A last will and testament is the instrument whereby one disposes of his property, to take effect after his death.[1]

The right to dispose of one’s property, by will, consistent with existing rules of law, is one of the results of man’s social condition, based upon an instinctive sentiment, akin to self love, which looks to the preservation and alienation, according to the intent of the owner, of the individual acquisitions, resulting from personal endeavor.

There is a vast amount of interesting information, in connection with the history and forms of antique wills, and testamentary dispositions of property, in one form or another, are of extremely ancient origin.[2]

Historians and law writers have told us that the will, as we know it, is a Roman invention, but in this statement the testimony of others is accepted as establishing the fact, rather than the knowledge, or want of knowledge of the fact asserted. Indeed, writers are frequently given to accepting and repeating the statements of others, without investigating the facts upon which such statements are based, much as the court did, that decided that a given windstorm was not a cyclone, where the conclusion was based wholly upon the evidence showing that the clouds lacked the funnel shape and circling motion, while the effect of the storm, evidenced by the twisted trunks of giant trees, the houses awry and other primary evidence of the fact asserted, was wholly over-looked, in reaching the conclusion.[3]

There is evidence that wills were used in Egypt centuries before they were known in Europe;[4] Solon is said to have introduced them into Greece,[5] and wills were used in Rome, long before the date of the Twelve Tables.[6]

Abraham, in his lament of the want of a legitimate heir, appointed the steward and servant born in his house to take his estate, after his death and this was, virtually, the appointment of an heir by will.[7] And the Hebrew Patriarch, Jacob, before taking his departure from his sons, with the knowledge of approaching death, said unto Joseph:[8]

Of course this is but an oral bequest, but it has all the elements of a death-bed disposition, made under the apprehension of approaching death and it sets forth the “portion” to Joseph, after mentioning the derivation of the testator’s title, and the symbolic emblems to the other sons are distributed, with all the solemnity of a will, in fact.

From these illustrations, it will be seen, that from the beginning of the history of man, as we know him, or at least in the patriarchial days of the ancient Hebrews, the custom obtained of making testamentary dispositions of property, and there is also evidence extant that this custom was not confined alone to the ancient Israelites.

An Egyptian will, dating back to patriarchial times, was recently unearthed at Kahun, by the English Egyptologist, William Petrie.[9] By this document, written 2548 B. C. one Sekrehen, a citizen of the time of Amenemhat IV., settles upon his wife, Teta, all the property given him by his brother, for life, with a condition against the commission of waste, and one Siou, a lieutenant, is appointed guardian for the infant children. Two scribes attest the execution of this will in solemn form and thus we have the indisputable evidence, by this document executed forty-six hundred years ago, that the statement of modern historians that wills are of Roman origin and were invented by the clergy of mediaeval times,[10] is in error.

The written will of the Assyrian monarch, Sennacherib, assassinated in the year 681, B. C., is preserved in the royal library of Kenyunjik[11] and in the form customarily used in that period, he bequeathed to his son, Esarhadden, his bracelets, coronets and other gifts of gold, ivory and precious stones, deposited, for safekeeping, “in the temple of Nebo.”

The will of the philosopher, Plato, 348 B. C., who left “no debts,” but devised his farms, with a provision against alienation,[12] to his son, Adimantes, together with his vase, gold, cash, slaves, “also all my chattels, as specified in an inventory, held and possessed by Demetrius,” is a model of brevity and concise legal form, such as the experienced lawyer of today would have prepared for his client.

The will of the great Aristotle, who, at sixty-eight entered upon his final long sleep of death, in the year 322 B. C., after appointing Antipater his executor, with other named friends to assist him in the management and care of his estate, proceeds to dispose of his acquisitions, in a most reasonable business-like manner, from the provision for his daughter, in case of her marriage, including the disposition of his various slaves, the finishing of his statues and the depositing of the bones of his wife, Pythias, in his tomb, “even as she desired,” to the final arrangements for the offering of the four stone animals, for the preservation of Nicanor, to Jupiter and Minerva, is just such a sane, sensible testamentary provision as one would expect from such an astute philosopher.[13]

Virgil died ten years before Christ and his will left his manuscript of the Aeneid to his friends and executors, Tucca and Varus, and divided his property between his half-brother, Proculus and Valerius, after leaving a fourth to Augustus, a twelfth to Macaenas and the rest to Varus.[14]

But we cannot devote more space in this chapter to the wills of the most gifted of men of this ancient period, however interesting it would be to follow the testamentary devises of the statesmen, poets and philosophers of the period before Christ, but to trace the origin and growth of English wills, with a few illustrations of the quaint and curious, will sufficiently lengthen the scope of the present subject-matter.

