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.