Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 3.djvu/247

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s. in. APRIL i, mi NOTES AND QUERIES.

241

LONDON, SATURDAY, APRIL 1, 1899.

CONTENTS. -No. 66.

NOTBS -.--Humphry Morice's Will, 241 John Bull of French Origin, 24:* Freaks of Nature " Transpire" Kussiaii Folk-lore, 243 Bibliography of Kaster Sir Henry Wotton and Kepler" What do they call you?"" Petit bleu " Lowell on ' Aurora Leigh,' 244 Prospero's Island" Hoo" Rolling-pins " Decoctor"=a Bankrupt George Sel- wyn's Taste, 245 W. Kendall's Poems "Ayah" and " Amah "Bearded Popes Eclipse at Battle of Zama, 246.

QUERIES : " Illustration " " The glorious uncertainty of the law" Thomas Ellis Moody Nelson a Freemason Pompey's Pillar Boccaccio ' Foreign Courts and Foreign Homes,' 247 " License " Harper Avice Ireland "Fringle" H. Mompesson Aspidistra Key and Kay- Tennyson's 'The Ancient Sage,' 248 'Jack Sheppard' Latin Motto Menteith " Pease Eggers" Simon Green "Veit"=Guy "Three Pound Twelve" 'Voyages of Jack Halliard ' Agnes Marcus Aurelius, 249.

REPLIES: The Letters of Junius, 250 Puzzle Jug "A wig of bread," 252-The " Decade," 253- Mr. Sainthill and his Basque Studies History of the Church of Purton A Relic of Napoleon Miss B. Rayner Parkes, 254 Trevis Arthur O'Sbaughnessy : ' Zuleika' Recovery of a Drowned Body Lee's ' Life of Shakespeare,' 255' The Romano-British City of Silchester ' ' Aylwin ' Grand Jurors, 25(5 " GalingaU" Mustard Motto Horace Wai- pole, 257 Rime to " Month "Keltic Words" What all" Arms of Grigson, 258.

NOTES ON BOOKS : Larminie's ' West Irish Folk-Tales ami Romances ' Maitland's 'Township and Borough' Sparrow's 'History of Church Preen 'Brown's 'Origin of the Primitive Constellations of the Greeks 'Andrews s ' Bygone Church Life in Scotland' Simpson's ' Memoir of W. Sparrow Simpson.'

Notices to Correspondents.

HUMPHRY MORICE'S WILL. IN an editorial reference to Humphry Morice of Werrington, Devon, for many years member for Launceston, and once Comptroller of the Household and Lord Warden of the Stannaries in ' N. & Q.,' 2 nd S. ix. 486, and in a fuller description of that right honourable gentleman in 3 rd S. i. 422 (the latter of which I had not seen when con- tributing a sketch of his career to the ' Dic- tionary of National Biography,' vol. xxxix. Ep. 44-6), stress is laid upon his singular )ndness for animals, and the provision he made for them in his will. This document (Prerogative Court of Canterbury, 106 Nor- folk) is of great length, covering nearly eigh- teen large pages of parchment ; and as "the last will of me The Right Honourable Humphry Morice of the Grove in the parish of Chiswick in the county of Middlesex, one of his Majesty's most honourable Privy Council," it was executed on 24 July, 1782, and proved in London with two codicils on 16 Feb., 1786. It is not in the will itself, for a reason the testator himself explains, but in the first of these codicils (which takes the form of a letter to William Burrell, one of his trustees, dated Nice, 10 Oct., 1782), that men-

tion of the animals is to be found, and the provision runs thus :

" You and my other trustee are to receive 600/. a year from my estates in Devon and Cornwall to pay for the maintenance of the horses and dogs I leave behind me and for the expense of servants to look after them besides Will JBishop the Groom he is I am persuaded very honest and will not let Bills be brought in for any oats hay straw or tares more than have really been had As the horses die off the overplus of monies expended on their account will encrease and it is to be paid to Mrs. Luther whom I have made my heir was she not circum- stanced as she is I should never have thought of taking this precaution as I have an implicit con- fidence in her She indeed desired that annuities might be left to all the animals in my will but I thought it better to make my intention known to you by a private Letter as their being mentioned in my will would perhaps be ridiculed after my death and though I should be ignorant of it and of course not care about it yet the friends I leave behind me might not like to hear it Mrs. Luther I am persuaded will never make any dispute about the bills you allow on the aforesaid account out of the said 600. a year nor will those that come after her."

Morice's precaution against publicity evi- dently proved unavailing ; but a subsequent codicil contains a similar instance of thought- fulness on behalf of his servants, as well as a device to prevent his being buried alive. This codicil is dated 14 March, 1784 (and he died at Naples on 18 Oct., 1785), and it says :

" This is the will of me Humphry Morice as far as relates to my effects here at Naples and is not meant in any manner to affect the will I made just before I left England in July 1782, but may pro- perly be called a codicil. I appoint my servants John Allan and Richard Deale joint executors of this my will or codicil. I. desire to be buried at Naples if I die there and in a leaden coffin if such a thing is to be had. Just before it is soddered I request the surgeon in Lord Tylney's house or some other surgeon to take out my heart or to per- form some other operation to ascertain my being really dead. My two servants to continue in my house at Chaya till it is a proper season for them to return to England so that they may avoid taking that journey during the extremes of winter or summer."

Sir Richard Phillips, in his ' Morning Walk from London to Kew,' published in London in 1817, makes one or two palpable errors in his reference to the will ; but he adds the interesting point that about thirty aged horses and dogs were thus provided for, and that some of them, living to the ages of forty and fifty, had died within the previous seven years.

It may be noted that a more recent will, having its own relation to "one of Her Majesty's most honourable Privy Council," had to deal with an even more eccentric pro- vision for animals. The Illustrated London News of 29 Sept., 1894, gave an account of the