it remembered that
whereas I am unhappily so situated as to have Samuel Lott, Esquire, as
possessor of a spot of waste land adjoining some lands which I bought
... and situate on the north side of the Borough of Honiton, and the
said Samuel Lott has set up a claim to a certain space behind the same
which he has refused to leave to be referred to the arbitration of Wm.
Tucker of Croydon, Esquire, from a consciousness, I conceive, of the
injustice of his pretensions, this as a serious man and a Christian I
would not assert if the same conduct had not been notoriously observed
by him wherever he had a prospect of over-reaching his neighbour, and
feeling that this conduct will as [illegible] prevent my selling the
property at a fair and just value, as most people wish to avoid law,
it is my will that the same shall not be sold during the lifetime of
the said Samuel Lott for a less sum than £120, and it is further my
will that if the said Samuel Lott shall encroach any building on the
spot alluded to, that then my said executors shall pull down such
encroachments and defend the act as they shall be advised, and the
expenses paid out of my property.” More recently a testator thus gave
vent to his feelings: “My estate would have been considerably larger
if it had not been for my association with this perambulating human
vinegar cruet and the cleverest known legal daylight robber.”

But a transition to the subject next appearing may conveniently be made
by mention of the will of Robert Halliday (dated May 6, 1491), who
gave 5s. issuing out of an estate in St. Leonard, Eastcheap, to make
an entertainment once a year for persons at variance with one another,
that peace and love might be promoted and prevail.




CHAPTER XI

LOVE AND GRATITUDE


It is easy to discover such ugly facts as have just been disclosed.
But love and gratitude are certainly more frequent. In many cases
we see a picture of sweet and gentle family life, or of tender and
affectionate regard. It is delightful to meet in modern wills, as
one often may, expressions of passionate devotion and admiration for
a wife or husband. And in old wills we have many a charming picture
suggested. Sir Hugh Cholmley, a prominent figure in Whitby in the
seventeenth century, gives “to my dear brother, Sir Henry Cholmley, my
bay bald Barbary mare, called Spanker,” “to my dear daughter-in-law,
wife to my son William Cholmley, the green cloth hangings wrought with
needlework, which I desire her to esteem because they were wrought by
my dear wife and her servants when we were first housekeepers,” and
“to my dear sister, Mrs. Jane Twysden, wife to my brother Serjeant
Twysden, a little gold pot of ten pounds price, with hearty thanks
and acknowledgments for her many favours and kindnesses to myself and
children.”

John Pybus, who died in June, 1789, appears to have had a felicitous
family life, and though the language is the language of the eighteenth
century, the feeling would seem to be sincere and deep. “I also give
and bequeath unto my said wife the sum of £200, ... hereby declaring,
as in justice I think due to her, the very high opinion I entertain
of her temper and disposition, and how much I think myself obliged to
her for the very dutiful tender and affectionate conduct she has ever
given proofs of both as a wife and mother, during the whole course of
our matrimonial connection now nearly thirty-four years.” It is an
echo of the words of Robert Sanderson, Bishop of Lincoln, who died on
January 29, 1662, leaving his residuary estate “to my very loving and
dearly beloved wife, with whom I have lived almost three and forty
years in perfect amity, and with much comfort.” Philip Doddridge, D.D.,
a testator who had the knack of making his will interesting, has a
special paragraph about his wife: “And I hereby recommend her to the
divine supporting presence and care during the short separation which
her great love to me will, I fear, render too painful to her, praying
earnestly that God may succeed her pious care in the education of our
dear children that they may be happy for time and for eternity.” His
tender love is seen also in the superscription to a letter found among
his MSS. “To my trusty and well beloved Mrs. Mercy Doddridge, the
dearest of all dears, the wisest of all my earthly councillors, and of
all my governours the most potent, yet the most gentle and moderate”
(1741).

The will of the Rt. Hon. Mary Countess Dowager of De la Warr affords
another example of affection from the eighteenth century. It is written
(as will be seen) in the form of a letter to her son, in the course
of which she says: “The silver cup given by your grandfather to my
dear and most lamented son William Lord De la Warr I bequeath to you
with my blessing, which no son was ever more entitled to receive from
a fond mother than yourself; may it prove propitious to you, and that
every affectionate attention shown to me may be returned to you by your
children, that you may have the happiness and satisfaction of knowing
how much comfort your behaviour administered to me who must long since
have sunk under the weight of such repeated misfortunes, had they not
been alleviated by the kindnesses of you and my dearest Georgiana.”

Sarah Wills of Bristol, whose will is dated October 30, 1797, writes
with similar intimacy of feeling. “It is with a deep sense of gratitude
I acknowledge the kindness of my dear son, and happy should I think
myself if I had it in my power to reward him to my utmost wish, but I
trust that God who have so wonderfully blest him will never forsake
him, and also trust that he’ll never forsake the God of his mercies; He
who have been the guide of his youth, may He be the support of his more
advanced years. And may he ever show the utmost kindness to his truly
affectionate sister, for such she is: show her all tenderness, and as
you are so blest in worldly goods the little matter I call mine can’t
be of much use to you, but to her it is, and she have been a tender
child to me. If there is any little article that my beloved son likes,
have it. I only say again I feel gratitude for your great goodness to
me, and it melts me to think of it, and happy should I think myself
to make you an ample return; but accept of my sincerest thanks, and
be assured it is more blessed to give than receive, Your affectionate
mother, S. Wills.”

As a final instance of family affection the following expression of
gratitude, interesting in that the person eulogised was afterwards
Archbishop of York, must not be overlooked. The testator, Major William
Markham, died in 1771, and on the 21st of January, 1780, administration
with the will was granted to his son, then William, Lord Archbishop
of York. He says: “My reason for thus forming my will is founded upon
a principle of gratitude to my eldest son, whose interest restored me
when reduced to my majority in Major General Lascelles’ regiment. To
the same interest I owe the liberty I had from His Majesty of selling
my majority at the best advantage, without which liberty I could have
never sold and consequently never have been master of said money,
which I now gratefully return to him who in a manner gave it. The said
William Markham’s interest brought me out of captivity to London,
from which time I am obliged to acknowledge I have entirely lived on
him. I should be very remiss in not mentioning one remarkable instance
of his generosity, which was when the Duke of Buccleugh asked Dr.
Markham, then only a student in Christchurch, how he could serve him
he instantly answered ‘by recommending my father Major Markham to His
Majesty for a Lieutenant Colonelcy.’ But the greatest obligation I lie
under to Dr. Markham is for his having made an ample provision for my
two younger sons George and Enoch, whom I most heartily recommend to
his further care and patronage, which I am fully persuaded is quite
unnecessary to mention.”

The Archbishop who earned such gratitude from his father was buried
in Westminster Abbey on November 11, 1807, aged eighty-nine, and a
monument was raised to his memory by his grandchildren. He was a man
of character, “a pompous and warm-tempered prelate, with a magnificent
presence and almost martial bearing.” He is described by Walpole as
“a pert, arrogant man,” and as “that warlike metropolitan Archbishop
Turpin.” Bentham gives an earlier and equally curious portrait of him
as head master of Westminster School. Bentham was at Westminster 1755
to 1760. “Our great glory was Dr. Markham; he was a tall, portly man,
and ‘high he held his head.’ He married a Dutch woman who brought him a
considerable fortune. He had a large quantity of classical knowledge.
His business was rather in courting the great than in attending to the
school. Any excuse served his purpose for deserting his post. He had a
great deal of pomp, especially when he lifted his hand, waved it, and
repeated Latin verses. If the boys performed their tasks well, it was
well; if ill, it was not the less well. We stood prodigiously in awe of
him; indeed, he was an object of adoration.”

Gifts with expressions of love and gratitude are common outside the
family. Recently legacies were left to children of a confectioner “in
appreciation of their attention to my luncheon wants for twenty years.”
A large estate was bequeathed to the widow of a medical attendant “in
consideration of her husband’s constant kindness and attention to me
both personally and professionally.” Certain silver articles were left
to one “who has been for many years a most kind and sympathetic friend,
passing many dull weary hours with me listening to my griefs and
worries.” Of interest is a recent bequest in a builder’s will, who left
a sum sufficient to put into proper repair and to provide in perpetuity
for the maintenance and gardening and carpet bedding of the grave
of his first partner, “for whom,” he says, “I entertain the highest
respect and regard.”

Florence Nightingale left several bequests, expressing affection and
gratitude therewith. Two friends she was determined not to leave
unmentioned, although they had predeceased her. “To my beloved and
revered friends, Mr. Charles H. Bracebridge, and his wife, my more
than mother, without whom Scutari and my life could not have been,
and to whom nothing that I can say or do would in the least express
my thankfulness, I should have left some token of my remembrance, had
they, as I expected, survived me.”

These are recent instances, but we may cull them from old records too.
Thomas Avery, of Dolton in Devon, made a nuncupative will on May 21,
1634. He gave “unto Edward Levaton and Elizabeth Warre, in respect of
their pains they had taken with him, the said deceased, and out of his
love and affection unto them in regard he had brought them up in his
own house and that they had been long with him and had taken pains
about his work and had travelled about his business and occasion, the
sum of £100 apiece”; the residue to his brother John “in regard of his
brotherly love and affection unto him, and in respect and recompense
of his said brother’s travail and pains which he had undergone and
taken for him, the said deceased, when none other of his kindred would
do anything for him.” Philip Doddridge in a codicil says: “And as the
providence of God hath been pleased to give me a particular interest
in the friendship of the truly honourable George Littleton, Esquire,
I beg he would please to accept five guineas to buy him a ring, which
I desire him to wear at least ten days in every year from the 19th
of January, (that ever memorable day,) in memory of the unfeigned
affection that has subsisted between us.” In his will he gives £5 to
Elizabeth Bagnal “as a token of the affectionate care she took of my
eldest child during her last illness, a tender circumstance which it is
not possible for me ever to forget.”

Such are examples of individual regard. There are wills where the
whole tone is beautiful, the whole ordered with serene affection and
satisfaction. Too long to be quoted in full, the complete picture
cannot be given, but some more extracts from the same John Pybus
may give an idea of his affections and friendships. He begins: “I
John Pybus, of Old Bond Street in the parish of St. George, Hanover
Square, ... being of sound and disposing mind and memory, but subject
to frequent and severe infirmities which may suddenly deprive me of
existence, think it necessary to make and declare this my last will
and testament.” After the eulogy of his wife, and after exhorting his
children “to behave with the same degree of attention tenderness and
affection towards her during the remainder of her life as she has ever
manifested towards them, as they shall hope to meet with the like
behaviour from their children, should it ever please God to bless them
with any,” he continues: “And to my dearly beloved daughter Catherine
Amelia I give and bequeath as a small but very inadequate proof of the
very great affection I bear her my own picture, a ¾ length leaning on a
crutch stick or cane, painted by Stuart, and a ¾ length picture of her
mother lately painted by the same hand, and my harpsichord by Shudi and
Broadwood, being a remarkable fine-toned instrument, which will I hope
be an inducement to her to spare no pains or application to improve
herself in music, as her dear sister Lady Fletcher has done, not only
as being in itself a most desirable accomplishment, but one that will
afford her an inexhaustible fund of the most pleasing kind of amusement
and entertainment as long as she lives.... I flatter myself with hope
that my said son Charles Small Pybus will give unremitted assiduity and
application to the study and profession of the law, wherein without
such application it will be in vain to hope for or expect success, and
to which he hath in a dutiful conformity to my wishes and advice, and
as I hope from inclination likewise, hitherto closely attended to his
edification and my comfort, not doubting but a continuation of this
line of conduct will with his talents and abilities be eventually most
amply rewarded.... And whereas my very much esteemed and respected
friend Mrs. Amelia Rous, wife to my worthy friend Thos. Bates Rous
Esq^{r.} and sister to my dear wife, was so obliging at my particular
request as to sit to Mr. Joachim Smith of Bonner Street for the
model of her bust to be taken by him in wax, which he has executed
with very great success by taking a striking resemblance of her, and
as I have ever considered myself as having been very instrumental
in promoting the happy union between her and her husband, and have
with very real pleasure lived to see them pass many years together
with the most apparent proof of mutual cordiality and affection, I
do hereby therefore give and bequeath unto the said Thos. Bates Rous
the aforesaid waxen model or bust of his said dear wife Amelia, in
testimony of my regard for him, and the respect I have for his domestic
character which has induced me to consider him as the best entitled to
this striking resemblance of his said dear wife, and whereon I have
ever set a very high value.

“I also give and bequeath unto Mr. Hollingbery, an officer in the Royal
Navy, the sum of 20 guineas for mourning, most sincerely wishing him
health happiness and prosperity through life, trusting his behaviour
will continue to be such as to merit success and do credit to the
assistance I afforded him on his first setting out in the world, which
I reflect on with the most real satisfaction.”

So John Pybus looks upon the world with a benignant and beneficent eye,
happy in his family and his friends, in his life and in his death.




CHAPTER XII

THE SERVANT PROBLEM


    “O good old man! how well in thee appears
     The constant service of the antique world,
     When service sweat for duty, not for meed!
     Thou art not for the fashion of these times,
     Where none will sweat but for promotion,
     And having that, do choke their service up
     E’en with the having: it is not so with thee.”

Such are the reflections of Orlando upon the decay of service in “As
You Like It.” That ingratitude and incivility are not a monopoly of
to-day may be seen from such wills as those of Dr. Messenger Monsey
and of the Rt. Hon. Humphry Morice. The servant problem, indeed, often
forms a diverting feature of wills. And since in current wills we find
frequent instances of constancy and corresponding reward, doubtless the
lament over the “constant service of the antique world” is one among
many cases where the cry of _ætas parentum_ is erroneous or misleading.

In Hone’s “Table Book” is this memorandum: “The following memorial I
copied from a tablet, on the right hand side of the clergyman’s desk,
in the beautiful little church at Hornsey. The scarceness of similar
inscriptions makes this valuable.—S. T. L.

        “Erected to the memory of Mary Parsons, the diligent,
      faithful and affectionate servant in a family during a
      period of 57 years. She died on the 22nd day of November,
      1806, aged 85.

        “Also to the memory of Elizabeth Decker, the friend and
      companion of the above; who, after an exemplary service of
      47 years in the same family, died on the 2nd of February,
      1809, aged 75.

        “Their remains, by their mutual request, were interred in
      the same grave.”

But against such examples of a hundred years ago may be set wills like
those already mentioned. Dr. Monsey is characteristically vigorous
in speaking of his servant Nanney. “This she must take as a reward
for her impertinence, sauciness and unwilling service; she’s as proud
as the Devil can make her, as much of a prude as the best of you, as
self-conceited and pert and self-sufficient as the most flaunting
Duchess in the Kingdom.”

