Logan’s criticism and fears were well grounded as the litigation over the Founder’s will extended over a period of nine years.
The life of Penn reveals him as gifted with extraordinary wisdom, prudence, and forethought. In the ordinary as well as the trying and unusual crises of his eventful life, these qualities stood him in good stead, but when he came to draw up his own will they failed him, as they have failed so many men who have tried in vain to draw a valid will.
It is a wise provision of the religious society of which Penn was one of the founders, by which it annually recommends to its members:
“Friends are earnestly advised to inspect the state of their outward affairs at least once in a year and to consider carefully, whilst in health, the just disposition of their estates by will or otherwise.”
Will of Samuel Pepys
Samuel Pepys was an interesting figure in England in the latter part of the seventeenth century. We know him chiefly as the well-known diarist, though he did work of high order in connection with the British navy. He died on May 26, 1703. Of his diary, the London Athenæum has said: “It is the best book of its kind in the English language.”
By his will, he left to Magdalene College, Cambridge, the Pepysian Library of some three thousand volumes. This collection is kept in a separate building, and contains manuscript of his celebrated diary, together with many rare and curious documents, including the love letters of Henry VIII to Anne Boleyn, a collection of Scottish poetry and ancient English ballads. The diary, which was deciphered from the author’s shorthand notes, is yet a popular book and is of standard importance to English literature, reflecting, as it does, the court, times, characters, and peculiarities of the age of Charles II.
Will of Cecil John Rhodes
Cecil John Rhodes, of Cape Town, South Africa, who died in 1902, was a South African statesman and financier; an affection of the lungs necessitated his leaving England when a young man, and he acquired fame and wealth in the home of his adoption. Rhodes’s mode of life was the subject of diverse criticism; he was regarded as a man actuated by selfish motives, and preëminently, a man of money, but by his will, he left nearly his entire fortune to educational purposes; his scholarships have commanded the admiration of the world, and former estimates of his character were modified. Certain portions of this remarkable will, taken from Mr. Remsen’s excellent work, follow:
“I, The Right Honourable Cecil John Rhodes of Cape Town in the Colony of the Cape of Good Hope, hereby revoke all testamentary dispositions heretofore made by me and declare this to be my last Will which I make this first day of July 1899.