THE SERVANT PROBLEM
“O good old man! how well in thee appears
The constant service of the antique world,
When service sweat for duty, not for meed!
Thou art not for the fashion of these times,
Where none will sweat but for promotion,
And having that, do choke their service up
E’en with the having: it is not so with thee.”
Such are the reflections of Orlando upon the decay of service in “As
You Like It.” That ingratitude and incivility are not a monopoly of
to-day may be seen from such wills as those of Dr. Messenger Monsey
and of the Rt. Hon. Humphry Morice. The servant problem, indeed, often
forms a diverting feature of wills. And since in current wills we find
frequent instances of constancy and corresponding reward, doubtless the
lament over the “constant service of the antique world” is one among
many cases where the cry of _ætas parentum_ is erroneous or misleading.
In Hone’s “Table Book” is this memorandum: “The following memorial I
copied from a tablet, on the right hand side of the clergyman’s desk,
in the beautiful little church at Hornsey. The scarceness of similar
inscriptions makes this valuable.—S. T. L.
“Erected to the memory of Mary Parsons, the diligent,
faithful and affectionate servant in a family during a
period of 57 years. She died on the 22nd day of November,
1806, aged 85.
“Also to the memory of Elizabeth Decker, the friend and
companion of the above; who, after an exemplary service of
47 years in the same family, died on the 2nd of February,
1809, aged 75.
“Their remains, by their mutual request, were interred in
the same grave.”
But against such examples of a hundred years ago may be set wills like
those already mentioned. Dr. Monsey is characteristically vigorous
in speaking of his servant Nanney. “This she must take as a reward
for her impertinence, sauciness and unwilling service; she’s as proud
as the Devil can make her, as much of a prude as the best of you, as
self-conceited and pert and self-sufficient as the most flaunting
Duchess in the Kingdom.”
Among many, as has been seen, the Rt. Hon. Humphry Morice found only
one faithful to his trust: “and sorry I am to say he is the only
servant I ever had who seemed sensible of good treatment and did not
behave ungratefully.” If from an addition to his will made at Naples,
March 14, 1784, we may judge of his usual conduct, he must have
deserved gratitude and devotion, if any master ever did. “I appoint my
servant John Allen and my servant Richard Deale joint executors of this
my will and codicil, being confident I can depend upon them for the
taking care of my effects and of what I have, that they will dispose of
it as I order ’em by letter or otherwise.... 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 soldered, I request the surgeon in Lord Tylney’s
house or some other surgeon may take out my heart, or perform some
other operation to ascertain my being really dead. The five servants
I brought with me from England to have a complete suit of mourning. I
mean for ’em to continue in the house I inhabit ... till it is a proper
season for ’em to return to England, so as for ’em to avoid taking that
journey during the extremes of winter or summer, according to the time
I may happen to die. Their maintenance here, also the expenses of their
return to England [which he stipulates shall be by land] to be paid out
of my effects.”
It speaks much for his trustful nature that he associates with the
one servant found faithful in 1782 another in 1784, in spite of his
disappointment in human gratitude. This generous trait of his character
will again be exemplified.
Dr. Thomas Cheyney, in one of the numerous papers upon which comment
has been made, was another whose kindness was ill-rewarded. In a
codicil dated January 14, 1748, he says in language through which we
can see his disappointment and disgust: “Thomas Randall having chose to
leave my service not in the most grateful manner, after I had educated
him from his very distressed childhood, I hereby revoke all legacies
intended ... for him.”
M. Coquelin, the famous actor, left a large legacy for his servant
Gillet, “who has been the most honest and most devoted of servants.”
Handel’s will and codicils show how much his servants were in his
mind. Sir John Dolben, of Durham, Bart., D.D., says in his will, dated
May 22, 1751: “I give and bequeath to my faithful and affectionate
old servant Elizabeth Burlington all my wearing clothes and apparel
whatsoever, and I wish I was in circumstances to leave her a provision
for life suitable to the care she has taken of me during very many long
and sore distempers, but I think and hope my children will not let her
want under old age and infirmities.”
The Rt. Hon. Mary Countess Dowager of De la Warr, whose will reveals
a lovable and sentimental personality, was fortunate in her servants.
Dated July 24, 1783, it is addressed to Johnny her son: “My dear
Son, as I hourly feel my health decay, it reminds me how necessary
it is to make a few memorandums, which, from the knowledge I have of
the integrity of your heart, will (I am sensible) be as binding and
as strictly adhered to by you as a will strictly drawn up with the
greatest form.... Poor Elizabeth Hutchinson’s unwearied attentions to
me and your sister Charlotte during all our sickness cannot be forgot
by me. I desire she may have £30 and all my wearing apparel, and added
to these the best of characters. The rest of my servants mourning and
£10 each, having behaved very well in my service. _Adieu: jusqu’au
revoir._”
It is curious to observe the minute care with which high dignitaries
consider the claims of their servants. The Noble Robert Dunant, whose
will (already referred to), dated at Geneva August 12, 1768, is
translated from the French, is an example of this: “I, the underwritten
Counsellor of State, having first humbled myself before God and
implored the assistance of His good Spirit to conduct me wisely as well
in the present, as all the other acts of my life, have made and do make
my will in the following manner.... I give and bequeath to Elizabeth or
Isabeau Rambosson my servant, if she is in my service at the time of
my death, the bed she lays on with all its furniture both inward and
outward, three strikes of wheat with three good wheat sacks, twelve
kitchen table cloths at her choice, thirty livres to buy herself some
necessaries, thirty livres in mourning, ... in all three hundred livres
in money, four pairs of sheets for the use of her bed: the aforesaid
legacies free from the 10 per cent., and payable a month after my
decease. The long good and faithful services of the aforesaid Isabeau
ought to procure her moreover civility from my heirs.”