Among many, as has been seen, the Rt. Hon. Humphry Morice found only
one faithful to his trust: “and sorry I am to say he is the only
servant I ever had who seemed sensible of good treatment and did not
behave ungratefully.” If from an addition to his will made at Naples,
March 14, 1784, we may judge of his usual conduct, he must have
deserved gratitude and devotion, if any master ever did. “I appoint my
servant John Allen and my servant Richard Deale joint executors of this
my will and codicil, being confident I can depend upon them for the
taking care of my effects and of what I have, that they will dispose of
it as I order ’em by letter or otherwise.... I desire to be buried at
Naples if I die there, and in a leaden coffin, if such a thing is to be
had. Just before it is soldered, I request the surgeon in Lord Tylney’s
house or some other surgeon may take out my heart, or perform some
other operation to ascertain my being really dead. The five servants
I brought with me from England to have a complete suit of mourning. I
mean for ’em to continue in the house I inhabit ... till it is a proper
season for ’em to return to England, so as for ’em to avoid taking that
journey during the extremes of winter or summer, according to the time
I may happen to die. Their maintenance here, also the expenses of their
return to England [which he stipulates shall be by land] to be paid out
of my effects.”

It speaks much for his trustful nature that he associates with the
one servant found faithful in 1782 another in 1784, in spite of his
disappointment in human gratitude. This generous trait of his character
will again be exemplified.

Dr. Thomas Cheyney, in one of the numerous papers upon which comment
has been made, was another whose kindness was ill-rewarded. In a
codicil dated January 14, 1748, he says in language through which we
can see his disappointment and disgust: “Thomas Randall having chose to
leave my service not in the most grateful manner, after I had educated
him from his very distressed childhood, I hereby revoke all legacies
intended ... for him.”

M. Coquelin, the famous actor, left a large legacy for his servant
Gillet, “who has been the most honest and most devoted of servants.”
Handel’s will and codicils show how much his servants were in his
mind. Sir John Dolben, of Durham, Bart., D.D., says in his will, dated
May 22, 1751: “I give and bequeath to my faithful and affectionate
old servant Elizabeth Burlington all my wearing clothes and apparel
whatsoever, and I wish I was in circumstances to leave her a provision
for life suitable to the care she has taken of me during very many long
and sore distempers, but I think and hope my children will not let her
want under old age and infirmities.”

The Rt. Hon. Mary Countess Dowager of De la Warr, whose will reveals
a lovable and sentimental personality, was fortunate in her servants.
Dated July 24, 1783, it is addressed to Johnny her son: “My dear
Son, as I hourly feel my health decay, it reminds me how necessary
it is to make a few memorandums, which, from the knowledge I have of
the integrity of your heart, will (I am sensible) be as binding and
as strictly adhered to by you as a will strictly drawn up with the
greatest form.... Poor Elizabeth Hutchinson’s unwearied attentions to
me and your sister Charlotte during all our sickness cannot be forgot
by me. I desire she may have £30 and all my wearing apparel, and added
to these the best of characters. The rest of my servants mourning and
£10 each, having behaved very well in my service. _Adieu: jusqu’au
revoir._”

It is curious to observe the minute care with which high dignitaries
consider the claims of their servants. The Noble Robert Dunant, whose
will (already referred to), dated at Geneva August 12, 1768, is
translated from the French, is an example of this: “I, the underwritten
Counsellor of State, having first humbled myself before God and
implored the assistance of His good Spirit to conduct me wisely as well
in the present, as all the other acts of my life, have made and do make
my will in the following manner.... I give and bequeath to Elizabeth or
Isabeau Rambosson my servant, if she is in my service at the time of
my death, the bed she lays on with all its furniture both inward and
outward, three strikes of wheat with three good wheat sacks, twelve
kitchen table cloths at her choice, thirty livres to buy herself some
necessaries, thirty livres in mourning, ... in all three hundred livres
in money, four pairs of sheets for the use of her bed: the aforesaid
legacies free from the 10 per cent., and payable a month after my
decease. The long good and faithful services of the aforesaid Isabeau
ought to procure her moreover civility from my heirs.”

From the sixteenth century also an example may be taken. In the
thirteenth year of Charles II., Richard Lumley Knight Lord Viscount
Lumley writes: “I desire with all the earnestness I can that my heir
will put my house at Stansted in repair, if I shall not do it before
my death, and to make it his seat. And I hereby recommend such as
have been my ancient officers and servants to my house as persons fit
for his service, having found them faithful to me, and they as best
acquainted with the estate are best able for the managery thereof: and
principally ... Robert Carter, of whose fidelity and affection to me
and mine I have had more than ordinary experience.” An Adam, evidently,
of the old school!

There is a phrase which is perhaps something of a stock phrase in
wills, but shows that the servant in the seventeenth century was more
than a chattel. It occurs, for instance, in the will of John Donne—his
real will, not that fantastic one he made in verse. He made it “in
the fear of God, whose mercy I humbly beg and constantly rely upon
in Christ Jesus, and in perfect love and charity with all the world,
whose pardon I ask from the lowest of my servants to the highest of my
superiors.” His will reveals that tender beauty which often appears
in these documents. Some of its legacies and provisions are quoted
by Izaac Walton, who, however, omits the most touching of all, the
interest of £500 “for the maintenance of my dearly beloved mother, whom
it hath pleased God after a plentiful fortune in her former times to
bring in decay in her very old age.” But this is a digression.

Nancy Greensill, widow, of Brewood, Staffs., in her will dated January
4, 1786, remembered her servant, but not in a spirit so generous. She
begs her mother Susannah will accept her cowslip wine as a small token
of affection; she gives to her brother-in-law Francis Greensill her
plain dressing-table with the smallest swing looking-glass and her
preserves of all kinds, and to his wife Fanny all her best shoes “as
I think they will best fit her.” She begs her sister-in-law Elizabeth
“will accept my pink and black striped silk gown, one of my best
worked aprons and my ear-rings of all kinds.” But to her servant Sarah
Williams she gives “my old wearing apparel, my worst pair of stays, my
old brown cotton gown, my black stuff gown, my light striped chintz
gown, my black quilted petticoat, old green petticoat, my bed gowns,
my worst mourning cap, three plain muslin handkerchiefs, my common
shoes, some thread stockings and my black bonnet.” And Mary Myddelton,
who died in 1789, good as it was of her to remember her washerwoman at
all, seems to spoil the gift to her of £2 by adding “with the worst of
my things that my executrix may think proper to give.” Still, it is
worth noticing that even a daughter comes in for a similar gift. Sarah
Morgan, of Glamorgan, in 1802 desires her executor to give “all the bed
linen and table linen to my daughter Kate Williams; they are not worth
sending to London, so old and very bad.”

Such gifts seem to have been in the air, if the expression may be
condoned. Among the village characters with their little days and
doings in John Galt’s “Annals of the Parish,” is a “Miss Sabrina,”
who took up the school during the reign of the minister, the Rev. Mr.
Balwhidder, and, during the same pastorate, died (1800). Mr. Balwhidder
writes the account, the annals of the parish where he lived and worked;
and though a legacy might not be wholly unexpected, the form of it
certainly was surprising. “Miss Sabrina, who was always an oddity and
aping grandeur, it was found had made a will, leaving her gatherings
to her favourites, with all regular formality. To one she bequeathed a
gown, to another this, and a third that, and to me a pair of black silk
stockings. I was amazed when I heard this but judge what I felt, when
a pair of old marrowless stockings, darned in the heel, and not whole
enough in the legs to make a pair of mittens to Mrs. Balwhidder, were
delivered to me by her executor, Mr. Caption, the lawyer.” Really, we
can hardly believe it, even after the instances quoted.

But let this chapter close with the account of Sir Roger de Coverley’s
will as told by Edward Biscuit, his faithful butler, in the pages of
the old _Spectator_. “It being a very cold day when he made his will,
he left for mourning to every man in the parish a great frize coat,
and to every woman a black riding-hood. It was a most moving sight to
see him take leave of his poor servants, commending us all for our
fidelity, whilst we were not able to speak a word for weeping. As we
most of us are grown grey-headed in our dear master’s service, he has
left us pensions and legacies, which we may live very comfortably upon
the remaining part of our days.”




CHAPTER XIII

ANIMALS AND PETS


    “William de Coningsby
     Came out of Brittany,
     With his wife Tiffany
     And his maid Manfas
     And his dog Hardigras.”

A testator who spends careful thought upon his servants may not
unnaturally have a concern for the welfare of his animals and pets.
When Boswell notes Dr. Johnson’s “uncommon kindness to his servants,”
he proceeds immediately to speak of his fondness for animals under his
protection. “I never shall forget the indulgence with which he treated
Hodge, his cat; for whom he himself used to go out and buy oysters lest
the servants, having that trouble, should take a dislike to the poor
creature.”

Of this, Sir Humphry Morice is an excellent and a quaint example.
Besides the care shown for his servants, he thus provides for his
animals at home. “Nice. 10 October, 1728. Dear Sir, The trust I have
troubled you with in my will is this: you and Mr. Claxton, my other
trustee, ... are to receive £600 a year from my estates in Devon and
Cornwall to pay for the maintenance of the horses and dogs I leave
behind me, and for the expense of servants to look after them, besides
Will Bishop the groom. He is, I am persuaded, very honest and will not
let bills be brought in for any oats hay straw or tares more than have
really been had. As the horses die off the overplus of monies expended
on their account will increase, and it is to be paid to Mrs. Luther,
whom I have made my heir. Was she not circumstanced as she is I should
never have thought of taking this precaution as I have an implicit
confidence in her. She indeed desired annuities might be left to all
the animals in my will, but I thought it better to make my intention
known to you by a private letter as their being mentioned in my will
would perhaps be ridiculed after my death, and though I should be
ignorant of it and of course not care about it, yet the friends I leave
behind me might not like to hear it.... I hope the trust will not be a
troublesome one to you except just at first. Pray excuse it. When you
receive this I shall be no more, but at the time of writing it am, my
dear Sir, most sincerely yours—H. Morice.”

Other testators have no hesitation in embodying their humanitarian
or eccentric desires in the formal texture of a will. In 1828 a
testator named Garland bequeathed “to my monkey, my dear and amusing
Jacko, the sum of £10 sterling per annum, to be employed for his sole
and exclusive use and benefit; to my faithful dog Shock, and my
well-beloved cat Tibb, a pension of £5 sterling; and I desire that,
in case of the death of either of the three, the lapsed pension shall
pass to the other two, between whom it is to be equally divided. On the
death of all three the sum appropriated to this purpose shall become
the property of my daughter Gertrude, to whom I give this preference
among my children, because of the large family she has and the
difficulty she finds in bringing them up.”

Similar provisions are very common to-day. Gustav Saleman Oppert,
professor of Indian tongues, left 150 _Pfennige_ a day for the
maintenance of his cats Lottie and Peter. Dr. Bell Taylor, a Nottingham
oculist, directed his animals to be kept in comfort. They included
four horses, two of which were named Soldier Boy and Dancing Doll, an
Aberdeen terrier named Billie, a Persian cat called Fluff, and some
fowls. In the sixteenth century names were given to cattle as now they
are given to horses or household pets, and such names may profitably
be compared with modern equivalents. Richard Bayden, of Kent (1539),
left cattle called Ros, Thurst, Coppe, Pryme, Mowse, Calver, Skulle,
Gentyll, Bren, and Swallowe; surely a quaint and sweet decade of names.
Alblake, Brodehead, Byrkell, Defte, Dowglas, Flowrill, Gallande,
Gareland, Grenehorne, Lowley, Lyllye, Marrigold, Mother Like, Scubeld,
Setter, Sperehorne, Spinkeld, Taggeld, and Toppin are names of cattle
found in Yorkshire wills.

One of the conditions on which Richard is to inherit Timothy Dudgeon’s
estate in Shaw’s drama, “The Devil’s Disciple,” is, “that he shall be
a good friend to my old horse Jim.” “James shall live in clover,” says
the compliant legatee. Addison’s Sir Roger de Coverley “bequeathed
the fine white gelding, that he used to ride a-hunting upon, to his
chaplain, because he thought he would be kind to him.” Recently a
solicitor directed that his wife should on no account dispose of his
old pony Kruger, his mares Victoria and Jenny, or his dogs Major, Bell,
and Pharo, but when she should have no further use for them they should
be painlessly destroyed; and a lady left £1 a week for the maintenance
of her fox-terrier Rosie and her cockatoo. Another recent bequest of a
similar nature was £20 a year for the care and keep of each cat. The
testatrix begged her executors to see that her pets were properly cared
for, and directed that her horses should be provided for or mercifully
destroyed.

“I do not want her to be kept alive and miss my loving care,” said
a testatrix recently of a pet schipperke named Susie, and desired,
therefore, that she should be painlessly and expeditiously destroyed,
not sent to a dog’s home and put in a lethal chamber to be “frightened
by a lot of strangers.” This will was disputed in the court but its
validity upheld. Another testatrix directed that as soon as possible
after her death her pet cats Tiger and Darkey, her dog Nip, and her
horse Boy, should be humanely put to death by a veterinary surgeon
in the presence of her coachman, to whom she left the carcass of the
horse and £150. An eccentric testator often shows his eccentricity in
more than one provision of his will. A wealthy member of a Grantham
firm directed that his remains should be buried as quietly as possible
between those of his two brothers; that no females should attend his
funeral, stating that he made this provision to prevent unnecessary
pain to his wife; and that his old shooting pony Tommy should be shot
within fourteen days of his death and buried with its skin on, unless
his son should particularly desire to have the skin.

In old days, perhaps, testators were less unwilling for their animals
to pass to others. Ralph Bigod, of Seaton (1545), gives “to my nawnte
Warrayn the graie horse whiche I had of her, if he goo streght, and if
he goo not streyghte, then she to have the white amblinge mare whiche
I had of Maister Baites.” Thomas Brigham (1542) bequeaths his “great
hawke” to his brother-in-law; and John FitzThomas, of Bilton Park
(1541), “one cople of houndes and their lyomes [leashes], and one black
begill and his lyome and his coller” to “my lorde of Combrelande.”

John Coward, of Westpennard, Somerset, whose will is dated the 9th of
October of the 32nd year of Queen Elizabeth, gives therein to his
brother Thomas “my greate clocke nowe in my house goynge. To William
Watkynnes my little clocke ... nowe to be emended.” In a codicil, dated
the 9th of January of the 34th year of Elizabeth, he gives to Mary
Watkynnes “my best baye amblinge mare.” To his son Thomas Coward, “my
best geldinge yf he be not taken for a heryott. And unto Edward Coward
my sonne the other geldinge. Yf any of theise geldinges be taken for
an heryot, then my will and intent is that by my overseers a choice
be made of the fittest and best colte I have to make a geldinge when
they ar in theire pryme at sommer. I give allso to William Wilkynnes,
gentleman, (choice being first made for my sonne) one other colte to
make hym a geldinge at the pryme tyme in sommer, when they ar best
in shewe. Item. I give to Richard Siote, my guide, a good heiffer
yerelinge, a fustian dublett, my best white frise jerkin, a payer of
breches parte of the velvett being worne awaye with my sworde, and a
payer of russett stockinges. Item. I give unto Elizabeth Kitchen the
cloathe which she hathe in keepinge to make me a shirte.”

