It is said that Lord Eldon, in early days, would wrest pieces of poetry into the form of legal instruments, and that he succeeded in reducing “Chevy Chace” into the style of a bill in Chancery. The opposite tendency, it may be imagined, is the more common, and from the history of England to the last will and testament there is little that has not been converted into verse from time to time. It is rumoured that the essential points of those prosaic documents, the acts relating to Death Duties, have been versified: certainly the “Canons of Descent” are in verse and in print. Their quality is not high.
Canon I. “Estates go to the issue (item) Of him last seized in infinitum; Like cow-tails, downwards, straight they tend, But never, lineally, ascend.
Canon II. This gives the preference to males, At which a lady justly rails. [Pg 135]
Canon V. When lineal descendants fail, Collaterals the land may nail; So that they be (and that a bore is) De sanguine progenitores.”

Little better is the style of most wills which have appeared in verse. Of these the rhyming will of Will Jackett (1789), who died in North Place, Islington, is well known:—
“I leave and bequeath When I’m laid underneath, To my two loving sisters most dear, The whole of my store, Were it twice as much more, Which God’s goodness has granted me here.
And that none may prevent This my will and intent, Or occasion the least of law racket; With a solemn appeal I confirm, sign, and seal, This the true Act and Deed of Will Jackett.”

Such wills have naturally been seized upon by collectors of verse and oddities. But for the most part they are scarcely worth transcription in full, so that space and time may be saved by quoting a few fragments only. A will, “found in the house of an old Batchelor lately deceased” according to “The Muses’ Mirror” (1783), begins thus:—
“With a mind quite at ease, in the evening of life, Unencumbered with children, relations, or wife; Not in friendship with one single creature alive, I make my last will, in the year sixty-five; [Pg 136] How I leave my affairs, though I care not a straw, Lest a grocer should start up my true heir-at-law; Or of such in default, which would prove a worse thing, My land unbequeathed should revert to the king, I give and bequeath, be it first understood, I’m a friend, and a firm friend to the general good, And odd as I seem, was remarked from my youth, A stickler at all times for honour and truth....”

Four years later Nathaniel Lloyd, Esquire, of Twickenham, followed the “old Batchelor’s” example.
“What I am going to bequeath, When this frail part submits to death; But still I hope the spark divine With its congenial stars will shine: My good executors fulfil, I pray ye, fairly, my last will, With first and second codicil!... Unto my nephew, Robert Longdon, Of whom none says he e’er has wrong done; Tho’ civil law he loves to hash, I give two hundred pounds in cash.... To Sally Crouch and Mary Lee, If they with Lady Poulet be, Because they round the year did dwell In Twick’nham House, and served full well, When Lord and Lady both did stray Over the hills and far away; The first ten pounds, the other twenty, And, girls, I hope that will content ye. In seventeen hundred and sixty-nine, This with my hand I write and sign; The sixteenth day of fair October, In merry mood, but sound and sober; Past my threescore and fifteenth year, With spirits gay and conscience clear; [Pg 137] Joyous and frolicksome, tho’ old, And, like this day, serene but cold; To foes well-wishing, and to friends most kind, In perfect charity with all mankind.”

More modern, but in its touches of human nature not of this age only, is the will of one Sarah Smith.
“I, Sarah Smith, a spinster lone, With little here to call my own, Few friends to weep at my decease, Or pray my soul may rest in peace, Do make my last and only will, (Unless I add a codicil,) My brother Sam to see it done For he’s the right and proper one. I give the kettle that I use At tea-time, and the little cruse That holds hot posset for a guest To Martha, for she’s homeliest; Perhaps she’d like the picture too In needlework of Auntie Loo (So like her,) and of Uncle Jim, She always was so fond of him. Then there’s the parlour chair and table, I give them both to you, dear Mabel, With love, and when you sit thereat Remember there your Sarah sat. My poor old spectacles will be More use to you, alas, than me, So take them, Polly, and they may Perhaps sometimes at close of day Grow dim when memories arise Of how they suited Sally’s eyes. Pussy will not be with you long, But while she lives do her no wrong, A mug of milk beside the fire Will be the most that she’ll desire. [Pg 138] There’s little else I have to mention, For, when I’ve spent my old-age pension, Not many crowns disturb my sleep, But what there is is Sam’s to keep: He’s been a brother kind and good In all my days of solitude. And so farewell: no word of ill Shall stain my last and only will; But, friends, be just and gentle with The memory of Sarah Smith.”

