[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.