The details in these wills are so clear that one seems almost to be
present in the village when some local figure passes away. “In the name
of God, Amen. The seconde day of December in the yere of our Lorde
God a thousande fyve hundred and nynetie ... I Johan Macham, of the
parish of Corffe Mullen in the countie of Dorset, wydowe, of good and
perfect mynde and remembrance, (God be thanked,) do ordayne constitute
and make this my last will and testament in manner and forme following
... In primis, I give and bequeath unto the parish church of Shapwicke
five shillinges of lawfull money. Item. I give unto the poore people
of Corffe Mullen a sacke of wheate and a sacke of barley, halfe a
bushell a peece as farre as yt will goe. .. Item. I give unto John
Sampson halfe a bushell of wheate. Item. I give unto Mary Frampton, my
kynneswoman, my best cassocke and my best petticoate. Item. I give Mrs.
Phillipes a cowe. Item. I give and bequeath unto Mr. Thomas Phillipes
a weather sheepe. Item. I give unto Elizabeth Willis the daughter of
Thomas Willis deceased a gould ringe. Item. I give and bequeath unto
Elizabeth Lambe, the wife of Phillippe Lambe, all suche goodes and
stuffe as in my chamber that I now lye on whatsoever that there shalbe,
and also a worsted kirtle with silke bodyes.”

Bequests of animals for religious or kindred purposes were of commonest
occurrence, and sound very strangely in modern ears. Richard Browne,
of Kent, desired “to be buried in the church of Cowlyng in the mydyll
alley wher for I bequeth to the church a cow to be dryvyn to church
with me at my beryall.” (1530.) John Olney, of Weston, bequeathed in
1420 his “body to be beryed yn the chapele off our Lady yn the chyrch
off seynt Nicholas off Weston, and my beste best [beast] in the name
off principale” (offering). Custans Potkyn made her will in 1473,
“hoole and fresch,. . . in this maner. First I bequeath my sowle to
Almyghty God, to oure blessed Lady, and to all the Holy Company of
hevyn; my body to be beryed in Chalke Chirche. Also y bequethe to the
hy auter viii d. Also to the Rode lyght a Cowe with v Ewes. Also to
oure Lady of Pete’ iii Ewes. Also to the lyght of Seynt John Baptyste
iiii Ewes. Also to a Torche vi s. viii d. Also to Alson Potkyn iiii
quarter barly; Also a Cowe with iiii Shepe, iiii peyre shets parte of
the best, with a bord cloth of diapur, another of playne, iii Towels
of diapur with ii keverletts, iii blanketts, a mattras, a bolster,
iiii pelewes, vi Candelstikes. ..” Simond Gaunt, of the parish of St.
Margaret at Cliffe, in 1514, made request “that Richard Brown go to the
Holy Blood of Hayles, and he to have a mare for his labour and my best
gown, or else six and eightpence with the mare.”

Evidently in pre-Reformation days the animals of an establishment
were highly considered. And so they continued to be, though they were
not put to the same pious uses. Bartholomew Clarke, who died in 1590,
wrote in a codicil: “If my wife die during the minority of my children,
then Mr. Doctor Hone and my cousin Good to take the use of my house
at Clapham, of the gardens, orchards, fishponds, and twenty acres of
the land in the east fields worth £50 a year and better, to bring up
my children by a schoolmaster in the house, unless it shall please the
good Lady Buckhurst to take my daughter into her virtuous tuition;
and for a poor remembrance I give unto the said virtuous Lady my best
horse as the best thing I have in this world, and mine honourable Lord
to whom I have been ever bound my cabinet of cypress which I had out of
Germany.”

Lastly, it may be pardonable to quote in full the will of one Robert
Tubbe, on its own merits, though the bequest of a two-year-old ewe,
which brings it within the scope of this chapter, is but an incident in
the whole.

“In the name of God, Amen. On the twelfth day of December anno Christi
a thousand five hundred and ninety one Robert Tubbe, of the parish
of St. Niot in the county of Cornwall, gentleman, languishing in
extremity, and not able through the force of death assaulting him
to commit his testament and last will into writing, did express his
last will in manner following. First, I Richard Tubbe, feeling myself
extremely taken with sickness, and the same continually growing more
forcibly upon me, do express and declare my last will in this manner.
First, I commend my soul into the hands of Almighty God my Creator
steadfastly hoping through the merits of His Son Christ Jesus my
Saviour to rest among the blessed, and my body I leave to Christian
burial. And for the diligent attendance of all my servants about me in
this sudden time of my sickness, I do give and bequeath unto every one
of them a ewe hogget. All the rest of my goods and chattels I give and
bequeath unto Joan my wife whom I make and ordain sole executrix of
this my will, of intent to see the same performed, and my children to
be brought up in the fear and knowledge of God.”




CHAPTER XIV

THE WAY OF ALL FLESH


    “Omnes Eodem Cogimur.”
                    HORACE.

To be apprised of the approach of death, to have the leisure quietly to
retire, to make his will, and to retreat in peace, was the good fortune
of the famous Bill Blinder. “This here lantern, mum,” said Mr. Weller,
handing it to the housekeeper, “vunce belonged to the celebrated Bill
Blinder as is now at grass, as all on us vill be in our turns. Bill,
mum, wos the hostler as had charge o’ them two vell-known piebald
leaders that run in the Bristol fast coach, and would never go to no
other tune but a sutherly vind and a cloudy sky, which wos consekvently
played incessant, by the guard, wenever they wos on duty. He wos took
wery bad one arternoon, arter having been off his feed, and wery
shaky on his legs for some veeks; and he says to his mate, ‘Matey,’
he says, ‘I think I’m a-goin’ the wrong side o’ the post, and that my
foot’s wery near the bucket. Don’t say I ain’t,’ he says, ‘for I know
I am, and don’t let me be interrupted,’ he says, ‘for I’ve saved a
little money, and I’m a-goin’ into the stable to make my last will and
testymint.’ ‘I’ll take care as nobody interrupts,’ says his mate, ‘but
you on’y hold up your head, and shake your ears a bit, and you’re good
for twenty years to come.’ Bill Blinder makes him no answer, but he
goes avay into the stable, and there he soon artervards lays himself
down a’tween the two piebalds and dies—previously a writin’ outside the
corn-chest, ‘This is the last vill and testymint of Villiam Blinder.’
They wos nat’rally wery much amazed at this, and arter lookin’
among the litter, and up in the loft, and vere not, they opens the
corn-chest, and finds that he’d been and chalked his vill inside the
lid, so the lid was obligated to be took off the hinges, and sent up to
Doctors’ Commons to be proved, and under that ere wery instrument this
here lantern was passed to Tony Veller; vich circumstarnce mum, gives
it a wally in my eyes, and makes me rekvest, if you will be so kind, as
to take partickler care on it.”

Dean Cheyney, it will be remembered, made an addendum to his will,
“Now about to go to London, in case I never return.” It was a natural
precaution, but the Dean, as has been noticed, was haunted by the sense
of his mortality. More natural was it to make a will when about to go
to the wars. The earliest form of Roman will was, in fact, that made
_in procinctu_ or on the eve of battle. English wills have frequently
been made on the eve of an engagement or a war. So Ralph Gascoigne, of
Wheldale (1522), makes his will “intending to go to the King’s wars
when it shall please his grace,” and Walter Paslew, of Riddlesden
“intending by the grace of God, according to the King’s commandment, by
his letters to me directed shortly to take my journey toward the Scots
for the defence of the realm of England.” Captain James Ableson (1665)
declares his “true intent ... in case it should please God he should
be slain,” and James Rookes (1665) “being a single man and likely to
go through a deep engagement very suddenly, knowing not how it will
please God to deal with me.” So Captain Crawley, at a critical moment
in “Vanity Fair,” busies himself with his will.

Of peculiar interest is the will of Lieutenant-Colonel Frederick
Thomas, made on the eve of a duel: “London, 3rd September, 1783. I am
now called upon, and, by the rules of what is called honour, forced
into a personal interview of the most serious kind with Colonel Cosmo
Gordon: God only can know the event, and into His hands I commit
myself, conscious only of having done my duty. I therefore declare
this to be my last will and testament, and do hereby revoke all former
wills.... In the first place I commit my soul to Almighty God, in hopes
of His mercy and pardon for the irreligious step I now (in compliance
with the unwarrantable customs of a wicked world) feel myself under
the necessity of taking.” The will was proved eight days later. Lord
Viscount Falkland, on the other hand, made his will when mortally
wounded after a duel at Chalk Farm in 1809.

One of the most strange and beautiful wills in the pages of romance
is that of Cornelius Van Baerle, hero of “The Black Tulip.” There
wants barely an hour before he is to be led to execution, and Rosa,
the jailer’s daughter, is with him in the cell. “On this day, the 23rd
of August, 1672, being about to render, although innocent, my soul to
God on the scaffold, I bequeath to Rosa Gryphus the only worldly goods
which have remained to me of all that I have possessed in this world,
the rest having been confiscated; I bequeath, I say, to Rosa Gryphus
three bulbs, which I am convinced must produce, in the next May, the
Grand Black Tulip, for which a prize of a hundred thousand guilders has
been offered by the Haarlem Society, requesting that she may be paid
the same sum in my stead, as my sole heiress, under the only condition
of her marrying a respectable young man of about my age, who loves her,
and whom she loves, and of her giving the grand black tulip, which will
constitute a new species, the name of Rosa Barlœensis, that is to say,
her name and mine combined.

“So may God grant me mercy; and to her health and long life.”

But lovers of romance remember how the prisoner lived to fulfil the
conditions of his own will, and himself to marry his well-loved
legatee.

Wills are frequently made before an operation. A Birmingham doctor
recently opened his will thus: “This is the last will and testament of
me Alexander Bottle ... being about to undergo a surgical operation.”
Miss Ellen Morrison, who died in 1910, seventy-five years of age,
had made no will when illness seized her and an operation became
imperative. All through the night before the operation the disposal
of three millions of money was her care. But we are trespassing on a
subject which has already been illustrated.

The will of Dirk Jager, written in German, adduces in addition to the
prospect of a journey some general considerations. It is dated March 2,
1769. “In the Name of the most holy and glorious Trinity, Amen. Whereas
daily experience sufficiently sheweth that all men are subject to
temporal death, and thus also I who was born a mortal man in this world
being of nothing more certain than the expectation of death of which
the hour is not revealed to any, but every man ought to be continually
mindful of the time when Almighty God should call him out of the
world, I therefore, intending to travel from this place St. Petersburg
considering the various accidents that may happen and reflecting
seriously that all men are as nothing, being in health and of sound
mind, of my own free will without any compulsion and deliberately and
to avoid all disputes after my death, which is in the hands of the
Almighty, have made this my present testament of my last will for the
disposing of the worldly goods which God has graciously granted to me.”

Such general prefaces have almost entirely disappeared from modern
wills, but they were formerly a notable feature. It might be imagined
that some justification was needed if a man intended to make his will.
They are often beautiful, and sometimes quaint. Their primitive form is
simple. Henry Birchmore, who died in 1683, makes his will “considering
the frailty of this transitory life that there is nothing more certain
than that we must die and nothing more uncertain than the time and
hour when.” John Hall in 1739 begins thus: “I John Hall, now mariner
belonging to his Majesty’s ship _Princess Amelia_ riding at Portsmouth,
Captain John Hemington commander, and not knowing how it may please God
to deal with me on the seas or land, but considering the uncertainty
of this present transitory life, do make and declare these presents to
contain my last will and testament in manner and form following; that
is to say, first and principally I commend my soul unto the hands of
Almighty God hoping to be saved through the merit death passion and
resurrection of Jesus Christ my only Saviour, and my body to the earth
or sea as it shall please God.” And Margaret Greenaway (March 19,
1630) gives as her justification “being weak in body, but in perfect
mind and memory, laud and praise be to Almighty God, and knowing for
certain that I must die in a time uncertain and unknown, and that the
commandment of the Lord unto the king of Judæa was to put his house in
order is a mandate to me and to all people in general: therefore for
avoiding and prevention of all strife and dissension that may hereafter
in any wise arise for touching or concerning anything that is now mine
I think it my duty while I do enjoy the faculties of my soul to dispose
of those things that the Lord and giver of all things hath been pleased
to lend unto me.”

Of peculiar interest are the wills, written in French and recorded in
the original language, of refugees who escaped from France because
of their religion and formed a colony at Canterbury. In the crypt of
the Cathedral services are still held in French each Sunday. These
wills, with a pathos all their own, follow the common custom of such
prefaces. “Au Nom de Dieu, Amen. Moy Marie Michée, veuve de défunct
Jean Fouquet de la Cité de Canterbury, réfugiée pour la religion
réformée, considerant en moy mesme qu’il n’y a rien de plus certain
que la mort ny rien de plus incertain que l’heure dicelle ... ay
faict mon testament.” (Dated September 13, 1727, and proved on the
21st.) The following was dated in June, 1720, and proved in December,
1722. “Au Nom de Dieu, Amen. Connoissez que par devant moi Salaman
Gilles, greffier de la congregation des Wallons qui font leur demeure
en la cité de Canterbury, et notaire public pour les dits Wallons et
pour tous autres estrangers, établi à cette fin et juré par devant
messieurs le mayre et les juges de paix de laditte cité de Canterbury
en la province de Kent ... fut présent en sa personne honnête homme
Isaac Magnié lequel ... a declaré vouloir faire son testament et
établir sa dernière volonté en la manière qui suit.... Je Isaac Magnié,
demeurant in Northlane sur la parroisse de Westgate, estant par la
grace de Dieu dans mon aaje déjà avancée sain de corps et d’esprit,
mais estant bien persuadé que la mort est ordonnée a tous hommes et
que l’on ne scait ny l’heure ny le moment que l’on mourra, et voulant
laisser ma famille en paix et en concorde ensemble autant qu’il m’est
possible, ay résolu de faire mon testament en la manière suivante.”

These are all simple cases: but preambles far more elaborate are
frequently found. Thomas Penistone (dated August 20, and proved
September 5, 1601), after the fervent introduction which has been
quoted, thus continues: “Sithence nothing in this world is more certain
to man than death, nor anything more uncertain than the time of death,
after due consideration of the frailty of this fleeting life even in
the youngest and strongest persons, and that by the dying intestate of
divers upon vain hope of longer life great discord, yea utter ruin,
befalleth their children and posterities, in that in their life time
no distribution is made of their substance amongst their posterity,
but that the same is left to such as by force or deceit can obtain
the same, and considering in the time of sickness oftentimes a man’s
mind, which then ought only to be conversant in divine meditation,
is so grieved with the pang of his disease that he is disable (how
willing soever) in any good sort to remember and provide for wife
children and friends according to his ability: upon these motives I
Thomas Penistone, of Saint Margaret’s near the City of Rochester, in
the County of Kent, Esquire, aged three and thirty years or thereabout,
being in perfect mind and memory, (thanks be given to Almighty God
therefor,) do ordain and make this my last will and testament in manner
and form following.”

