THE WAY OF ALL FLESH
“Omnes Eodem Cogimur.”
HORACE.
To be apprised of the approach of death, to have the leisure quietly to
retire, to make his will, and to retreat in peace, was the good fortune
of the famous Bill Blinder. “This here lantern, mum,” said Mr. Weller,
handing it to the housekeeper, “vunce belonged to the celebrated Bill
Blinder as is now at grass, as all on us vill be in our turns. Bill,
mum, wos the hostler as had charge o’ them two vell-known piebald
leaders that run in the Bristol fast coach, and would never go to no
other tune but a sutherly vind and a cloudy sky, which wos consekvently
played incessant, by the guard, wenever they wos on duty. He wos took
wery bad one arternoon, arter having been off his feed, and wery
shaky on his legs for some veeks; and he says to his mate, ‘Matey,’
he says, ‘I think I’m a-goin’ the wrong side o’ the post, and that my
foot’s wery near the bucket. Don’t say I ain’t,’ he says, ‘for I know
I am, and don’t let me be interrupted,’ he says, ‘for I’ve saved a
little money, and I’m a-goin’ into the stable to make my last will and
testymint.’ ‘I’ll take care as nobody interrupts,’ says his mate, ‘but
you on’y hold up your head, and shake your ears a bit, and you’re good
for twenty years to come.’ Bill Blinder makes him no answer, but he
goes avay into the stable, and there he soon artervards lays himself
down a’tween the two piebalds and dies—previously a writin’ outside the
corn-chest, ‘This is the last vill and testymint of Villiam Blinder.’
They wos nat’rally wery much amazed at this, and arter lookin’
among the litter, and up in the loft, and vere not, they opens the
corn-chest, and finds that he’d been and chalked his vill inside the
lid, so the lid was obligated to be took off the hinges, and sent up to
Doctors’ Commons to be proved, and under that ere wery instrument this
here lantern was passed to Tony Veller; vich circumstarnce mum, gives
it a wally in my eyes, and makes me rekvest, if you will be so kind, as
to take partickler care on it.”
Dean Cheyney, it will be remembered, made an addendum to his will,
“Now about to go to London, in case I never return.” It was a natural
precaution, but the Dean, as has been noticed, was haunted by the sense
of his mortality. More natural was it to make a will when about to go
to the wars. The earliest form of Roman will was, in fact, that made
_in procinctu_ or on the eve of battle. English wills have frequently
been made on the eve of an engagement or a war. So Ralph Gascoigne, of
Wheldale (1522), makes his will “intending to go to the King’s wars
when it shall please his grace,” and Walter Paslew, of Riddlesden
“intending by the grace of God, according to the King’s commandment, by
his letters to me directed shortly to take my journey toward the Scots
for the defence of the realm of England.” Captain James Ableson (1665)
declares his “true intent ... in case it should please God he should
be slain,” and James Rookes (1665) “being a single man and likely to
go through a deep engagement very suddenly, knowing not how it will
please God to deal with me.” So Captain Crawley, at a critical moment
in “Vanity Fair,” busies himself with his will.
Of peculiar interest is the will of Lieutenant-Colonel Frederick
Thomas, made on the eve of a duel: “London, 3rd September, 1783. I am
now called upon, and, by the rules of what is called honour, forced
into a personal interview of the most serious kind with Colonel Cosmo
Gordon: God only can know the event, and into His hands I commit
myself, conscious only of having done my duty. I therefore declare
this to be my last will and testament, and do hereby revoke all former
wills.... In the first place I commit my soul to Almighty God, in hopes
of His mercy and pardon for the irreligious step I now (in compliance
with the unwarrantable customs of a wicked world) feel myself under
the necessity of taking.” The will was proved eight days later. Lord
Viscount Falkland, on the other hand, made his will when mortally
wounded after a duel at Chalk Farm in 1809.