Forms of testamentary disposition of personalty obtained in Great Britain at a very early period,[15] but until the Statute of Wills, in 1540,[16] there was no right of disposition by will, in England, on the part of the owner of real estate.[17]

The Anglo-Saxon will is not a product of the Roman will at all, but is purely a creature of the manners and customs of the English people themselves.[18] In the early Anglo-Saxon law wills were unknown, but owed their origin to the privilege accorded the crowned heads and great ones to make testamentary disposition and death-bed gifts of their property.[19] In Cnut’s day it was not unusual for a man to make a post obit gift of his land or goods, and after the Norman conquest this custom continued and one could dispose of his land, after his death, by a charter, effective upon his own death, or that of his wife,[20] but the testamentary devise, as we know it, was not a common instrument in this day.

After the middle of the thirteenth century the king’s court condemned the post obit gift of land, by charter, but allowed it only in certain boroughs where the custom obtained; primogeniture was held to destroy the existing law of succession; the church asserted the right to execute the last will and testament of every person and the horror of intestacy increased, as the church assumed the right to administer the goods of the deceased, for the good of his soul.[21]

We read, in the old books, that a great man, Eude, died in Normandy, during the reign of Henry I., and made a certain division or devise of his property, leaving his manor to the abbey he had built at Colchester, with a hundred pounds and a gold ring, together with a cup and horse and mule; but before the King would confirm the devise of the manor, he compelled the surrender of the cup, horse and mule to the Crown.[22]

And the post obit gift to Walden Abbey attempted by William de Mandeville, Earl of Essex, during the reign of Henry II. was also set aside by Geoffrey Fitz Peter, one of Glanville’s successors as Chief Justiciar,[23] under Henry II., and his successor.

Of course the church-men frequently procured confirmations from the heirs of these post obit gifts of land to the church, by the threat of a dying father and the disapprobation of the church, if the gift was not confirmed, but in the law these gifts were not recognized, for, as Glanville puts it, in this period it was an axiom of the law that “God alone and not man can make an heir.”[24]

Glanville speaks of the probate of wills, as if that mode of authenticating these documents had been long in use, when he wrote, but just when this custom was crystalized into law, in England, it is difficult to determine.[25] In the reign of Henry III. the ecclesiastical courts assumed jurisdiction in the probate of wills and soon thereafter attempted quite generally to enforce the execution of them in payment of legacies, for since the reign of Henry I., the estate of one dying intestate, was subject to division by those succeeding thereto, pro anima ejus.[26] The church seemed best suited to make this division, for the benefit of the intestate’s soul and this finally gave rise to the grant of letters by the ordinary to the next of kin, from which the custom of issuing letters of administration no doubt arose, in after-times.[27]

The church continued to execute the powers concerning wills and the estates of decedents—and this is no doubt the reason why Glanville and Bracton do not treat at length of wills, further than to mention the custom, in certain boroughs, of devising land by will[28]—until the people complained of oppression by the bishops and ordinaries in the exaction of fines for probating wills, when the statute of 31 Edward III., was enacted, giving the justices of the king’s court jurisdiction to enquire into such exactions and oppressions, either at the instance of the king, or that of the injured person.[29]

Having thus assumed the jurisdiction over the estates of deceased persons, by this statute, which was the entering wedge to oust the jurisdiction of the ecclesiastical courts, in the gradual processes of time, the courts learned in the law, instead of those concerned only about spiritual affairs, assumed larger control and jurisdiction over the estates of decedents. While the church retained control over the estates of decedents, the bishop exercised practically the same authority that the probate judge exercises under our law, in the granting of letters of administration, the listing and inventorying of the property and the accounting by the trustee to the ordinary, granting the letters of administration.[30]

