: The Romance of Wills and Testaments by Vine Hall Edgar - Wills Great Britain Miscellanea

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The Romance of Wills and Testaments

THE ROMANCE OF WILLS

The words of the writer are peculiarly apt to describe the charm of wills. But the older we grow, the more do men and women, by reason only of their humanity, absorb our interest. In wills human nature is most vividly and variously displayed. In wills the dead speak, and in a manner live again. The poor and the rich, men learned and men illiterate, all alike have made interesting wills. In some cases humour and pathos are more unconscious, in others opportunity for effect is greater; but in wills of every class, and of every age or form, there is much worthy of remark.

There is unrivalled scope for the imagination in perusing the last dispositions of the dead. How easy it is, with these documents before us, to picture the figures of each generation; the fervent Catholic of the fifteenth century, the pious benefactor of the sixteenth, the "heroic English gentleman" of the seventeenth, the Whig or Tory of the eighteenth; and at all times the homely or eccentric testator who allows many a secret comedy or tragedy to appear, many a prejudice or foible, many a sentiment of resignation or revolt. Some give the impression of peevishness and irresolution, of spite or hate; some of sentimental or petty desires; some of serene care for the future, of dignity and calm.

Little, indeed, in all literature is more arresting than the revelation of personality, the unveiling of intimacies that are seldom seen: in wills these intimacies occur, the veil is withdrawn, in a manner that elsewhere can rarely be observed. Whether they be light or serious, amusing or tragic, the occurrence of such vivid traits in a will gives them a character peculiarly humorous or correspondingly sad. The idiosyncrasy is magnified, the bias more distorted, when placed in such a setting.

On the other hand, the interest of a will may arise not merely or so much from its provisions in themselves, as from our knowledge of the inner history of the testator's life and death. Bishop Corbet, that witty and jovial soul, was one of those fathers who, for all their love and longing, for all their piety, are disgraced by their sons. In his will, dated July 7, 1635, and proved on the 5th of the following September, he wrote: "I commit and commend the nurture education and maintenance of my son and daughter into the faithful and loving care of my mother-in-law, declaring my intent by this my last will, as I have often in my health expressed the same, that my desire is that my said son be brought up in good learning, and that as soon as he shall be fit be placed in Oxford or Cambridge, where I require him upon my blessing to apply himself to his books studiously and industriously."

He had in "health expressed the same" by verse: but the son Vincent, in spite of prayer and admonition, was a ne'er-do-well, and after the Bishop's death a beggar in London. These lines were addressed to him upon his third birthday by his fond but ill-requited father:--

"I wish thee, Vin., before all wealth, Both bodily and ghostly health: Nor too much wealth, nor wit, come to thee, So much of either may undo thee. I wish thee learning, not for show, Enough for to instruct, and know; Not such as gentlemen require, To prate at table, or at fire. I wish thee all thy mother's graces, Thy father's fortune, and his places. I wish thee friends, and one at court, Not to build on but support; To keep thee, not in doing many Oppressions, but from suffering any. I wish thee peace in all thy ways, Nor lazy nor contentious days; And when thy soul and body part, As innocent as now thou art."

Or take the case of the Gills, father and son. Alexander Gill, senior, was High Master of St. Paul's School from 1608 to 1635, and is famous as having numbered Milton among his pupils. A degree of fame is also his for the unsparing use of the rod, which he wielded even upon his son, the under master:

"'O good Sir,' then cry'd he, 'In private let it be, And do not sauce me openly.'"

In his will we see that as he had ruled in his lifetime, so he would have his wife rule after him. "And although it may seem needless to charge my sons so professed how they should honour their mother, yet I hold it fit in and by this my last will to leave this precept unto them as my last remembrance, charging them as much as I can that, as they hope for a blessing of God to be with them, to give her that honour which is due as the law of God and nature bindeth them, and in every thing to harken to her counsel and precept and to obey her and be ruled by her."

Nor is it surprising to find that another son, Nathaniel, "hath refused my correction," and that he has an "unthankful and injurious brother." "To my unthankful and injurious brother Simon Gill I freely forgive all debts which he oweth me, with all demands for other charges of food apparel losses and supplies in his want by which I have been much damnified by him, which in a most charitable accompt would come to above fifty pounds; I forgive, I say, all most freely except one bill of eight pounds, which debt I give to my executrix, with hope she will not be troublesome to him by suit thereof except he become troublesome unto her or her children as his manner hath been towards me and others."

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