ECCENTRIC WILLS.* Tuts rather bulky volume has been compiled for
the amusement of the public, and there can be no doubt that it contains a good many amusing passages. The book, however, is one which few readers will be courageous enough to read through. A collec- tion even of whimsical wills is likely to prove rather tiresome reading, and the " Disputed Wills" and " Wills of Remarkable Persons," which occupy more than half of the book, are in many instances almost totally devoid of general interest. Occasion- ally, a curious point of law is stated, or a remarkable instance given of the accuracy needed in the wording of a will, and it is possible that a lawyer might find ample food for comment from the texts supplied by these excerpts ; but, on the whole, the research bestowed on this volume is not likely to be appreciated by the readers whom the author " desires to entertain."
Although our judgment of the work is unfavourable, and we must confess to having laid it down with a feeling of relief, it is quite possible both for reviewer and reader to gather from its pages many striking illustrations of eccentricity and folly. The subject of will-making is one upon which a moralist may expend many sage reflections, and in the introduction the writer does not forget to preach a short sermon on "the most solemn act of our lives." No consciousness of this solemnity can have impressed the will-makers whose peculiarities are copiously illustrated in this collection. In some of these wills there seems a taint of insincerity, iu some there are signs of egregious folly, in many there are indications of unseasonable humour ; while ethers are marked by a vindictiveness often masked, as the compiler notes, by the assumption of jocularity. Was it humorous eccentricity, or an irrepressible feeling of malice, which prompted the bequests of a certain Dr. Dunlop, who leaves a field to one sister, "to console for being married to a man she is obliged to henpeck ;" a silver drinking-cup to another, " for reasons known to herself ;" and a pipe to a brother-in-law, " out of gratitude that ho married my sister Maggie, whom no man of taste would have taken P" In these bequests, humour and malice may have combined, but the latter is most evident, as it is also in the case of a German Professor, who left his property to a relative he disliked, " on the absolute condition that he should wear white-linen clothes at all seasons of the year."
The fifth Earl of Pembroke, who lived in the seventeenth
century, is extremely satirical in his bequests. " I give nothing," he writes, " to Lord Saye ; and I ao make him this legacy willingly, because I know °that he will faithfully distribute it unto the poor." To Cromwell, he bequeaths one of his words, " the which he must want, seeiog that he bath never kept any of his own ;" and to Thomas May, whose nose he broke at a masquerade, he leaves five shillings. " My intention," adds the Earl, " had been to give him more ; but all who have seen his History of the Parliament, will consider that even this sum. is too large." Perhaps the most characteristic bequest in this will is the following :—" Seeing that I did menace a certain Henry Mildmay, but did not thrash him, I do leave the sum of * Curiosities of the Soaroh-Room : 4 Collodion of Serious and Mamie'', Wins. 13F the Author of Flemish Interiors, Sso. London : Chapman and Hall. 1E380.
fifty pounds sterling to the lacquey that shall pay unto him my debt."
It is difficult to imagine a man deliberately writing a will which shall exhibit his own folly or make fools of his friends, and yet this has been done in numerous cases. In one instance, we read of a wealthy man leaving a son and daughter as his residuary legatees who, as his executors discovered, after much labour, never had an existence ; in another case, an estate of some value was left to an eldest son, on condition that he shaved off his moustache, and never allowed it to grow again. A testator who once made a ridiculous bequest was cleverly outwitted. He had bequeathed 22,000 to a friend, on condition that half that sum should be buried with him. A wag advised that a cheque for £1,000 drawn to order should be placed in the old gentleman's coffin, which was done accordingly.
Under the heading " Directions for Burial," several grotesque incidents are recorded. A Manchester lady beqheatlis a surgeon £25,000, on condition that he should claim her body and embalm it, and "that he should once in every year look upon her face, two witnesses being present." A maiden lady of New York leaves her property for the purpose of building a church in that city, on condition " that her remains should be mixed up in the mortar used fpr fixing the first stone ;" another lady, of an economical turn of mind, desires that if she should die away from Branksome, her remains, after being placed in a coffin, should be enclosed in a plain deal box, and conveyed by goods train to Poole. " Let no mention," she states, " be made of the contents, as the conveyance will not then be charged more for than an ordinary package." A French traveller, recently de- ceased, desired to be buried in a large leather trunk to which he was attached, as it " had gone round the world with him three times ;" and an English clergyman and justice of the peace, who, at the age of eighty-three, had married a girl of thirteen, desired to be buried in an old chest he had selected for the purpose. Tastes differ in the matter of burial. One man wishes to be interred with the bed on which he had been lying ; another desired to be buried far from the haunts of men, where Nature may " smile upon his remains ;" and a third bequeaths his corpse for dissection, after which it is to be put into a, deal box and thrown into the Thames. One man does not wish to be buried at all, but gives his body to the Imperial Gas Company, to be consumed to ashes in one of their retorts, adding that should the superstition of the times prevent the fulfilment of his bequest, his executors may place his remains in St. John's Wood Cemetery, "to assist in poisoning the living in that neighbourhood." A person may approve him- self of cremation, but it is a little hard when he requires his relatives to approve of it also. The body of Dr. Le Moyne was cremated last year, at his express desire, on Gallows Hill, Washington. He died very wealthy, and left his fortune to cer- tain relatives, ou condition that they should consent to the same process of destruction after death. Only two of them, it is said, have accepted the condition. An amusing story is told of a lady, a Roman Catholic, who, in her last illness, promised the priest to leave hini a sum of money for charitable uses. When she was dying, she begged the priest to come nearer to the bed- side, and gasped out, "Father—I've—given—you." " Stay,' said the priest, anxious to have as many witnesses as possible to the expected statement, "I will call in the family," and opening the door, lie beckoned them all in. " I've given you," repeated the old lady, with increasing difficulty, " given—you—a great deal of trouble." This incident may remind the reader of a passage in one of Lord Bolingbroke's letters, in which, writing to a friend, he says,—" I am very sorry my Lord Marlborough gives you so much trouble. It is the only thing ho will give you." Cats, dogs, birds, and horses have been frequently remembered in wills. Lord Chesterfield left a sum for his cat, and Lord Eldon bequeathed £8 a, year to his dog " Pincher "; a lady, possessed of more money than sense, left an annuity of two hundred guineas to her parrot; and a Frenchman made a horse his heir, but bequeathed the horse to his nephew. Some of these bequests are not clearly authenticated, and it is evident that the accounts of Elizabeth Hunter, upon p. 195, and of Caroline Hunter, on p. 201, are based on a similar incident. And a third story, on p. 198, of a rich widow and her parrot, looks suspiciously like an abridged statement of the same bequest. The compiler, it will be seen, has managed to collect a variety of curious stories, which may tempt a reader to linger a little over his pages. The book contains a good deal he is not likely to read, but that it has also some features deserving of attention, may be judged from this notice.
Previous page