From the sixteenth century also an example may be taken. In the
thirteenth year of Charles II., Richard Lumley Knight Lord Viscount
Lumley writes: “I desire with all the earnestness I can that my heir
will put my house at Stansted in repair, if I shall not do it before
my death, and to make it his seat. And I hereby recommend such as
have been my ancient officers and servants to my house as persons fit
for his service, having found them faithful to me, and they as best
acquainted with the estate are best able for the managery thereof: and
principally ... Robert Carter, of whose fidelity and affection to me
and mine I have had more than ordinary experience.” An Adam, evidently,
of the old school!
There is a phrase which is perhaps something of a stock phrase in
wills, but shows that the servant in the seventeenth century was more
than a chattel. It occurs, for instance, in the will of John Donne—his
real will, not that fantastic one he made in verse. He made it “in
the fear of God, whose mercy I humbly beg and constantly rely upon
in Christ Jesus, and in perfect love and charity with all the world,
whose pardon I ask from the lowest of my servants to the highest of my
superiors.” His will reveals that tender beauty which often appears
in these documents. Some of its legacies and provisions are quoted
by Izaac Walton, who, however, omits the most touching of all, the
interest of £500 “for the maintenance of my dearly beloved mother, whom
it hath pleased God after a plentiful fortune in her former times to
bring in decay in her very old age.” But this is a digression.
Nancy Greensill, widow, of Brewood, Staffs., in her will dated January
4, 1786, remembered her servant, but not in a spirit so generous. She
begs her mother Susannah will accept her cowslip wine as a small token
of affection; she gives to her brother-in-law Francis Greensill her
plain dressing-table with the smallest swing looking-glass and her
preserves of all kinds, and to his wife Fanny all her best shoes “as
I think they will best fit her.” She begs her sister-in-law Elizabeth
“will accept my pink and black striped silk gown, one of my best
worked aprons and my ear-rings of all kinds.” But to her servant Sarah
Williams she gives “my old wearing apparel, my worst pair of stays, my
old brown cotton gown, my black stuff gown, my light striped chintz
gown, my black quilted petticoat, old green petticoat, my bed gowns,
my worst mourning cap, three plain muslin handkerchiefs, my common
shoes, some thread stockings and my black bonnet.” And Mary Myddelton,
who died in 1789, good as it was of her to remember her washerwoman at
all, seems to spoil the gift to her of £2 by adding “with the worst of
my things that my executrix may think proper to give.” Still, it is
worth noticing that even a daughter comes in for a similar gift. Sarah
Morgan, of Glamorgan, in 1802 desires her executor to give “all the bed
linen and table linen to my daughter Kate Williams; they are not worth
sending to London, so old and very bad.”
Such gifts seem to have been in the air, if the expression may be
condoned. Among the village characters with their little days and
doings in John Galt’s “Annals of the Parish,” is a “Miss Sabrina,”
who took up the school during the reign of the minister, the Rev. Mr.
Balwhidder, and, during the same pastorate, died (1800). Mr. Balwhidder
writes the account, the annals of the parish where he lived and worked;
and though a legacy might not be wholly unexpected, the form of it
certainly was surprising. “Miss Sabrina, who was always an oddity and
aping grandeur, it was found had made a will, leaving her gatherings
to her favourites, with all regular formality. To one she bequeathed a
gown, to another this, and a third that, and to me a pair of black silk
stockings. I was amazed when I heard this but judge what I felt, when
a pair of old marrowless stockings, darned in the heel, and not whole
enough in the legs to make a pair of mittens to Mrs. Balwhidder, were
delivered to me by her executor, Mr. Caption, the lawyer.” Really, we
can hardly believe it, even after the instances quoted.
But let this chapter close with the account of Sir Roger de Coverley’s
will as told by Edward Biscuit, his faithful butler, in the pages of
the old _Spectator_. “It being a very cold day when he made his will,
he left for mourning to every man in the parish a great frize coat,
and to every woman a black riding-hood. It was a most moving sight to
see him take leave of his poor servants, commending us all for our
fidelity, whilst we were not able to speak a word for weeping. As we
most of us are grown grey-headed in our dear master’s service, he has
left us pensions and legacies, which we may live very comfortably upon
the remaining part of our days.”