From the delegation of the trust to some personal friend to carry out the will of the decedent, the clergy, in compelling fidelity in the performance of the trust, no doubt developed that particular kind of a trustee known to our law of today as an executor or administrator and with the appearance of this legal personality, the devise may be said to first legally assume the dignity analogous to our present testamentary devise.[31]

One of the earliest wills, with executors, that the older books refer to, is that of King Henry II.,[32] made at Waltham, in the year 1182 in the presence of ten witnesses, among whom we note the name of Ranulf Glanville, his justiciar, the author of the first English law book. The English bishops and Glanville were to make division among the religious houses of five thousand marks; Norman bishops were to make division of certain sums among Norman elemosinary institutions; his sons were charged with the distribution of a fund to be expended in providing marriages for poor free women; God’s curse was invoked upon all those who violate his laws and the Pope was said to have confirmed the devise, no doubt because all the legacies were for pious purposes. The will, however, had executors,[33] for one set of the trustees looked after the English behests; another set after the Norman legacies; others, still, those left to institutions in Maine and Anjou, and all of these several executors, save only Glanville, were from among the clergy, and this evidences the high regard in which this monarch held his learned justiciar.

But few of the thirteenth century wills have come down to us, although we have an ampler supply in the fourteenth century. In the thirteenth century, the will was usually made in Latin and wills written in the English language first began to appear generally in the second half of the fourteen century.[34]

In the year 1268, or the 53 year of Henry III., William de Beauchamp executed a will[35] that looks very like the modern documents, except that it only provided for specific legacies and behests of personalty other than to the church. It provided that his horse, fully harnessed, with all military caparisons, should precede the hearse bearing his corpse; provided for masses for his soul; gave a house to the church for his own soul and that of his wife; a behest to his son, Walter, to defray his expenses in a pilgrimage to the holy-land; to his daughter, Joane, a canopy and a book of Lancelot; a silver cup to his daughter Isabel, rings for his friends, with small legacies to others and a house for the church, are the principal features of this ancient will. The testator finally closed this interesting old will, in the following form:

So here we have, in modern form, the recognition of the custom to appoint executors, by testamentary devise, just as today.

Primogeniture, under the feudal law of the middle ages, in England, created the necessity for wills of real estate, for although all children of the Germanic races took equally and this was true, at Rome, under the feudal law all the children were practically disinherited in favor of the eldest son; some method of devising the estate to the eldest son was essential, on the part of the testator of real estate, so the Clergy adopted the Roman will as the instrument for accomplishing the purpose and thus it is sometimes called “an accidental fruit of feudalism.”[36]

The liberty taken by the Church with the estates of deceased persons was a matter of such scandal and oppression, during the reigns of Henry III. and Edward II., that Parliament on several occasions imposed rules for the government of the bishops in the administration of the estates of intestates. Executors were required, during the reign of Henry III., to make a true inventory of the property of the deceased, and exhibit it to credible persons, acquainted with the property of the deceased,[37] and this is no doubt, the foundation for this provision of our modern law, requiring inventories, in such cases.

During the reign of Edward IV. the testamentum and ultima voluntas came to be regarded in much the same legal aspect, although the former was the more solemn act and the execution of the testament was always in accordance with the forms prescribed in the older law books and if these preliminaries were omitted it was but a mere ultima voluntas.[38]

In the reign of Edward VI. the reformers of that period objected to the promiscuous use of wills by all classes, so an act was passed preventing the execution of wills by wives, servi, by minors under fourteen, by heretics, criminals, condemned to death, exile, or chains; those who did not dismiss their concubines before they were in extremis, people with two wives or husbands, libelers, prostitutes or procuresses and usurers. The indulgence was granted to those keeping concubines, however, and to those with two wives or husbands—perhaps because of the leniency with which such crimes were looked upon at this period—of disposing of their goods in pias causas, or for the relief of the poor, afflicted, for young women, the support of students and the reparation of highways.[39]

Under the old law, the division of the decedent’s property, whether by will or otherwise, was one-third to his wife, a third to his children and the other third, the owner himself could dispose of. If no will was left, the wife and children took their one-third each and the rest was divided by the administrator. If no children survived, the widow took half and the owner could dispose of the other half, or, if the owner died intestate, the administrator disposed of the remaining half and the same was true, if there were no children, but a widow survived.[40]

The modern statutes of descents and distributions, in the United States, are no doubt founded upon the customs, which had taken the fixed form of law, at this early period of English history.

