—When you set about making your will, Which is commonly done when a body's ill, Mind, and word it with caution and skill, And avoid, if you can, any codicil! When once you've appointed an heir To the fortune you've made, or obtained, ere You leave a reversion, beware Whom you place in contingent remainder!
Executors, Guardians, and all Who have children to mind, don't ill treat them, Nor think that, because they are small And weak, you may beat them, and cheat them! Remember that "ill-gotten goods Never thrive;" their possession's but cursory; So never turn out in the woods Little folks you should keep in the nursery.
Be sure he who does such base things Will ne'er stifle Conscience's clamour; His "riches will make themselves wings," And his property come to the hammer! Then He,—and not those he bereaves,— Will have most cause for sighings and sobbings, When he finds himself smother'd with leaves (Of fat catalogues) heaped up by Robins!
FOOTNOTES:
[46] See Bloomfield's History of the County of Norfolk, in which all the particulars of this lamentable history are (or ought to be) fully detailed, together with the names of the parties, and an elaborate pedigree of the family.
The incidents recorded in the succeeding Legend were communicated to a dear friend of our family by the late lamented Sir Walter Scott. The names and localities have been scrupulously retained, as she is ready to testify. The proceedings in this case are, I believe, recorded in some of our law reports, though I have never been able to lay my hand upon them.
[THE DEAD DRUMMER.]
A LEGEND OF SALISBURY PLAIN.