From the same year one other example may be given. “In the Name of God,
Amen. Forasmuch as the state of man hath no perpetual dwelling within
the carnal body, but is separable from it at the will and pleasure of
Almighty God at His time appointed, which time is always uncertain,
requisite expedient and most necessary it is that every Christian man
prepare and make himself ready at all times to leave the same, so
that whensoever he shall be called for he be not found sleeping and
unprepared: therefore the ninth day of August, A.D. 1601, and in the
three and fortieth year of the reign of our Sovereign Lady Elizabeth,
by the grace of God Queen of England France and Ireland, Defender
of the Faith, I Nicholas Scott, citizen and grocer of London, being
of perfect mind and memory, laud and praise be therefore given to
Almighty God, and intending by His grace to prepare and make myself
ready to go forward in the universal journey of all flesh, do make and
declare this my last will and testament concerning the disposition of
all and singular my goods chattels lands tenements and hereditaments
whatsoever.”

Upon this basis the changes are rung in will after will, and not the
least curious and elaborate pages of literature may be discovered in
this mode.




CHAPTER XV

BURIALS AND FUNERALS


    “It is a common use to entertain
     The knowledge of a great man by his train:
     How great’s the _dead man_ then? There’s none that be
     So backed with troops of _followers_ as he.”
                                                    QUARLES.

There is a tale told in Wales of a certain Sion Kent, who agreed with
the Devil to surrender to him body and soul whether he were buried
in or out of the Church. But, directing that his body should be laid
beneath the church wall, he evaded the compact. It is not often that
funeral directions have such eternal issues hanging upon them, but
frequently in wills they are given due or elaborate consideration.
“True it is,” says Fuller, “bodies flung in a bog will not stick there
at the day of judgment; cast into a wood, will find out the way;
thrown into a dungeon, will have free egress; left on the highway, are
still in the ready road to the resurrection. Yet seeing they are the
tabernacles of the soul, yea, the temples of the Holy Ghost, the Jews
justly began, the Christians commendably continue, the custom of their
solemn interment.”

Directions for the disposal of the body, and for the ceremony that
shall attend it, are of outstanding interest both for historical and
psychological reasons. As one peruses them there rise in the mind
innumerable thoughts and fancies of sad or humorous import. Every
phase of human nature is illustrated from pompous pride to lowliest
humility, from pious reverence to vulgar unconventionality, from love
of lamentation and display to hatred of mourning and show. Between the
hours of death and of burial seem to cluster many of man’s most quaint
ideas; here lies a harvest-ground for the student, and in the records
of wills rich treasures may be discovered.

Perhaps few scenes of pageantry will live in the memory more than
the funeral procession of Henry V., at Fulham, with its multitudes
of lights and figures solemnly moving through the dusk. Such a
reconstruction of the past, with its Catholic rites and ritual, its
appeal to religious emotion, illustrates the picturesque scenes and
ceremonies that lie behind the words of a will. Sometimes these
directions are given at great length and with lavish elaboration. But
not all can command magnificence in death, and the will of Henry VII.’s
tailor may be quoted as typical of the common sort.

“In the name of God, Amen. The IIIIth day of the month of March, the
year of our Lord God 1503, and the XIXth year of the reign of King
Henry VIIth, I George Lovekyn, citizen of London, and tailor to our
said sovereign lord the King, being whole of mind and in good memory,
thanked be Almighty Jesu, make ordain and dispose this my present
testament and last will in manner and form ensuing, that is to wit:
First I bequeath and commend my soul to Almighty God my Maker and
Saviour and to His blessed Mother, our Lady Saint Mary the Virgin, and
to Saint George the holy martyr, and to all the holy company of heaven,
and my body to be buried in the parish Church of St. Mary Wolnoth in
Lombard Street of London afore the font there under the chapel of St.
George by me there late made, that is to say in or by the burying place
of Jane my first wife which lieth there buried, on whom Jesu have
mercy. And I will that I have at my funeral XVI torches burning to
be borne and holden by poor men to bring me to my burying place. And
I will and desire if it conveniently may be that the four orders of
friars mendicant of London shall accompany my body to the said burying
place....”

It is said that St. Swithun, when he died in 862, on his death-bed
ordered his monks to inter him not in a stately shrine, but in a
“mean place outside the door, where the foot of the passer-by might
tread, and the rain water his grave.” To be beneath the feet of priest
or worshipper was not an uncommon wish, and probably, in many cases
at least, was a desire for remembrance as much as, or more than, a
symbol of humility. Thus Gilbert Carleton, Vicar of Farningham in
1503, wishes “to be buried in the Parish Church of Farningham in
one of two places as can be thought most convenient by my friends,
either before the high altar in the chancel there, so that my feet
may be under the priest’s feet standing at mass, or else under the
step coming in at the Church door, so that every creature coming in at
the same door may tread upon my burial.” Similarly Richard-sans-Peur,
Duke of Normandy: “Je veulx estre enseveli devant l’huys de l’église,
afin d’estre conculqué de tous les entrans dans l’église.” Another
favourite place is that chosen by Agnes Spicer (1410): “My body to be
buried in the Church of St. Austin’s under the bell ropes.” So Ludovic
Stuart, Lord of Aubigny (1665), desired his “corpse to be buried and
interred without opening it in the Church of the Reverend Fathers the
Carthusians in this City of Paris just under the cord wherewith they
ring the bell for the divine service, without any pomp, ceremonies,
and hanging up of mourning tapestries in the Church; and that upon his
grave there be laid a stone of just proportion, whereon they will write
his name and quality of Great Almoner without adding anything else.”

Opinion hostile to elaborate funerals or tombs is frequently found,
in Catholic as well as in Protestant wills. John Coraunt, in 1403,
makes provision for his burial thus: “In the Name of God, Amen. In the
XIXth day in the month of April in the year of our Lord 1403, I John
Coraunt, in my good mind and whole, make my testament in this manner.
First I bequeath my soul to Almighty God, and my body to the earth to
be buried where the will is of my two sons William and John. Also my
will is to have about me at my burying no more wax than one taper at
the head and another at the feet, at the ordinance of my aforesaid
sons. Also I bequeath VI yards of black russet cloth lying on me my
burying time to be given to poor needy folk, and all other doings about
my interment and mind I will it be done at once simply and without
pride, within two days after my dying by the ordinance of my sons.”
Richard Broke, of Greenwich (1522), desired “no pomp of torches nor
great ringing of bells, but that there be bread and ale at the dirige,
to make the neighbours and poor people for to drink.”

Bartholomew Reed, Knight, alderman, citizen, and goldsmith of the
City of London, in the twenty-first year of King Henry VII., gives
directions that seem elaborate, but specially forbids excessive
commemoration of his death. He gives his body “to be buried within
the cloister of the Charterhouse of London, _i.e._ in the side of the
cloister there between two arches or moynells of stone directly against
the door leading or opening out of the choir there into the said
cloister, so as I may be the better in remembrance of the holy brethren
of the place there in their prayers.... And I will that mine executors
do make a tomb of stone of the value and cost of XX l, with the image
of the Trinity and of a dead corpse kneeling thereunto.... I will
that mine executors do ordain XX comely torches of wax to burn at the
time of mine exequies, and to be holden about my corpse by poor men.
And on that four comely tapers of wax to be holden by four poor men
in likewise ... I will that in nowise mine executors keep any solemn
month’s mind in such manner as oftentimes it is used, but that which
shall be done for me, I will it be done at my burying, and that without
any hault or sumptuous manner of charge to be done.”

Sir John Monson, Knight of the Bath and Baronet (proved January 19,
1683, S.A.), desired a “burial only not a funeral,” a desire elsewhere
echoed with much variety of phrase and vigour. He himself, in the
same spirit, gives these explicit directions: “If I shall die here
at Broxborne before I go to Burton, (which I have reason to expect,
my age and infirmities are so great,) my will is that my body be
directly carried to South Carlton there to be buried according to the
established form of our Church, with a sermon for the benefit of the
living, (if it be thought fit), and that I may avoid all ostentation
and respect decency only. My further desire is that my corpse may be
carried away from my house at Broxborne where I now am about daylight
in some morning, without troubling any friends to accompany my hearse,
and that there may be only my own coach and one more to go with it from
hence to Carlton, where I desire to be laid in peace with many of my
relations.”

Thomas Hobbes, of Gray’s Inn (dated 1631), wished “to be interred in
the parish Church of Streatham ... utterly forbidding at my funeral any
solemnities of heraldry, any feasting or banqueting, any multitude of
formal mourning, only willing donment black for my child and family, my
nephews and niece Laurence and my executors, and a servant for each of
them, and one to my cousin Thomas Brooke. And that the company present
at my funeral shall have only bread and wine for their refreshment.”

Bread and wine, or some equivalent, are commonly provided for friends
or for the poor. Thomas Lightfoot (1559) ordered every person at the
day of his burial to have one farthing loaf; John Sporett (1559),
that his neighbours should have bread and ale; John Thorpe (1571),
that “all honest folks that goes to the church with me have their
dinners.” Richard Plumpton, of York (1544), went further, giving to
William Plumpton and his children two hogs-heads of wine “to make merry
withal.” Elizabeth Stow (1568), whose last unhappy hours have been
narrated, bequeathed ten shillings “for my children and friends to
drink withal after my burial.” And a recent Vicar of St. Mary, Ilford,
directed that his executors and other mourners were to be entertained,
“complete and thorough hospitality” extended to them, and their
travelling expenses paid.

Bishop Sanderson has been quoted for a loving tribute to his wife; his
will gives as good an instance of the shrinking from pompous funerals
as could be found in the seventeenth century. “As for my corruptible
body, I bequeath it to the earth whence it was taken, to be decently
buried in the Parish Church of Buckden, towards the upper end of the
Chancel, upon the second, or at the furthest the third day after my
decease; and that with as little noise, pomp and charge as may be,
without the invitation of any person how near soever related unto me,
other than the inhabitants of Buckden; without the unnecessary expense
of escutcheon, gloves, ribbon, etc., and without any blacks to be hung
anywhere in or about the house or Church, other than a pulpit cloth, a
hearse-cloth, and a mourning gown for the preacher; whereof the former,
after my body shall be interred, to be given to the preacher of the
funeral sermon, and the latter to the Curate of the Parish for the time
being. And my will further is that the funeral sermon be preached by my
own household Chaplain, containing some wholesome discourse concerning
mortality, the resurrection of the dead, and the last judgment; and
that he shall have for his pains £5, upon condition that he speak
nothing at all concerning my person, either good or ill, other than I
myself shall direct; only signifying to the auditory that it was my
express will to have it so. And it is my will that no costly monument
be erected for my memory, but only a fair flat marble stone to be laid
over me.... This manner of burial, although I cannot but foresee it
will prove unsatisfactory to sundry my nearest friends and relations,
and be apt to be censured by others, as an evidence of my too much
parsimony and narrowness of mind, as being altogether unusual, and
not according to the mode of these times: yet it is agreeable to the
sense of my heart, and I do very much desire my Will may be carefully
observed herein, hoping it may become exemplary to some or other:
at least, however, testifying at my death—what I have so often and
earnestly professed in my lifetime—my utter dislike of the flatteries
commonly used in funeral sermons, and of the vast expenses otherwise
laid out in funeral solemnities and entertainments, with very little
benefit to any; which if bestowed in pious and charitable works, might
redound to the public or private benefit of many persons.”

Close upon a hundred years later (August 18, 1760), another Bishop, the
Right Rev. Benjamin Lord Bishop of Winchester, in English less chaste
but with remarkable similarity of thought, wrote out his desires for
his interment. “There is hardly anything more unworthy of a man, or a
Christian, than to have a great concern or deliberation about the place
and manner of his funeral. I know of but one reason that can justify
it, and that is because it may take off all dispute and difference
which may arise, and determine it so as that the executors can have
no trouble or blame. I once had a fixed design to order my burial at
Streatham Church in Surrey, where I passed many agreeable years of
my life, in a vault to be built by me which might hold all my nearest
and dearest relations. But when I had thus fully resolved, and was
going to begin the work in the plainest manner, I found myself totally
disappointed; for when I came to enquire of the proper officers of the
parish where I had lived long and where I had buried my first wife, I
found something true which I did not before think to be so; and that in
short it was in vain to enquire about any particular coffin after such
a certain number of years have passed from the time of the funeral. I
therefore now, without any further thought about what is of so little
consequence, order and appoint, solely to take off all uneasiness
from my executor, that my burial shall be in the Cathedral Church of
Winchester, in as private a manner as decency will permit, in such part
or place as the Rev. the Dean and the majority of the Chapter shall
allow of, and judge proper, for the making one grave for this purpose
only. I desire that no unnecessary trouble may be given to any persons
towards their attendance, but that only what has been usual on such
occasions may be paid. I desire and hope that neither my executor nor
any near relation will attend: nor indeed any person but the Dean and
Prebendaries if he or any of that body happen on any other account to
be at Winchester at that time, and not otherwise. These may be followed
at the funeral by those servants of mine who may attend the corpse
from Chelsea.... My will also is, that the inscription I have left,
containing only facts relating to myself, may be engraved on a piece of
marble, with very little ornament about it, and be fixed to a pillar,
the nearest to the grave, without any addition of any character or any
word or figure but to fill up the vacancies left.”

In a century of melancholy monuments, the century of “The Grave” and
“Night Thoughts,” the desire for simplicity is frequently expressed:
there seems to be a common reaction against pomposity and show. “I
desire to be decently and privately buried in the Churchyard of the
parish of Wargrave without any funeral pomp or vain idle expense,”
says Simeon Rockall (1789), and Pierce Galliard, of Edmonton and
Southampton, “I will and desire that my body may be buried decently and
privately without pomp or show and with as little expense as possible,
either in the parish Church where I shall die or at Edmonton with my
ancestors and family as shall be agreeable to my beloved wife and
executrix.” These are but random instances.

But sometimes the tones are raised by appeal to reason or to ridicule.
Thus Rev. Obadiah Hughes (1751) says: “I order that my body be conveyed
in a decent but not pompous manner, (for pomp and show abate the
solemnity of death, and often prevent those serious impressions which
a funeral might make upon the minds of attendants and spectators,)
to the parish Church of St. Martin Outwich in the City of London,
and be there deposited as near as may be to the precious remains of
my late dear wife, there to rest and sleep together until the great
resurrection day.” And Samuel Gillam, whose will was proved on August
13, 1793, thus breaks out: “Whereas I think it a very great absurdity
and the most egregious folly to make the deaths and burials of persons
to be an occasion of pomp and show, I do hereby order and desire my
funeral may be performed in such manner as may be barely decent, but
no more, and that the expense thereof do not exceed including the
parochial fees £20, and that William Brent do undertake the same. I
give unto the said William Brent as a legacy £10. I verily believe he
is an honest man.”