One of the most strange and beautiful wills in the pages of romance
is that of Cornelius Van Baerle, hero of “The Black Tulip.” There
wants barely an hour before he is to be led to execution, and Rosa,
the jailer’s daughter, is with him in the cell. “On this day, the 23rd
of August, 1672, being about to render, although innocent, my soul to
God on the scaffold, I bequeath to Rosa Gryphus the only worldly goods
which have remained to me of all that I have possessed in this world,
the rest having been confiscated; I bequeath, I say, to Rosa Gryphus
three bulbs, which I am convinced must produce, in the next May, the
Grand Black Tulip, for which a prize of a hundred thousand guilders has
been offered by the Haarlem Society, requesting that she may be paid
the same sum in my stead, as my sole heiress, under the only condition
of her marrying a respectable young man of about my age, who loves her,
and whom she loves, and of her giving the grand black tulip, which will
constitute a new species, the name of Rosa Barlœensis, that is to say,
her name and mine combined.
“So may God grant me mercy; and to her health and long life.”
But lovers of romance remember how the prisoner lived to fulfil the
conditions of his own will, and himself to marry his well-loved
legatee.
Wills are frequently made before an operation. A Birmingham doctor
recently opened his will thus: “This is the last will and testament of
me Alexander Bottle ... being about to undergo a surgical operation.”
Miss Ellen Morrison, who died in 1910, seventy-five years of age,
had made no will when illness seized her and an operation became
imperative. All through the night before the operation the disposal
of three millions of money was her care. But we are trespassing on a
subject which has already been illustrated.
The will of Dirk Jager, written in German, adduces in addition to the
prospect of a journey some general considerations. It is dated March 2,
1769. “In the Name of the most holy and glorious Trinity, Amen. Whereas
daily experience sufficiently sheweth that all men are subject to
temporal death, and thus also I who was born a mortal man in this world
being of nothing more certain than the expectation of death of which
the hour is not revealed to any, but every man ought to be continually
mindful of the time when Almighty God should call him out of the
world, I therefore, intending to travel from this place St. Petersburg
considering the various accidents that may happen and reflecting
seriously that all men are as nothing, being in health and of sound
mind, of my own free will without any compulsion and deliberately and
to avoid all disputes after my death, which is in the hands of the
Almighty, have made this my present testament of my last will for the
disposing of the worldly goods which God has graciously granted to me.”
Such general prefaces have almost entirely disappeared from modern
wills, but they were formerly a notable feature. It might be imagined
that some justification was needed if a man intended to make his will.
They are often beautiful, and sometimes quaint. Their primitive form is
simple. Henry Birchmore, who died in 1683, makes his will “considering
the frailty of this transitory life that there is nothing more certain
than that we must die and nothing more uncertain than the time and
hour when.” John Hall in 1739 begins thus: “I John Hall, now mariner
belonging to his Majesty’s ship _Princess Amelia_ riding at Portsmouth,
Captain John Hemington commander, and not knowing how it may please God
to deal with me on the seas or land, but considering the uncertainty
of this present transitory life, do make and declare these presents to
contain my last will and testament in manner and form following; that
is to say, first and principally I commend my soul unto the hands of
Almighty God hoping to be saved through the merit death passion and
resurrection of Jesus Christ my only Saviour, and my body to the earth
or sea as it shall please God.” And Margaret Greenaway (March 19,
1630) gives as her justification “being weak in body, but in perfect
mind and memory, laud and praise be to Almighty God, and knowing for
certain that I must die in a time uncertain and unknown, and that the
commandment of the Lord unto the king of Judæa was to put his house in
order is a mandate to me and to all people in general: therefore for
avoiding and prevention of all strife and dissension that may hereafter
in any wise arise for touching or concerning anything that is now mine
I think it my duty while I do enjoy the faculties of my soul to dispose
of those things that the Lord and giver of all things hath been pleased
to lend unto me.”
