By way of preface it is necessary to explain the sources from which the material for the following pages is taken. The chief feature of these essays consists, I think, in the large amount of original matter rescued from the multitudinous MS. volumes of wills, &c., which are preserved at Somerset House and elsewhere.

As in death, so in those volumes, small and great rest side by side. Of the majority their wills, or, if they died without wills, their intestacies, are their only memorials. But it is fascinating to come suddenly upon some well-known name. In a volume of intestacies of the year 1674, for instance, is an entry stating that administration was granted to Elizabeth Milton, widow of John Milton, late of the parish of St. Giles, Cripplegate, his nuncupative will not having been proved—“testamento nuncupativo dicti defuncti ... per antedictam Elizabetham Milton allegato nondum probato.” [Pg 8]

Different types and times, the lighter or the more serious pages of this book, will appeal to different readers. I would, for my part, especially suggest attention to wills illustrative of times of plague as likely to interest students of human nature and history. Time and opportunity for research have been limited—not unfortunately, perhaps. Amid greater abundance of material, choice would have been the more perplexing.

It is desired to make full acknowledgment of the various printed books which I have perused, and from which I have sometimes borrowed, viz.: such books as “Wills from Doctors’ Commons” (Nichols and Bruce), “Fifty English Wills” (Furnivall), “North Country Wills” (Surtees Society), “Testamenta Eboracensia” (Surtees Society), “Testamenta Vetusta” (Nicolas), “Testamenta Cantiana” (Duncan and Hussey), “Wells Wills” (Weaver), “Lincoln Wills” (Gibbons), “Royal Wills” (Nichols), “A History of English Law” (Holdsworth).

Again, there are books, not directly connected with the subject, in which wills or pertinent tales occur. In this class I am indebted to such books as Messrs. Maclehose’s edition of “An Historical Relation of Ceylon” (Robert Knox), “Anna Van Schurman” (Una Birch), “Bygone [Pg 9] Leicestershire” (Andrews), “The Old Sea-Port of Whitby” (Gaskin), “Beckenham Past and Present” (Borrowman), “Walks in Islington” (Cromwell), “Gentleman’s Magazine,” “Table Book” (Hone), “London” (Knight), “Ancient Monuments” (Weever), “Seventeenth Century Men of Latitude” (George), “Ancestral Stories and English Eccentrics” (Timbs), “Haunted Houses” (Harper), “Real Ghost Stories” (Stead), “Naturalisation of the Supernatural” (Podmore), “Dreams and Ghosts” (Lang), “Folk Lore and Folk Stories of Wales” (Trevelyan), “The Annals of Psychical Science,” and “The Occult Review.”

Especial acknowledgment is due to Messrs. Constable and Co. for permission to make use of articles in “The Ancestor”; to Mr. C. L. Kingsford and the Delegates of the Oxford University Press for permission to introduce the story of the last days of Elizabeth Stow, as contained in Mr. Kingsford’s Introduction to his edition of Stow’s “Survey”; and to Mr. R. de M. Rudolf for valuable illustrations drawn from his book, “Clapham Before 1700 a.d.”

The idea of this book is the writer’s own. It was inevitable that the idea should have been anticipated, but of such anticipation I was unaware until the book was under weigh. The nearest approaches which I have read are Mrs. Byrne’s “Curiosities of the Search Room: A Collection [Pg 10] of Serious and Whimsical Wills” (1880), and Walter Tegg’s “Wills of Their Own: Curious, Eccentric, and Benevolent” (1876), to both of which I acknowledge indebtedness. But those who are interested should repair, if possible, to their entertaining pages. An earlier anticipatory volume is G. Peignot’s excellent “Choix de Testamens Anciens et Modernes, Remarquables par leur Importance, leur Singularité, ou leur Bizarrerie” (1829).

Since these essays were written Mr. Virgil M. Harris, of St. Louis, Missouri, has published at Boston, U.S.A., a large collection of wills under the title, “Ancient, Curious, and Famous Wills,” a work, however, distinct in scope and style from the present book.

Scattered about these pages are instances of wills, &c., gathered from newspapers from time to time. This source, also, is gratefully recognised. Lastly, I have to express my thanks to Mr. Fincham, of Somerset House, for affording me facilities to introduce two or three excellent illustrations of my theme.

Other references are mentioned in the text. If any work to which I am indebted in any respect has not been acknowledged, I trust I may be accorded a ready pardon.

E. VINE HALL.

Wimbledon.