James Clegg (dated April 13, 1781), after giving a sum to Mrs.
Tommasa Jackson to employ it in giving a dinner to herself and his
most intimate friends, within a month of his death, “sooner or later
according as her tears may have subsided,” proceeds: “With regard to my
burial my executors shall do as they please: all I recommend is not to
be lain under ground alive, I mean that they keep me after my death for
two days in some place before burial, paying those for their trouble
who may have me in charge—will you do it? It being customary to honour
the dead with monuments and pompous tombs, here I intend to interfere,
and give orders that for me no greater expense be made than 100 dollars
and for an inscription these few words: ‘Here lies James Clegg,’ which
to me appears sufficient: every reader may say what more he thinks
fit.” But time—perhaps success—seems somewhat to have relaxed his
resolution, for by a codicil dated May 4, 1784, he says: “In case of
my decease there shall be called an honourable meeting at which all my
countrymen and all the merchants shall be invited, and to my countrymen
scarves shall be given, and that a decent tomb shall be made for me at
the expense of from two to three hundred dollars, and on the same this
inscription shall be written: ‘The monument of James Clegg anno ...’”

“And lastly, to close all,” wrote Gilbert White, of Selborne, “I do
desire that I may be buried in the Parish Church of Selborne aforesaid
in as plain and private a way as possible, without any pall bearers or
parade, and that six honest day-labouring men (respect being had to
such as have bred up large families) may bear me to my grave, to whom I
appoint the sum of ten shillings each for their trouble.”

Coming to recent days it would be easy to illustrate the desire for
simplicity in death, from highest to lowest, but instances may be seen
in the papers from day to day. Leopold, King of the Belgians, whose
will was dated November 20, 1907, said: “I wish to be buried early in
the morning, without any pomp whatsoever. Apart from my nephew Albert
and my household, I forbid anyone to follow my remains.” The late Earl
of Leicester, when he died the “Father” of the House of Lords, desired
that his body “be buried in the churchyard at Holkham, enclosed in
a single plain deal coffin only, without any brasses or ornament
whatever; and I request my executors not to provide any gloves or
hatbands, or to allow any other foolish expenditure at my funeral.”

A late Bishop Suffragan of Shrewsbury directed that he should be
buried in the simplest possible manner, in an earthen grave which was
to be covered with a low plinth bearing the words, “Not worthy of the
least of all the mercies which Thou hast shewed unto Thy servant,” and
earnestly entreated that no attempt should be made to raise any public
memorial in his honour. Father Tyrrell, in a document dated January 1,
1909, wished nothing to be written on his grave except his name and the
statement that he was a Catholic priest, with the addition only of the
emblem of the Chalice and the Host.

Less simple in the desire for simplicity were the instructions of a
solicitor, who directed that his remains should be cremated and the
ashes scattered in some plantation for restoration to the world which
he had “found so delightful”; that his funeral should be conducted in
the most unostentatious, private, and, indeed, secret manner, without
advertisement or invitations to attend, and that no gravestone should
be erected.

At the particular desire of Edward Nokes, a miser of Hornchurch,
whose niggardliness was extended to his funeral arrangements, none
who followed him to the grave was in mourning, but each follower
appeared in striking costume and the undertaker in blue coat and
scarlet waistcoat. Such is the lamentable antithesis of a desire which
is sometimes expressed, and with which it is easy to sympathise, that
no black garments shall be worn. It is a desire which is, perhaps,
increasingly common, though in the seventeenth century there are
such conspicuous passages as Jeremy Taylor’s protest against undue
lamentation and Bacon’s Essay “Of Death.” Sir John Monson (who is
referred to on p. 202) makes it his last request that his wife and
relations will not think that a loss to them which will be so great
an improvement of his joy and happiness, and not make his crown their
cross, but enjoy themselves and those earthly comforts God shall still
bless them with in an holy submission and cheerfulness. Perhaps the
ideal method in this question, difficult because of prejudice and
custom, was attained by Christina Rossetti, who, at her grandmother’s
death, was without black clothes, but wrote that she had nevertheless
“managed to put on nothing contrary to mourning.”

Recently a testatrix desired her body to be buried in quicklime in an
ordinary grave, not a walled grave or a vault, and directed especially
that no mourning should be worn and that the funeral service should
be as cheerful as possible: another that her children should wear as
little black as possible, and not shut themselves up, but go out among
friends and to places of amusement. “I am not afraid of them forgetting
me, but I want them to be happy.”

“Let me be placed in my coffin,” wrote an artist in Paris, “as quickly
as possible after my death, and let nobody outside the household be
admitted to my death chamber before I am placed in the coffin. In a
word I do not wish anybody to attend through curiosity to see how I
look. Let no portrait or photograph be made of my corpse, and let me be
buried in the shortest time possible. And do not weep for me. I have
lived a life happy enough; the aim of my life was my painting, and I
gave all of which I was capable. I might have lived another twenty
years, but should not have progressed any more, so what would have
been the good? And how content I should be if no one wears the marks
of mourning. I always had a horror of this show, so if you cannot do
otherwise, then wear the least of it possible.”

Thought and care for those who are to “have the pleasure of surviving”
add here and there pathetic touches. Mary Horne in 1784 wrote an
informal will, of which this is the dominant note. “My dear Sister,
being very desirous of giving you as little trouble at my death as
possible shall make no will, being well assured you’ll strictly observe
and comply with this my last request, which is that I may be decently
interred according to the enclosed directions.... My desire is that
I may be kept as long as possible before I am buried, and to lay as
near my dear father and mother in the parish church of Swindon as
conveniently to be done, and if not attended with much trouble. I would
have no shroud but combed wool: to be carried by six poor men of the
town, and to each half a guinea given and a strong pair of gloves: the
pall flung over me which belongs to the clerk, and no one invited to
the funeral, but a pair of the best kid gloves sent to all in the town
who I visited.... To those who have the trouble of laying me out and
being in the room with me after I am dead a guinea to each and a good
pair of gloves.”

As this was dated September 29, 1784, and proved on October 6th, the
good lady must have written it within a day or two or an hour or two
of death: it is legitimate to believe that she was as loath to give
trouble in her life as after death, and that “all in the town whom she
visited” were her mourners.

Mary Horne, it will be noticed, wished to be kept as long as possible
before her burial. She does not give a reason, but it was presumably
to lessen the risk of premature burial, the possibility of which
haunts many minds. Seven years before her death Dr. William Hawes had
published his “Address on Premature Death, and Premature Interment,”
and still to-day the subject is one of importance, as the Society for
the Prevention of Premature Burial can testify. Recently a testator
expressed a wish either to be cremated or that his heart should be
pierced, as “I feel assured that many persons are buried alive.” Now
and then sensational stories appear, as of rappings in a coffin or
of the revival of one about to be interred. “All I recommend,” said
James Clegg, “is not to be lain under ground alive,” and what he
recommends is often anxiously striven against. Such efforts were made
by Ann West (ob. 1803) who once was nearly buried alive, by directing
that she should be buried in a coffin without a lid, and that a hole
should be left in the brickwork of her vault. It was even said that she
bequeathed her fortune to a servant on condition that he should place
bread and water on her coffin for a year in case she should revive and
need them. But perhaps all was not well at last, for her ghost was said
to haunt the neighbourhood.

A similar tale is told of a Manchester lady, a Miss Bexwick or Beswick,
who died about the middle of the eighteenth century, and devised an
estate to her doctor and others, on condition that the doctor paid
her a morning visit for twelve months after her death. To fulfil the
conditions it was necessary to embalm her body, and the doctor resided
in the house to pay the mummy his daily call.

Horatio Mucklow, of Highbury (ob. July 27, 1816), bequeathed a legacy
to Powell the parish clerk, on condition that he would see his head
severed from his body previous to burial, and Thomas Trigge, of St.
George, Southwark (will dated February 24, 1755, and proved November
25, 1784), directed that before he was shut up in his coffin a surgeon
should give him such a wound as would prove immediately fatal were he
alive. Such drastic methods are not uncommon to-day. The late Lord
Burton wrote: “I desire that before my body be placed in the coffin
the spine and spinal marrow of the neck shall be completely severed
by a competent surgeon and the heart removed and placed in a separate
vessel, to be enclosed in the coffin,” and presumably the risk of
premature burial was in his mind. “I have a great horror of being
buried alive,” wrote a lady in her will, “therefore I wish my finger to
be cut,” and she bequeathed £10 to the doctor performing such service.
Another ordered a doctor to “thrust a dagger through my heart three
times to make sure I am dead.” Better thus than to be buried alive:
such a stuffy death, as Yum-Yum says in “The Mikado.”

Dorcas Hutchinson, of St. Anne, Soho (will proved June 3, 1761), was
content with a less drastic method. “I mean by my desire above written
not to be enclosed in any coffin whatever within seven days after my
decease; that my corpse be laid upon a bed during that time, and may
not be put into any covered coffin until the eighth day. My will is
that Edward Havel my present servant may take care that the above
request is literally complied with, and for that purpose may stay in
the house till I am buried, and upon his so doing I do bequeath him the
sum of £50.”

For such a method there is much to be said, if after apparent death a
prolongation of life be desired, but the method is unfortunately not
conclusive. “Everybody has heard,” writes John Timbs, “of the lady
who was buried, being supposed dead, and who bearing with her to the
tomb, on her finger, a ring of rare price, this was the means of her
being rescued from her charnel prison-house. A butler in the family of
the lady, having his cupidity excited, entered the vault at midnight
in order to possess himself of the ring, and in removing it from the
finger the body was restored to consciousness and made her way in her
grave-clothes to her mansion. She lived many years afterwards before
she was finally consigned to the vault.”

On Saturday, October 29, 1808, Elizabeth Emma Thomas was buried at
Islington, and on Monday this inscription was raised:—

                  “In Memory Of
            Mrs. Elizabeth Emma Thomas
          Who died the 28th October, 1808,
                   Aged 27 years.

    She had no fault save what travellers give the moon:
    Her light was lovely, but she died too soon.”

Suspicion was aroused from the rapidity of her burial, the grave
opened, and the body removed into the church for inspection. Suspicion
seemed justified when a large wire pin was found thrust through her
left side and fixed in her heart. But it appeared from the evidence
that this was done at her own desire, to prevent the possibility of
being buried alive, and the jury returned a verdict accordingly: “Died
by the visitation of God.”

But the preceding is a digression on the way to simplicity. With such
an expression as “I commit ... my body to the deep or any convenient
place, it’s immaterial where,” we reach down to the minimum, and must
ascend again. “To them,” says Jeremy Taylor, “it is all one, whether
they be carried forth upon a chariot or a wooden bier; whether they
rot in the air or on the earth; whether they be devoured by fishes or
by worms, by birds or by sepulchral dogs, by water or by fire, or by
delay”; but man is often in nothing so eccentric as in his desires for
the disposal of his remains, or in the accompaniments and accoutrements
he asks for his obsequies.

The meanings of these desires are not seldom hid, and each may
conjecture for himself the motive of the deceased. Thus Thomas Fuller
says of Catharine of Aragon: “She was buried in the abbey-church
of Peterborough, under a hearse of black say; probably by her own
appointment, that she might be plain when dead, who neglected bravery
of clothes when living.” A vain woman, on the other hand, desired
according to an old Welsh tale to be buried in her ball-dress, and her
request was not denied; but her soul was hunted by the spirit-hounds,
who pursue the objects of their malice. It is difficult to believe that
anything but eccentricity lay behind the wishes of one who was recently
buried at Barton-on-Humber, “in his best suit of clothes and brown
boots, cane in hand and cap on head, watch in fob with chain attached,
and with a few coins in his pockets.”

Again, a woman wishes to be buried in the clothes she shall be wearing
at the time of her death, and what might lie behind this desire is
suggested by the romance of Mrs. Fitzherbert and George IV. It was in
a will that he acknowledged her as his true wife, and the romance was
recalled when he commanded the Duke of Wellington to see that he was
buried in the clothes which he wore at death, and that nothing should
be taken from him. The King, it was discovered, had piously worn a
miniature of the woman he had loved, and by his command he secured that
the portrait should be buried with him.

John Hyacinth de Magelhaens, buried February 13, 1790, desired that
“where the tree fell it might lie.” No doubt some sentiment or
tradition would explain many quaint requests. A recent writer spins a
little tale to explain a certain sentimental dying injunction “that
there should be placed in his hands and buried with him a rosebud
which will be found with him whenever or wherever he dies.” The reader
of Jules Sandeau’s tale “Un Héritage,” soon discovers the reason for
the last injunction in the will of Count Sigismond St. Hildesheim.
“Je joins au présent testament un air tyrolien; je désire que cet air
soit gravé sur ma tombe et me serve d’épitaphe.” On many such desires,
however, it is curious to speculate.

Alice Suckling in 1632 bequeathed her body to the earth, dust to dust,
therein to be buried in the night. Susan Hornesby, of Horton, in
Kent, desired “to be buried in linen, in one of them sheets that was
my mother’s ... and my three maiden sisters to bury me, and I desire
a small funeral.” (Proved January 16, 1694.) Mary Jacob, spinster, in
1783 desired “a black coffin with white nails and white plate, my body
to be wrapped in a piece of flannel, and a crape cap, and what hat
bands and gloves be given I desire it should be black.” Sarah Jennings,
widow, in the same year makes more elaborate arrangements. “My body
I recommend to the earth to be buried in decent Christian burial in
manner and form following by my executor, nothing doubting but at the
general resurrection I shall receive the same again by the mighty power
of God. First I order my coffin to be lined with the lining of my silk
petticoat, the coffin to be covered with black cloth with three rows
of nails. When the bell tolls the second time two porters to be set
at the door with hat bands and gloves, and I further order to be laid
by my brother Richard Sutton with a grave stone to cover us both. The
under-bearers and pall-bearers to have hat bands and gloves, twenty
widows to have one shilling apiece to be paid the day after the burial,
and half a guinea for ringing a mourning peal. No bread nor biscuits to
be given, but only wine.... And I do further order that I be took down
to William Pywell’s house as soon as put in my coffin, from thence to
proceed to Church, and I do further order that neither Benjamin Sutton
nor William Oldershaw and his wife shall attend my funeral.”

