We will confine ourselves to a portion of his instructions for his “little tumbe of freestone, upon the which I will be spent liij s. iv d. att the moast; and in the face of this tumbe I will be made too plates of laten, ii figurys of a man and a woman, with x men children and vi women children; and over and above the said figurys I will be made a figure of the Fader of Heven, inclosed in a sonne; and from the man figure I will be made a rolle toward the said figure of the Fader, and in hit to be graven, ‘O Pater in cœlis;’ and from the figure of the woman another lyke rolle, whereyn to be graven, ‘Hos tecum pascere velis;’ and at the feet of the said figurys I will be graven thes ix verses folowing:
“‘Preterit ista dies origo secundi
An labor, an requies; sic transit gloria mundi.
Like as the day hys cours doeth consume
And the new morrow spryngith agayn as fast,
So man and woman by naturys costume
This lyfe doo pass and last in erth ar cast
In joye and sorrowe in whiche here theyr tyme did wast
Never in oon state but in co’s transitorey
Soo full of chaunge is of this worlde the glory.’
“And before upon the said tumbys border I will be written these words following:
“‘Tumulus Roberti Fabyan dudum pannarius ac Aldermannus London qui obiit.... Fevr....’”
The above directions were to be followed in the event of the testator’s dying and being buried “within the Citye of London,” but if buried in the church of Heydon Earnon, the grave is to be much more elaborately decorated, according to instructions further given to his executors, who can have had no sinecure, for this same alderman-draper seems to have been possessed of considerable landed and other property.
We find it throughout all these earlier wills the custom to bequeath not only beds with all their furniture, but wearing apparel, which in those days were so costly as to be considered valuable heirlooms; probably also the fashion of these articles did not undergo such rapid changes as in our own day.
An Exacting and Peculiar Will
After an eventful life as soldier, linguist, “rain-maker,” Deputy Commissioner of Patents, man of affairs, and wealthy patent attorney, Robert G. Dryenforth, of Washington, D.C., died July 4, 1910. His will is one of the most unusual instruments ever offered for probate in the United States: his estate is a large one and is left to an eight-year-old foster son, Robert St. George Dryenforth, subject to conditions of a remarkable character:
The lad is to get practically the entire estate—provided he conscientiously complies with all conditions—when he reaches the age of twenty-eight. Robert St. George will be busily occupied for the intervening twenty years in complying with conditions.
Here are some of them.