Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 23.pdf/617

 On Wills

577

He goes on to say his last compliments to some of his friends:

their characters I had never married their daughter, and made myself unhappy.

Item: I give nothing to my Lord Saye, and I do make him this legacy willingly, because I know that he will faithfully distribute it unto the poor. Item: I bequeath to Thomas May, whose nose I did break at a mascarade, ﬁve shillings. My

In 1770, there was admitted to pro bate at the Deanery Court at York, Eng land, the poetical will of one William

intention had been to give him more;

but all

Hickington. This is my last will,

who shall have seen his “History of the Parlia ment" will consider that even this sum is too large. Item: I give to the Lieutenant-General Crom

To sneer on and welcome, And e'en laugh your ﬁll, I, William Hickington,

well one of my words, the which he must want,

Poet of Pocklington,

seeing that he hath never kept any of his own.

The Earl of Warwick, by his will dated 1296, gave his wife a cross "wherein is contained part of the wood of the very cross whereon our Saviour died." Lady Alice West, ﬁve years before the death of Chaucer and nearly eighty years before the ﬁrst book was printed in England, in a will dated 1395, gave to "Johane my daughter, my some is wyf, a masse book, and alle the bokes that I have of

latyn, englisch, and frensch." Mr. Daniel Martinett of Calcutta made bequests in his will: Fifthly. To Mr. George Grey, Secretary to the Presidency, I bequeath all my sinoerety. Sixthly. To Mr. Simon Drose, Writer to the Secretary's office, all my modesty. Seuenthly. To Mr. Henry Higgenson, also of the Secretary's ofﬁce, all the thoughts I hope I shall die possessed of. Eighlhly. To Mr. Thomas Forbes, all the worldly assurance which I had when I had taken a cheerful glass, though in fact a doleful cup.

The Earl of Stafford, one of the ardent

followers of James II, by his will gave a permanent testimonial of his unhappy marriage.

I insist on it still,

Do give and bequeath, As free as I breath, To thee, Mary Jarum, The Queen of My Harum,

My cash and my cattle, With every chattel,

Come heat or come cold, Sans hindrance or strife, Though thou are not my wife. As witness my hand,

Just here as I stand, The twelfth of July, In the year Seventy.

It is less than a year ago that all Bos ton was startled by a posthumous joke of a Miss Cora Johnson, who left a will dis posing of some $100,000 while her actual estate was less than $100. While per haps a more subtle bit of humor was the

provision in the will of a Scotch dissent ing minister, who bequeathed a sum of

money to his chapel at St. Ives to pro vide: "Six Bibles every year, for which

six men and six women are to throw dice on Whit Tuesday after the morning ser vice, the minister kneeling the while at the South end of the communion table,

and praying God to direct the luck to His glory." A curious custom has come down from

To the worst of women, Claude Charlott de

Grammont, unfortunately my wife, guilty as she is of all crimes, I leave five-and-forty brass half pence, which will buy a pullet for her supper.

Albetter gift than her father can make her; for I’Uhave known when, having not the money, neither had he the credit for such a purchase; he being the worst of men. and his wife the worst ofiwomen, in all debaucheries. Had I known

bygone ages carrying out an old bequest, on Good Friday, in the churchyard of St. Bartholomew the Great, Smithﬁeld. “After divine service, one of the clergy

men drops twenty-one sixpences on a tombstone, to be picked up by as many

poor people, widows having the pref