It is strange how minutely these women contemplate their dissolution.
Jane Carpenter, spinster, by her will dated April 17, 1789, gave the
following directions. “First, I will to be kept a week after my decease
before my burial, which I will to be at Oxford in the churchyard next
to All Souls College in the parish of St. Mary’s, as near as may be
to the chancel window; also I desire that my funeral be in the manner
following: a strong coffin covered with black and everything good that
is wanting or necessary, a hearse and four horses and a coach and
four horses; the minister of the parish and the clerk I give a black
silk hatband and gloves each; it is my desire to have nothing white,
but everything black.... I will and bequeath to Mr. Richard Brook of
Tidington ... smith and farmer £15 15s., and it is my desire that he
shall attend my funeral; a letter directed to him at the sign of the
Three Pigeons near Thame ... will come safe to hand.”

In the obituary of the _Gentleman’s Magazine_ for 1788 is this notice:
“At his apartments at Chelsea College, in his 95th year, Messenger
Mounsey, M.D. For a considerable time he was family physician to the
late Earl of Godolphin, and physician to Chelsea College. His character
and humour bore a striking resemblance to that of the celebrated Dean
Swift. By his will he has directed that his body shall not suffer any
funeral ceremony, but undergo dissection; after which the ‘remainder
of his carcase’ (to use his own expression) ‘may be put into a hole,
or crammed into a box with holes, and thrown into the Thames,’ at the
pleasure of the surgeon. The surgeon to whom he has assigned this
charge is Mr. Forster, of Union-Court, Broad Street. In pursuance of
the Doctor’s singular will, Mr. Forster has since given a discourse
in the theatre of Guy’s Hospital to the medical students and a
considerable number of intelligent visitors, on the dissection of the
body.... Mr. Forster ... vindicated the Doctor from all affectation,
vanity, or whim, in having ordered his body for dissection and
prohibited all funeral ceremony, stating that whatever of singularity
might appear in his will was resolvable merely into a zeal for
knowledge, and a desire of benefiting mankind, as he conceived that a
dissection of his body would lead to the illustration of much useful
truth. He mentioned also the philosophic contempt in which the Doctor
held all funeral pomp, and every species of unnecessary form.”

Messenger Monsey’s will has been quoted in these pages more than once,
and is of interest in many ways; but, as proved, it does not contain
this strange provision for the disposal of his body after dissection.
As to post-mortem examination, Monsey is not unique. Jean de Labadie,
that strange and spiritual figure, stated in his last testament that if
such an examination of his body should be thought useful to others he
willingly allowed it (1674). “Lastly, I testify that I, as I belong to
God and owe myself entirely to Him, give myself without reserve into
His keeping, and to my brethren and sisters who are together with me
members of this Community I give my body, that they may do with it as
they think fit, even if they but attend to its simple burial according
to our custom. It may be that my body, in which I have suffered
great physical pain (which is not uncommon in those who have devoted
themselves to the work of the soul and spirit), may be usefully opened
and examined, and that some lessons may be drawn from it advantageous
to the prolongation of other lives. But as it signifies very little
about the body, which returns to dust when the spirit returns to God,
I surrender my soul heartily to my God, giving it back like a drop of
water to its source, and rest confident in Him, praying God my origin
and ocean, that He will take me into Himself and engulf me eternally
in the divine abyss of His Being. I would say more of this if I had
strength to go on writing, but this word will suffice. I am united to
God and one with the Saints in God; this unison is all, and it is all
to me.” And the same Bishop of Winchester who is quoted above said
in a codicil: “It is my express desire that my body may be opened so
far as to see whether any appearance in it may be of use to my fellow
creatures: which I hope Mr. Hawkins will perform and judge of. December
1st, 1759.”

In the will of Florence Nightingale is a clause peculiarly apt for this
chapter. “I give my body for dissection or post-mortem examination for
the purposes of medical science, and I request that the directions
about my funeral given by me to my uncle, the late Samuel Smith, be
observed. My original request was that no memorial whatever should mark
the place where lies my ‘mortal coil.’ I much desire this, but, should
the expression of such wish render invalid my other wishes, I limit
myself to the above mentioned directions, praying that my body may be
carried to the nearest convenient burial ground, accompanied by not
more than two persons, without trappings, and that a simple cross with
only my initials, date of birth and of death, mark the spot.”

It is said that in early life Jeremy Bentham determined to leave his
body for dissection, and in 1769, at the age of twenty-two, bequeathed
it for that purpose: “This my will and general request I make, not out
of affectation of singularity, but to the intent and with the desire
that mankind may reap some small benefit in and by my decease, having
hitherto had small opportunities to contribute thereto while living.”
As a matter of fact, directions given by will as to the disposition of
the body are invalid, but by the Anatomy Act, 1832, certain interesting
provisions are laid down. The executor may permit the body of the
deceased to undergo anatomical examination, unless he has expressed his
desire in writing, or verbally in the presence of two or more witnesses
during the illness whereof he died, that such examination might not be
held, or unless the surviving spouse or any relative shall require the
body to be interred without examination.

On the other hand, if any person has directed in writing, or verbally
as above, that an anatomical examination shall be held, his direction
is to be carried out, unless the surviving spouse or a relative require
the body to be interred without such examination.

The desire that there should be placed in the coffin letters written
to the testator by his wife before their marriage is intelligible, and
the request was made recently in a minister’s will. A contemporary
record of the death in 1788 of Frances Marchioness Dowager of Tweeddale
makes much of such tender provisions. “She lived a great example of
prudence and penurious economy, and in her death gave testimony of the
goodness of her heart, united with wisdom, in the legacies and orders
respecting her own funeral, and her surviving relatives and friends.
An instance of conjugal affection, rarely to be found in the life and
death of great personages, is more fully evinced by her living 26 years
a dowager, ordering her burial with her wedding-ring on her finger, and
the letters of her dear Lord to be put into the coffin with her, and to
be laid as near as possible to her deceased husband.”

Unintelligible, however, to any not initiated into the mysteries of
testators’ minds are some of these directions or desires:—

        “After my decease, I desire that a competent and
      trustworthy doctor of medicine shall thoroughly satisfy
      himself that life is absolutely extinct. My carcase is to
      be cremated, and the residuum thereof deposited in two
      metal urns, numbered respectively 1 and 2. On the ashes in
      No. 1 are to be placed a packet, which will be found on
      my desk, and my miniature portrait scarf-pin, and on the
      ashes in urn No. 2 a similar packet, which will also be
      found on my desk, and my miniature portrait finger-ring.”

        “I direct that I shall be buried in the clothes in which
      I shall die, whether they be day clothes or night clothes,
      and after my death my body is not to be washed or in any
      way whatsoever meddled with, and no funeral service shall
      be held over my remains anywhere.”

Another testator directed that his body should be burnt or cremated,
and the ashes placed in a glass or earthenware jar. A porcelain vase
was then to be made large enough to contain this jar, and to bear
his name and the date of his death. A vault was to be built of great
strength and solidity, to contain at least six vases, a suitable
inscription on the exterior. When these operations should be complete,
the glass jar was to be placed within the vase, and the lid of the vase
put on with a strong cement to exclude the air, the vase then to be
deposited in the vault and to remain there for ever.

John Baskerville, who died at Birmingham, 1775, directed that his
body should be buried in a conical building, in his own premises,
“heretofore used as a mill, which I have lately raised higher and
painted, and in a vault which I have prepared for it. This doubtless to
many will appear a whim; perhaps it is so, but it is a whim for many
years resolved upon, as I have a hearty contempt of all superstition,
the farce of a consecrated ground ...” and other ideas, pleasanter to
omit and illustrative of the unreasonableness of eighteenth-century
reason. His epitaph was to run as follows:—

                      “Stranger,
      Beneath this cone, in unconsecrated ground,
     A friend to the liberties of mankind directed
               His body to be inurned.
       May the example contribute to emancipate
                     Thy mind
         From the idle fears of Superstition
        And the wicked Arts of Priesthood.”

John Baskerville endeavours to give at least some idea of the motives
underlying his behests. So Major Peter Labelliere, whose mind was said
to have been unhinged by hopeless love, by politics and religion, chose
for his burial a spot on Box Hill, where about the beginning of the
nineteenth century he was interred with his head downwards, in order
that as “the world was turned topsy-turvy, he might be right at last.”

In the register of Lymington Church under the year 1736 is the entry:
“Samuel Baldwin, Esq. sojourner in this parish, was immersed, without
the Needles, _sans cérémonie_, May 20.” The explanation, according to
Wm. Hone in his “Table Book,” is that this was done in consequence of
the deceased’s earnest wish, to disappoint the intention of his wife,
who had repeatedly assured him that, if she survived, she would wreak
her revenge by dancing on his grave.

The artist W. P. Firth, like many others in recent times, requested
that his body should be cremated, saying that “the duty of the
individual to his kind includes providing for such final disposal of
his body as shall be least detrimental to those who survive him, and
that the modern process of incineration provides the quickest and
safest mode of such disposal.”

As unsentimental was the mind of the New York citizen who instructed
his executors to have made out of his bones circular buttons of
dimensions from one half an inch to one inch in diameter, to have the
skin of his body tanned and made into pouches; and to have violin
strings made out of such parts as might be suitable, adding: “I hereby
give unto my beloved friend James Hayes the buttons, violin-strings and
tanned skin made out of my body as aforesaid, the same to be by him
distributed according to his discretion to my intimate friends.” The
belief, it is said, that in the human body exists useful material which
should not be wasted led this testator to give such strange directions:
he did not believe in ordinary unhygienic and wasteful modes of burial,
and hoped that his example might be followed.

With the will of John Angell, of Stockwell, dated September 21, 1774,
we may make an end. He seems to have been a man of ambitious ideas.
He made provision for a “College or Society of seven decayed or
unprovided for gentlemen,” and had the temerity to name as trustees the
Archbishops of Canterbury and of York and the Lord Chancellor, “the
great personages whom I have presumed to appoint to this trust,” as he
himself says.

The same elaboration marks his funeral arrangements. “I would be
interred in the manner following. I would be wrapped in a woollen sheet
only. Then without a shroud be put into a leaden coffin, which shall
not be soldered down but only screwed. On this coffin shall be a large
plain inscription on lead expressing who I am. Then to be put into a
black cloth coffin with usual ornaments. Only I would have a plate of
copper or brass instead of such as is usually put. Thereon shall be
well engraved the family coat of arms properly blazoned and as I now
bear, with a full inscription as on the lead in Latin as thus: John the
son of John and Caroline _qui consortem habuit carissimam_. I desire to
lie open in my chamber so long as I decently may. Afterwards in about a
fortnight, or rather above, would be carried to Crowhurst in a hearse
with six horses dressed properly with shields and escutcheons, but no
other trifling ornaments. My own coach shall follow with one footman
behind it and I riding before; and besides two mourning coaches only
with six horses, in one of which I would have go my executors or near
friends, in the other my maid servants. I would desire the tenants and
neighbours at Crowhurst and in that neighbourhood would meet me at the
bottom of Riddlesdown as usual heretofore, and they are to have there
gloves and hatbands. And I would desire such of my neighbours in about
Stockwell as would show me that regard to ride two by two before me as
far as the further end of Croydon, accordingly to have hatbands and
gloves. And it is my will and desire that if the College and Chapel
which I intend to erect be finished and settled, the gentlemen and
the chaplain and minister and the whole choir and the servants of the
College attend on foot to the top of Brixton Causeway, singing as
they proceed some proper hymn or anthem as shall be appointed on the
occasion.”




CHAPTER XVI

WILLS AND GHOSTS


    “Things that go Bump in the night.”
                           “WIDDERSHINS.”

It is not surprising that stories of haunting or of the supernatural
should be linked with wills. The perturbation of the dying man, as
he utters his last bequest or ponders upon his affairs; the failure
to make his wishes known; neglect of his dispositions and desires;
non-completion of the will or its loss; concealment of his treasure or
hoard: here are the bases or occasions for many a tale of spirit and of
ghost.

It is said that fear lest the spirit should not be at rest was the
origin of the priest’s injunction to the sick to make his will, an
injunction which still forms part of the “Visitation of the Sick” in
the Book of Common Prayer. “And if he hath not before disposed of his
goods, let him then be admonished to make his Will, and to declare
his Debts, what he oweth, and what is owing unto him; for the better
discharging of his conscience and the quietness of his Executors. But
men should often be put in remembrance to take order for the settling
of their temporal estates, whilst they are in health.” In other
chapters this subject has been touched, and instances have been given
of wills made in the hour of death. But when no will is made, no friend
is near, can the spirit of the dying or of the dead indicate his last
will? There are tales to this effect.

“During the cholera epidemic in the North of England, about 1867-8,
I remember an incident which had a great effect upon my boyish mind
at the time. I lived in North Shields, and was the favourite of my
great-grandmother, with whom I often stayed. The old lady was rather a
recluse in her habits, and occupied two upper rooms in her daughter’s
house. She was known to have some paper money about her, which,
however, she carefully concealed somewhere from all her relatives.
At the same time, it was known she had a particular partiality for
one certain cupboard which she used as a wardrobe in her bedroom....
At three o’clock one morning, while sleeping at my own home, I awoke
to find the old lady standing at the foot of my bed, calling to me
and beckoning to me to follow her. I sat up in bed, terrified at the
sight, but, of course, manifested no desire to move. The old lady then
became impatient, and saying she could not remain longer, begged of
me to be sure and go to ‘the cupboard,’ this being her usual phrase
when referring to the small wardrobe.... On the old lady’s departure
I was so frightened that I felt I dare not stay in the room.... I
awoke my mother and told her what had happened. She calmed me as much
as possible and saw me off to bed again, but in the morning she was
so much impressed with my story that she accompanied me on my way to
school, and we called to see if anything was wrong with the old lady.
Imagine our surprise on reaching the house to learn that she had been
found dead in bed a short time before our visit. The body was cold,
proving that she had been dead some hours, the doctor declaring she
had died of cholera. The inference formed was that she must have died
about the hour she visited me. Suffice it to say, an inspection of ‘the
cupboard’ revealed the fact that other hands had done duty there before
ours had a chance, but with what result will never be known.”

What such visions are, whether of the dying or of the dead, or
otherwise, is a subject of keen controversy, but is not our business
here.

The following is a tale still more strange, but is akin to the
preceding, since the deceased died unattended, and strove by abnormal
means to indicate his will. Michael Conley, a farmer of Chichasow
County, Iowa, on February 1, 1891, went to be medically treated at
Dubuque, in Iowa, leaving his children Pat and Elizabeth at home. The
latter was a girl of twenty-eight. “On Feb. 3rd Michael was found dead
in an outhouse near his inn. In his pockets were nine dollars, seventy
cents, but his clothes, including his shirt, were thought so dirty and
worthless that they were thrown away. The body was then dressed in a
white shirt, black clothes and satin slippers of a new pattern. Pat
Conley was telegraphed for, and arrived at Dubuque on Feb. 4th.... Pat
took the corpse home in a coffin, and on his arrival Elizabeth fell
into a swoon, which lasted for several hours. Her account ... may be
given in her own words. ‘When they told me that father was dead I felt
very sick and bad; I did not know anything. Then father came to me. He
had on a white shirt and black clothes and slippers. When I came to, I
told Pat I had seen father. I asked Pat if he had brought back father’s
old clothes. He said “No,” and asked me why I wanted them. I told him
father said he had sewed a roll of bills inside of his grey shirt, in
a pocket made of a piece of my old red dress. I went to sleep, and
father came to me again. When I awoke I told Pat he must go and get
the clothes.’ Pat now telephoned to Mr. Hoffmann, coroner of Dubuque,
who found the old clothes in the back yard of the local morgue. They
were wrapped up in a bundle. Receiving this news, Pat went to Dubuque
on Feb. 9th, where Mr. Hoffmann opened the bundle in Pat’s presence.
Inside the old grey shirt was found a packet of red stuff, sewn with a
man’s long, uneven stitches, and in the pocket notes for thirty-five
dollars.”

