“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 [Pg 188] 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 [Pg 189] 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 [Pg 190] 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 Barl?ensis, 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. [Pg 191]

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 h............