Of peculiar interest are the wills, written in French and recorded in
the original language, of refugees who escaped from France because
of their religion and formed a colony at Canterbury. In the crypt of
the Cathedral services are still held in French each Sunday. These
wills, with a pathos all their own, follow the common custom of such
prefaces. “Au Nom de Dieu, Amen. Moy Marie Michée, veuve de défunct
Jean Fouquet de la Cité de Canterbury, réfugiée pour la religion
réformée, considerant en moy mesme qu’il n’y a rien de plus certain
que la mort ny rien de plus incertain que l’heure dicelle ... ay
faict mon testament.” (Dated September 13, 1727, and proved on the
21st.) The following was dated in June, 1720, and proved in December,
1722. “Au Nom de Dieu, Amen. Connoissez que par devant moi Salaman
Gilles, greffier de la congregation des Wallons qui font leur demeure
en la cité de Canterbury, et notaire public pour les dits Wallons et
pour tous autres estrangers, établi à cette fin et juré par devant
messieurs le mayre et les juges de paix de laditte cité de Canterbury
en la province de Kent ... fut présent en sa personne honnête homme
Isaac Magnié lequel ... a declaré vouloir faire son testament et
établir sa dernière volonté en la manière qui suit.... Je Isaac Magnié,
demeurant in Northlane sur la parroisse de Westgate, estant par la
grace de Dieu dans mon aaje déjà avancée sain de corps et d’esprit,
mais estant bien persuadé que la mort est ordonnée a tous hommes et
que l’on ne scait ny l’heure ny le moment que l’on mourra, et voulant
laisser ma famille en paix et en concorde ensemble autant qu’il m’est
possible, ay résolu de faire mon testament en la manière suivante.”
These are all simple cases: but preambles far more elaborate are
frequently found. Thomas Penistone (dated August 20, and proved
September 5, 1601), after the fervent introduction which has been
quoted, thus continues: “Sithence nothing in this world is more certain
to man than death, nor anything more uncertain than the time of death,
after due consideration of the frailty of this fleeting life even in
the youngest and strongest persons, and that by the dying intestate of
divers upon vain hope of longer life great discord, yea utter ruin,
befalleth their children and posterities, in that in their life time
no distribution is made of their substance amongst their posterity,
but that the same is left to such as by force or deceit can obtain
the same, and considering in the time of sickness oftentimes a man’s
mind, which then ought only to be conversant in divine meditation,
is so grieved with the pang of his disease that he is disable (how
willing soever) in any good sort to remember and provide for wife
children and friends according to his ability: upon these motives I
Thomas Penistone, of Saint Margaret’s near the City of Rochester, in
the County of Kent, Esquire, aged three and thirty years or thereabout,
being in perfect mind and memory, (thanks be given to Almighty God
therefor,) do ordain and make this my last will and testament in manner
and form following.”
From the same year one other example may be given. “In the Name of God,
Amen. Forasmuch as the state of man hath no perpetual dwelling within
the carnal body, but is separable from it at the will and pleasure of
Almighty God at His time appointed, which time is always uncertain,
requisite expedient and most necessary it is that every Christian man
prepare and make himself ready at all times to leave the same, so
that whensoever he shall be called for he be not found sleeping and
unprepared: therefore the ninth day of August, A.D. 1601, and in the
three and fortieth year of the reign of our Sovereign Lady Elizabeth,
by the grace of God Queen of England France and Ireland, Defender
of the Faith, I Nicholas Scott, citizen and grocer of London, being
of perfect mind and memory, laud and praise be therefore given to
Almighty God, and intending by His grace to prepare and make myself
ready to go forward in the universal journey of all flesh, do make and
declare this my last will and testament concerning the disposition of
all and singular my goods chattels lands tenements and hereditaments
whatsoever.”
Upon this basis the changes are rung in will after will, and not the
least curious and elaborate pages of literature may be discovered in
this mode.