There is a similar story which was well investigated, and recounted at
great length in the _Journal of the Society for Psychical Research_.
But in this instance the girl was artificially entranced. She was a
Spanish servant of a Dr. Vidigal, who resided in Brazil, and soon
after her engagement in his service she was hypnotised and appeared to
communicate with her father; later she gave a message seemingly from
Dr. Vidigal’s mother, who had died three months before. The deceased
lady, it was announced, had left 75 milreis (£3 to £4) in the pocket of
a dress which was still hanging in her room. No one knew of this money,
which the family could ill dispense with. Dr. Vidigal’s wife with
another lady went at once to the room, and found the identical sum of
money sewn up in one of the two dresses that still remained there.

The failure of the deceased to make his wishes known after death
is the source of some curious cases. For several years a villa at
Annecy, occupied by a Count Galateri, was disturbed by manifestations
of haunting; doors opened of their own accord, books and furniture
moved without visible means. The noises seemed to emanate from a
cellar in the house. A clairvoyant medium stated that at the door of
the villa she saw a soldier with a wooden leg, who said that during
the Napoleonic wars he had robbed the dead and waxed rich therewith,
bought this villa, and hid his treasure in the cellar. But remorse had
seized him, and these disturbances were made to induce the Countess to
find the money and give it to the poor. Eventually the Countess dug on
the spot, and found a jar containing many francs in gold; she did as
desired, doled them among the poor, and house and spirit had rest.

From the latest psychical research the thesis may be illustrated.
Richard Hodgson, who during his life devoted himself to the study of
the problems of mind and spirit, and himself investigated the story of
Dr. Vidigal’s mother, determined that after death he would if possible
prove the survival of the soul. He died suddenly on December 20, 1905,
and eight days later the medium with whom he had often sat, the famous
Mrs. Piper, declared that his spirit was communicating through her. He
held in his hand a ring. A fortnight later under the same circumstances
he begged that this ring might be returned to a certain lady, saying
that on the day of his death he had put it in his waistcoat pocket,
where, indeed, it was afterwards found. A lady had given him the ring,
and is sure no living person knew the fact. But what more natural than
that he should will it to be returned to her?

Lastly, the delightful tale of Mrs. Veal may illustrate this category:
“the apparition of one Mrs. Veal, the next day after her death, to
one Mrs. Bargrave, at Canterbury. September 8, 1705.” In this case,
however, the disposal of a few trifles, which she managed to wedge into
the conversation, was not the main object of her visit. Mrs. Bargrave,
“a woman of much honesty and virtue, and her whole life a course as
it were of piety,” had no notion that she was speaking to one of the
departed. Her surprise was great, therefore, when Mrs. Veal said to
her, “She would have to write a letter to her brother and tell him,
she would have him give rings to such and such; and that there was a
purse of gold in her cabinet, and that she would have two broad pieces
given to her cousin Watson. Talking at this rate Mrs. Bargrave thought
there was a fit coming on her, and so placed herself in a chair just
before her knees, to keep her from falling to the ground, if her fits
should occasion it: for the elbow chair she thought would keep her
from falling either side. And to divert Mrs. Veal, as she thought,
took hold of her gown sleeve several times, and commended it. Mrs.
Veal told her it was a scowered silk, and newly made up. But for all
this Mrs. Veal persisted in her request, and told Mrs. Bargrave she
must not deny her: and she would have her tell her brother all their
conversation when she had the opportunity. ‘Dear Mrs. Veal,’ says Mrs.
Bargrave, ‘this seems so impertinent that I cannot tell how to comply
with it; and what a mortifying story will our conversation be to a
young gentleman!’ ‘Why,’ says Mrs. Bargrave ‘’tis much better methinks
to do it yourself.’ ‘No,’ says Mrs. Veal, ‘though it seems impertinent
to you now you will see more reason for it hereafter.’ Mrs. Bargrave
then to satisfy her importunity was going to fetch a pen and ink; but
Mrs. Veal said, ‘Let it alone now, and do it when I am gone; but you
must be sure to do it.’ Which was one of the last things she enjoined
her at parting, and so she promised her.” Not unnaturally her brother
objected to this post-mortem will, and “said he asked his sister on her
death-bed ‘whether she had a mind to dispose of anything?’ And she said
‘no.’” Certainly, if he wished to prove such a nuncupative will, he
would have had little trouble as against Mrs. Bargrave’s ghostly will
and testament.

How frequently the desires of the dead were frustrated, and to what
language testators were moved in striving to prevent such neglect
or opposition, has been commented upon. In one of the earliest of
extant wills, that of Favonius, made in the war in Lusitania against
Viriathus, 142 B.C., the testator invokes his ‘manes’ to avenge him,
if his sons do not remove his bones and bury them on the Latin Way.
And (to make a swift transition) Dr. Ellerby, who died in London in
February, 1827, bequeathed his heart, lungs, and brains to certain
persons “in order that they may preserve them from decomposition; and I
declare that if these gentlemen shall fail faithfully to execute these
my last wishes in this respect I will come—if it shall be by any means
possible—and torment them until they shall comply.”

With such threats some have died: the sequel is now to be told. There
is a Welsh tale, for instance, of Barbara, wife of Edward, a tailor of
Llantivit Major; she was hale and hearty enough, till a secret weighed
more and more upon her mind. For a long time after her husband’s
mother’s death, she concealed the fact that the old woman had entrusted
her with a bag of money, to divide equally among the family. This
Barbara secreted for herself. But the old woman’s spirit so harassed
and pinched her that she grew wretched and wasted away. Finally, rather
than divide it according to the woman’s will, she cast the bag into the
Ogmore stream, where in Welsh folklore treasure was wont to be thrown.
Then at last she had peace.

Burton Agnes Hall, in the East Riding of Yorkshire, was occupied in the
reign of Queen Elizabeth by three sisters. The youngest, Anne Griffith,
put her heart and soul into the restoration of the building and in
additions to its beauty. But it was not long before she fell a victim
to highwaymen, being set upon when alone in the lanes. She was found,
and lingered several days; before she died, she besought her sisters
to sever her head from her dead body and suffer it to remain within
the Hall. If her wish were not fulfilled, she threatened to make the
house uninhabitable. The sisters promised, but did not perform it. But
soon noises as of slamming doors, and as of the groans of the dying,
terrified the household and broke in upon the sisters’ sorrow. They
remembered their promise. The coffin was opened and the head brought
to the house. It was said that the head had already been mysteriously
severed from the body, as if ready to be carried to the resting-place
it desired. Surely enough, when the head was safely ensconced in the
Hall, the noises were no more heard.

The tale of the Demon of Spraiton, dating from the seventeenth century,
is another story to the purpose. A servant was one day surprised by the
apparition of his master’s father, saying that several legacies which
by his testament he had bequeathed were still unpaid, and promising if
his behests were carried out to cease from troubling. “The spectrum
left the young man, who according to the direction of the spirit took
care to see the small legacies satisfied, and carried the twenty
shillings that were appointed to be paid the gentlewoman near Totnes,
but she utterly refused to receive it, being sent her (as she said)
from the devil. The same night the young man lodging at her house,
the aforesaid spectrum appeared to him again; whereupon the young man
challenged his promise not to trouble him any more, saying he had
performed all according to his appointment, but that the gentlewoman,
his sister, would not receive the money. To which the spectrum replied
that this was true indeed; but withal directed the young man to ride to
Totnes and buy for her a ring of that value, which the spirit said she
would accept of, which being provided accordingly she received. Since
the performance of which the ghost or apparition of the old gentleman
hath seemed to be at rest, having never given the young man any further
trouble.”

This English ghost appeared in 1682. In 1683 an Italian apparition
troubled the living. The Marchesa Astalli was a young married woman of
pure religious life. After her sudden death, however, as though she was
not at rest, she several times revealed herself to a secular priest who
was devoted to souls in Purgatory. At the last appearance it seemed as
though an internal voice bade him speak, and ask the spirit her desire.
“But she was silent,” says the priest, “for the space of half an Ave
Maria, and then said: ‘Go to the Marchese Camillo, and tell him to have
two hundred masses said for me.’ ... I replied in great perplexity,
and almost with my heart in my mouth: ‘They will not believe me, they
will take me for a mad-man.’ Then the spirit, opening its white mantle,
exclaimed: ‘My son, pity me.’ And, as she said this, streaks of fire
came towards me from her breast, as though two bundles of tow had been
lighted. Then she closed her mantle with her hands; folding one side
over the other as it was at first, she moved a few steps, looking me
in the face; and I, lying almost in mortal agony, all bathed in a cold
sweat, which passed through the mattress to the boards, plucked up
spirit and said to her: ‘Why do you not go to the Marquis.’ Then the
spirit, with a trembling voice and with many tears, which issued from
her reddened eyes, as though she had wept long and bitterly, replied:
‘God does not will it.’ I again summoned up courage and said: ‘They
will not believe me.’ Then the spirit replied: ‘Look where I touch,’
and departed.... After she had gone I remained languid and speechless
for half an hour, then, as it pleased the Lord, having come somewhat to
myself, I knocked on the door at the head of the bed, which led into
my brother’s room, and he immediately answered.... Then I asked him to
look whether there was anything on the bed. He replied that there was
nothing: then, looking more attentively, he said with a surprised air
that the coverlet was burnt, and in the middle of it was the imprint of
a right hand.... I, Domenico Denza, in the interests of truth, attest
and confirm what is above written with my own hand.”

Needless to relate, the masses were duly said, and the noise of the
tale was rumoured abroad. Her husband found, among the papers of the
deceased lady, memoranda to the effect that two hundred masses were to
be said on account of a vow, which she had made but at her death had
not yet fulfilled.

This seventeenth-century tale of Italy finds an echo in Brazil at
the end of the nineteenth century. An aunt, who narrates the facts,
received her nephew at Barbacena after the death of his young Belgian
wife, in 1894, and though the nephew did not stay long, some luggage
appears to have been left at the aunt’s house. Two months or so later
she had a vivid dream. “It seemed to me that she entered the room where
I really lay asleep, and, sitting down on the bedside, asked me as a
favour to look into an old tin box under the staircase for a certain
wax candle which had already been lighted, and which she had promised
to Our Lady. On my consenting to do so, she took leave of me saying,
‘_Até o outro mundo_’ (‘Till the other world’). I awoke from the dream
much impressed. It was still dark, but I could no longer sleep.” Search
was duly made in the box, which contained old clothes and cuttings, and
among them the candle of the dream. “It was of wax—of the kind used for
promises [to saints]—and, what was a still more singular coincidence,
it had already been lighted. We delivered the candle to M. Jose Augusto
of Barbacena, in performance of my niece’s pious vow thus curiously
revealed in a dream.”

In England, before the Reformation, it was common in wills to order
solemn celebrations, for the rest of the soul and for a memorial of the
departed. In this respect the will of Richard Cloudesley, of Islington,
is not unusual. “In the Name of the Holy Trinity, Father, and Son and
Holy Ghost, Amen, the 13th day of the month of January, the year of
our Lord, 1517, and the ninth year of the reign of King Henry VIIIth.
I, Richard, otherwise called Richard Cloudysley, clear of mind, and
in my good memory being, loved be Almighty God, make and ordain my
testament or my last will, in the manner and form as followeth. First,
I bequeath and recommend my soul unto Almighty God, my Creator and
Saviour, and His most blessed mother Saint Mary the Virgin, and to all
the Holy Company of Heaven. My body, after I am passed this present
and transitory life, to be buried within the churchyard of the parish
Church of Islington, near unto the grave of my father and mother, on
whose souls Jesu have mercy. Also I bequeath to the high altar of the
same church, for tythes and oblations peradventure by me forgotten
or withholden, in discharging of my conscience, 20s. Also I bequeath
to the said church of Islington eight torches, price the piece six
shillings four of them, after my month’s mind is holden and kept, to
remain to the Brotherhood of Jesu within the said church, and the other
four torches to burn at the sacryng of the high mass within the said
church as long as they will last.... I will that there be incontinently
after my decease, as hastily as may be, a thousand masses said for my
soul, and that every priest have for his labour 4d. Item, I will that
there be dole for my soul the day of burying, to poor people 5 marks in
pence.... I bequeath to the poor lazars of Highgate to pray for me by
name in their bead roll 6s. 8d. Also, I will that, every month after
my decease, there be an obit kept for me in Islington Church, and each
priest and clerk have for their pains to be taken, as they used to have
afore this time. And I will that there be distributed at every obit,
to poor people, to pray for my soul, 6s. 8d. I will that all that now
be seised to my use, and to the performance of my will or hereafter
shall be seised to the same, of and in a parcel of ground called the
Stony-field, otherwise called the Fourteen Acres, shall suffer the
rents and profits of the same from henceforth to be counted to this
use ensuing; that is to say, I will that, yearly after my decease, the
parishioners of the parish of Islington, or the more part of them, once
in the year, at the parish church aforesaid, shall elect and choose
six honest and discreet men of the said parish, such as they think
most meet to have the order and distribution of the rent and profit
aforesaid, which rent I will shall by the said six persons be bestowed
in the manner and form following; that is to say, I will that there be
yearly for ever a solemn obit to be kept for me within the said church
of Islington, and that there be spent at the obit 20s. And also that
there be dealt to poor people of the said parish at every obit, to
pray for my soul, my wife’s soul, and all Christian souls 6s. 8d. And
further, I will that the said six persons shall yearly pay, or do to be
paid, to the wardens of the Brotherhood of Jesu, 1 l. 6s. 8d. towards
maintaining of the mass of Jesu within the said church; upon this
condition, that the said wardens shall yearly for ever cause a trental
of masses to be said for my soul in the said church; and further I will
that the aforesaid six persons shall have among them for their labour,
to see the true performance of the same, yearly at every obit 10s.”