Genuine wills in rhyme are naturally rare, but literature is full of imaginary or fantastic testaments, as well in prose as in verse. To such a one Sir Walter Scott refers in a letter to Lady Anne Hamilton: “I always remind myself of the bequest which once upon a time the wren made to the family of Hamilton. This magnanimous, patriotic bird, after disposing of his personal property to useful and public services, such as one of his legs to prop the bridge of Forth and the other to prop the bridge of Tay, at length instructs his executors thus:—
“And then ye’ll take my gallant bill, My bill that pecks the corn, And give it to the Duke of Hamilton To be a hunting horn.”

Whether in prose or in verse—verse not seldom prosaic—a striking similarity of idea runs through them, from the will of the cochon of the fourth century, who gives his teeth to the quarrelsome, his ears to the deaf, his muscles to the weak, down to the will of Chatterton in [Pg 139] the eighteenth century, who gives “all my vigour and fire of youth to Mr. George Catcott, being sensible he is most in want of it,” and “from the same charitable motive ... unto the Rev. Mr. Camplin, senior, all my humility.”

On earth all things decay and have their period, so all things may make their wills.
“Omnia tempus edax depascitur, omnia carpit, Omnia sede movet, nil sinit esse diu.”

The idea may be indefinitely extended. Among the writings of Thomas Nash, for instance, is a fantasy entitled “Summer’s Last Will and Testament.”
Summer loquitur.
“Enough of this, let me go make my will.... The surest way to get my will performed Is to make my executor my heir, And he, if all be given him, and none else, Unfallibly will see it well performed. Lions will feed, though none bid them fall to,  Ill grows the tree affordeth ne’er a graft.
This is the last stroke my tongue’s clock must strike My last will, which I will that you perform: My crown I have disposed already of. Item, I give my withered flowers and herbs Unto dead corpses, for to deck them with; My shady walks to great men’s servitors, Who in their masters’ shadows walk secure; My pleasant open air, and fragrant smells, To Croydon and the grounds abutting round; My heat and warmth to toiling labourers, My long days to bondmen and prisoners— My fruits to Autumn, my adopted heir, [Pg 140] My murmuring springs, musicians of sweet sleep, To murmuring malcontents, with their well-tuned ears, Channelled in a sweet falling quatorzain, Do lull their ears asleep, listening themselves....”

Peignot, in his “Choix de Testaments” (1829) made a beginning of a bibliography of imaginative or imaginary wills, among which he cites the last will of the Ligue in the “Satyre Ménippée.” It has eloquent and poignant passages.
“Plus, suivant la coutume et anciennes lois, Je fais mon heritier tout le peuple fran?ois; Je lui laisse les pleurs, le sang, les pilleries, Les meurtres, assassins, insignes voleries, Les veuves, orphelins, et les violemens, Les larmes, les regrets, et les ran?onnemens, Les ruines des bourgs, des villes, des villages, Des chateaux, des maisons et tant de brigandages, Les ennuis, les douleurs et tous les maux re?us Par surprise ou assauts, par les flammes et feux, Bref de son cher pays les cendreuses reliques, Reste de mes labeurs et secrètes pratiques.”

Peignot showed what possibilities lay in this research; perhaps of poetic wills his countryman Villon’s “Testaments” are the most noteworthy. English literature, too, has many poems of this nature, and John Donne’s poem called “The Will” is characteristic of its author and of its kind.
“Before I sigh my last gasp, let me breathe, Great Love, some legacies; I here bequeath Mine eyes to Argus, if mine eyes can see; If they be blind, then, Love, I give them thee, My tongue to Fame; to ambassadors mine ears; [Pg 141............