But, says a worthy Protestant writer on the history of Islington, “all
the provisions made by Cloudesley for the pardon of his sins, and the
repose of his soul, would seem ... to have proved inoperative.” For
the following strange story is told. “And as to the same heavings
or _tremblements de terre_, it is said that in a certain field, near
unto the parish church of Islington, in like manner did take place a
wondrous commotion in various parts, the earth swelling and turning up
every side towards the midst of the said field, and by tradition of
this it is observed that one Richard de Cloudesley lay buried in or
near that place, and that his body being restless, on the score of some
sin by him peradventure committed, did shew or seem to signify that
religious observance should there take place, to quiet his departed
spirit; whereupon certain exorcisers, if we may so term them, did at
dead of night, nothing loth, using divers divine exercises at torch
light, set at rest the unruly spirit of the said Cloudesley, and the
earth did return anear to its pristine shape, never more commotion
proceeding therefrom to this day, and this I know of a very certainty.”

As a final instance of a spirit evoked by the perversion or neglect of
his dispositions or desires we may go to the pages of the entertaining
writer of the “History of Apparitions Sacred and Prophane, Under all
Denominations; whether Angelical, Diabolical, or Human-Souls departed,”
published in 1729 and “Adorn’d with Cuts.”

“In the year 1662 an Apparition meets one Francis Taverner on the
Highway; the man having Courage to speak to it, asks it what he is? and
the Apparition tells him he is James Haddock, and gives him several
Tokens to remember him by, which Taverner also calling to mind owns
them; and then boldly demands of the Apparition what business he had
with him.... The next Night the Apparition comes to him again, and then
tells him the Business, which was to desire him to go to his Wife,
whose Maiden Name was Eleanor Welsh; but was then marry’d again to one
Davis, which Davis withheld the lease from the Orphan, Haddock’s Son,
and tell her she should cause Justice to be done to the Child. Taverner
neglected to perform this Errand, and was so continually followed by
the Apparition that it was exceedingly terrible to him; and at last it
threaten’d to tear him in Pieces, if he did not go of his Errand.”

The story was noised abroad, and the famous Bishop Jeremy Taylor took
Taverner under his examination. He advised him to ask the apparition,
when it should appear again, several questions, including the pertinent
inquiry why it should come for the relief of its son, when so many
widows and orphans were oppressed more grievously, but no spirit came
to right them. But, alas! the spirit was silent.

At last the lease was given up to the son of James Haddock, and the
apparition presumably satisfied. But “about five years after, and
when the Bishop was dead, one Costlet, who was the Child’s Trustee,
threatened to take away the Lease again, rail’d at Taverner, and
made terrible Imprecations upon himself if he knew of the Lease, and
threatened to go to Law with the Orphan. But one night, being drunk at
the Town of Hill-Hall, near Lisburne in Ireland, where all this Scene
was laid, going home he fell from his Horse and never spoke more, and
so the Child enjoy’d the Estate peaceably ever after.”

Romances have been mentioned, arising from a will’s destruction or
loss, and it is no wonder if ghost stories spring up around such
themes. There is one such told of a farm on the Thorney estate. A woman
sleeping in the haunted room of a cottage felt at midnight something at
her side, and saw by the light of the moon a “thin, gray-haired woman
of about seventy-six, with a full-bordered cap, red chintz garment, and
crossover wrap of the same material. She had only one tooth. She seemed
to glide over the floor.” The figure did not speak, but pointed to the
ceiling. A search among the beams above the room disclosed the will of
a farmer named John Cave, who died there over a hundred years since
with a fortune of £10,000.

The person who perceived this apparition denied strongly that it was
a dream. But dreams play an important part in stories of things lost
or forgotten, and often it is difficult to distinguish, if distinction
there be, between a waking vision and a dream. The imagination is
stirred—and exasperated—by the story of the “Jennings millions,”
where a will was found, but unsigned. Search was made in vain for a
duly executed will. Among incidents in the case there is narrated the
dream of a lady who on three successive nights saw in her dream the
churchyard of Brailsford, and perceived that under a certain grave lay
the missing document. But the grave appears not to have been opened,
and the matter was forgotten.

Dreams with more interesting sequels have occurred. There is a
well-known instance of an English landowner, whose father appeared
in a dream and told the details of a debt which he had paid, but
could not be proved by the son to have been satisfied. Still better
in this connection is a story St. Augustine tells. “Of a surety,
when we were at Milan, we heard tell of a certain person of whom was
demanded payment of a debt, with production of his deceased father’s
acknowledgment, which debt, unknown to the son, the father had paid;
whereupon the man began to be very sorrowful, and to marvel that his
father while dying did not tell him what he owed when he also made
his will. Then in this exceeding anxiousness of his, his said father
appeared to him in a dream, and made known to him where was the counter
acknowledgment by which that acknowledgment was cancelled. Which when
the young man had found and showed, he not only rebutted the wrongful
claim of a false debt, but also got back his father’s note of hand,
which the father had not got back when the money was paid.”

A long story to the purpose is told in the “History of Apparitions”
already mentioned. The Rev. Dr. Scott, “a man whose Learning and
Piety was eminent, and whose Judgment was known to be so good, as not
to be easily imposed upon,” was sitting alone in his room in Broad
Street. Suddenly he looked up from his book and saw a figure in the
room. Distracted by the sight, it was a long time before he could gain
composure, but eventually he became sufficiently calm to ask upon what
errand the spirit came. He said that he had left a good estate which
his grandson rightly enjoyed, but which was sued for by two nephews of
the deceased. ‘It is not’ (said the spectre) ‘that the Nephews have any
Right; but the grand Deed of Settlement, being the conveyance of the
Inheritance, is lost; and for want of the Deed they will not be able to
make out their Title to the Estate.’

“‘Well,’ says the Doctor, ‘and still what can I do in the Case?’

“‘Why,’ said the Spectre, ‘if you will go down to my Grandson’s House,
and take such Persons with you as you can trust, I will give you such
Instructions as that you shall find out the Deed or Settlement, which
lies concealed in a Place where I put it with my own Hands, and where
you shall direct my Grandson to take it out in your Presence.’

“‘But why then can you not direct your Grandson himself to do this?’
says the Doctor.

“‘Ask me not about that,’ says the Apparition: ‘there are divers
Reasons which you may know hereafter.’ ...

“After this Discourse, and several other Expostulations, (for the
Doctor was not easily prevail’d upon to go ’till the Spectre seemed to
look angrily, and even to threaten him for refusing,) he did at last
Promise him to go.

“Having obtained a Promise of him, he told him he might let his
Grandson know that he had formerly convers’d with his Grandfather,
(but not how lately, or in what manner,) and ask to see the House; and
that in such an upper Room or Loft, he should find a great deal of old
Lumber, old Coffers, old Chests, and such Things as were out of Fashion
now, thrown by, and pil’d up upon one another, to make room for more
modish Furniture, Cabinets, Chests of Drawers, and the like.

“That in such a particular Corner was such a certain old Chest, with an
old broken Lock upon it, and a Key in it, which could neither be turn’d
in the Lock, or pulled out of it.

“N.B. Here he gave him a particular Description of the Chest, and of
the Outside, the Lock and the Cover, and also of the Inside, and of a
private place in it, which no Man could come to, or find out, unless
the whole Chest was pull’d in Pieces.

“‘In that Chest,’ says he, ‘and in that place, lyes the grand Deed, or
Charter of the Estate, which conveys the Inheritance, and without which
the Family will be ruin’d, and turn’d out of Doors.’

“After this Discourse, and the Doctor promising to go down into the
Country and dispatch this important Commission; the Apparition putting
on a very pleasant and smiling Aspect, thank’d him, and disappeared.

“To the Country the Doctor accordingly went and was courteously
received. After the Doctor had been there some time, he observed the
Gentleman receiv’d him with an unexpected Civility, tho’ a Stranger,
and without Business. They entered into many friendly Discourses, and
the Doctor pretended to have heard much of the Family, (as, indeed, he
had) and of his Grandfather; ‘from whom, Sir,’ says he, ‘I perceive the
Estate more immediately descends to yourself.’

“‘Ay,’ says the Gentleman, and shook his Head, ‘my Father died young,
and my Grandfather has left things so confus’d, that for want of one
principal writing, which is not yet come to Hand, I have met with a
good deal of trouble from a couple of Cousins.’

“‘But I hope you have got over it, Sir?’ says he.

“‘No truly,’ says the Gentleman, ‘to be so open with you, we shall
never get quite over it unless we can find this old Deed; which,
however, I hope we shall find, for I intend to make a general Search
for it.’

“‘I wish with all my Heart you may find it, Sir,’ says the Doctor.

“‘I don’t doubt but I shall; I had a strange Dream about it but last
Night,’ says the Gentleman.

“‘A Dream about the Writing!’ says the Doctor. ‘I hope it was that you
should find it then?’ ‘I dream’d,’ says the Gentleman, ‘that a strange
Gentleman came to me, that I had never seen in my Life, and help’d me
to look it. I don’t know but you may be the Man.’

“‘I should be very glad to be the Man, I am sure,’ says the Doctor.”

But Defoe is lengthy, and it need only be said that all went well; the
Deed was found without ado, and all—save the cousins—were satisfied.

“The wife of one of Johnson’s acquaintance,” Boswell says, “made a
purse for herself out of her husband’s fortune. Feeling a proper
compunction in her last moments, she confessed how much she had
secreted; but before she could tell where it was placed, she was seized
with a convulsive fit and expired.”

It is in tales of buried treasure that the subject of wills is,
perhaps, most nearly connected with ghosts. As the water-finder feels
the presence of water, so the sensitive sees in concrete form the
presence of hidden wealth. There is a story of a field in Kent, where
a ghostly old man was seen to boil his pot on stormy nights: upon that
spot a hoard of coins was subsequently found. At Bryn yr Ellyllon, or
Goblin Hill, in Wales, a woman saw a figure of superhuman height, clad
in gold, disappear within the mound, where, on excavation, a skeleton
was discovered in a corselet of Etruscan gold.

There was a strong probability, when men buried away their gold, that
at death the hoard might be unknown, or its hiding-place undivulged,
to the living. “Nothing,” says the historian of Apparitions, “has
more fill’d the idle Heads of the old Women of these latter Ages than
the Stories of Ghosts and Apparitions coming to People, to tell them
where money was hidden, and how to find it; and ’tis wonderful to me
that such Tales should make such Impressions, and that sometimes among
wise and judicious People too, as we find they have done. How many old
Houses have been almost pull’d down, and Pitts fruitlessly dug in the
Earth, at the ridiculous Motion of pretended Apparitions?”

Primitive tales seem frequently to centre in this theme, and
picturesque details are not lacking. This, from the folklore of Wales,
may stand as a sample of its kind. “In a village near Cowbridge, in the
vale of Glamorgan, a middle-aged bachelor and his two sisters lived.
The eldest sister one night heard a voice calling her from under the
bedroom window, but she did not answer it. Twice in succession this
happened, and she told her brother and sister about it. They advised
her to answer the voice if it called again. The third night another
call came. She went to the lattice, opened it and looked out, but not
a person was visible. ‘What dost thou want?’ she asked; and the voice
answered: ‘Go down to the second arch of the gateway leading into St.
Quintin’s Castle, Llanblethian, and there dig. Thou wilt find buried in
a deep hole close to the inner arch a crock full of gold pieces. It is
of no use to me now. Take it, and may the gold be a blessing to thee.’
The brother and sisters dug, and with very little trouble found the
treasure.” So the ghostly will was not frustrated.

The story of Sykes Lumb Farm, again, is characteristic. This farm,
situated between Preston and Blackburn, was haunted by the ghost of
Mrs. Sykes. She and her husband seem to have had more money than they
could safely keep above ground in the troubled times of their life, and
buried it for safety beneath an apple-tree. They had no children, and
no near relatives. The farmer first died, and then his wife, suddenly.
The place was filled with claimants to her wealth, but the treasure
was not forthcoming. In after-years the intestate Mrs. Sykes, in the
guise of an old woman, wrinkled and dressed in the fashion of other
days, haunted the scene of her earthly habitation, till she could
deliver herself of the secret that weighed upon her spirit. At last the
then farmer addressed her, and the spell was loosed. She led the way
towards the stump of the apple-tree and pointed. There could be only
one meaning, and search was made. As the last jar was lifted out, the
ghost was for the last time seen, a smile of satisfaction brightening
her face.

The entertaining Defoe, who has illustrated this chapter more than
once, thus speaks of these narrations. “The notion of Spirits appearing
to discover where money has been buried, to direct people to dig for
it, has so universally prevailed with womankind, I might say and
even with mankind too, that it is impossible to beat it out of their
heads; and if they should see anything which they call an apparition,
they would to this day follow it, in hope to hear it give a stamp on
the ground, as with its foot, and then vanish; and did it really do
so, they would not fail to dig to the Centre (if they were able) in
hopes of finding a pot of money hid there, or some old urn with ashes
and Roman medals; in short, or some considerable treasure.” He is
contemptuous, in spite of the numbers of such tales and the strong
belief attaching to them, and narrates one only to show how easy it
is to beat it down to sober fact. His summing-up of the matter is too
good not to quote. “From all which reasons I must conclude, that the
departed spirits know nothing of these things, that it is not in their
power to discover their old hoards of money, or to come hither to
show us how we may come at it; but that in short, all the old women’s
stories, which we have told us upon that subject, are indeed old
women’s stories, and no more. I cannot quit this part of my subject
without observing that, indeed, if we give up all the stories of ghosts
and apparitions, and spirits walking, to discover money that is hid, we
shall lose to the age half the good old tales which serve to make up
winter evening conversation, and shall deprive the doctrine of souls
departed coming back hither to talk with us about such things, of its
principal support; for this indeed is one of the principal errands such
apparitions come about. It is without doubt that fancy and imagination
form a world of apparitions in the minds of men and women, (for we
must not exclude the ladies in this part, whatever we do;) and people
go away as thoroughly possessed with the reality of having seen the
Devil, as if they conversed face to face with him; when in short the
matter is no more than a vapour of the brain, a sick delirious fume of
smoke in the hypochondria; forming itself in such and such a figure to
the eye-sight of the mind, as well as of the head, which all looked
upon with a calm revision, would appear, as it really is, nothing but a
nothing, a skeleton of the brain, a whimsy, and no more.”

In a recent will the testator wrote: “I do not leave any legacies to
institutions. To those I am interested in I have given money time and
labour during many years, and to others I have subscribed sufficiently.
But if my children, who benefit under this my will, would give £100
to the Bluecoat School, in memory of me, it would please me, if there
be any intercourse between this world and the next.” Whether there be
any such intercourse, whether the dead ever attempt to modify human
affairs, this is not the place to dogmatise. But no one can study
human nature without noting such narratives. They are rooted deep in
the soil. St. Augustine says beautifully, though not convincingly: “If
the dead could come in dreams, my pious mother would no night fail to
visit me. Far be the thought that she should, by a happier life, have
been made so cruel that, when aught vexes my heart, she should not even
console in a dream the son whom she loved with an only love.” But the
negative proves nothing save our ignorance. And it is time to quit this
by-way in wills.

        UNWIN BROTHERS, LIMITED, PRINTERS, WOKING AND LONDON.