In the written English wills that have come down to us, from the middle ages, we find the dispositions of property governed, largely, by the customs and laws of the period when the will was written and the forms and dispositions of property devised by these instruments is as varied as the imaginations and whims of the testators.

The will of Guy de Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, dated at Warwick Castle, Monday, next after the feast of St. James, the Apostle, 1315, provided for the interment of his body in the Abbey of Bordsley, without funeral pomp. To Alice, his wife, he left a portion of his plate, a crystal cup and half his bedding, with all the books in his chapel; to his daughters, he left the other half of his bedding, rings and jewels; to his son, Thomas, he left his best coat of mail, helmet and suit of harness, and to his son, John, he left his second best coat of mail, helmet and harness, and the remainder of his armour, bows, and other warlike implements were to remain in Warwick castle, for his heir.[41]

Noticeable among the wills of the fourteenth century is the specific provision for the place and manner of the interment of the body of the deceased. The testators of this period of the world’s history, prompted by their superstition, wrote their wills as if they thought that the angel of the Lord, on the resurrection day, would scan their wills, to find the place of their interment. They talked “of graves, of worms, and epitaphs,” just as the Great Bard makes the weak King Richard speak, who had naught to bequeath, save his deposed body “to the ground.”[42]

We find that old John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, in 1399, directs, in his will,[43]

Sir Walter Manney, on St. Andrew’s day, in 1371, in London, provided for his interment, “at God’s pleasure,” in the midst of the Quire of the Carthusians, near Smithfield, in the suburbs of London, without any great pomp. He directed twenty masses be said for his soul and that every poor person attending his funeral, be given a penny to say a prayer for his soul and the remission of his sins. He left ten pounds to his sister, the nun, Mary; left a provision for each of his two bastard daughters and to his dear wife, the plate which he bought of Robert Francis, also a girdle of gold, a garter of gold and all of his beds and girdles, except his folding bed, which he left to his daughter of Pembroke. He willed that a tomb of alabaster with his own image thereon, as a knight and his arms thereon should be constructed, like unto that of Sir John Beauchamp, at Paul’s London, and that prayers should be said for his soul and also for that of Alice de Henalt, the Countess Marshal and Sir Guy Bryan, Knt., was appointed executor of his will.[44]

Queen Katherine of Aragon, wife of Henry VIII., who died in 1536, after providing for the burial of her body in the Convent of Observant Friars, supplicated the King in her last will,[45] to return the property that she had brought to him from Spain, out of which she stipulated for the payment of the annual wages due her physician, her druggist, her laundress, goldsmith and tailor; she left the collar of gold she had brought from Spain to her daughter and provided for masses for her soul and legacies to different priests and lady friends.

Harris, in his recent book on “Ancient, Curious and Famous Wills,”[46] reproduces, verbatim, many curious and strange testaments, evidencing the weaknesses, humors, whims and caprices, and sometimes, even the vengeance of the various testators, whose wills he has collected.

William Pym, for instance, a gentleman of Somerset, England, who crept to his long sleep of death on January 10’, 1608, after providing for different charitable behests, thus speaks of his wife, in his will:[47]

Dispositions of property for the use and benefit of horses and other domestic animals are not uncommon, in the list of quaint and curious wills to be met with by the student of ancient testaments.

Harris cites the curious will of a childless peasant, who died near Toulouse, in 1781, by the terms of which he left his house and land and other property to his riding horse, in these words:

Upon the will being brought before the court for construction, it was held that the intent of the testator would be given effect and the horse and the bequests he had bestowed upon it, would go to the nephew named in the will.[48]

Madame Dupuis, who died in 1677,[49] left a legacy of a fixed amount to her executor, with a detailed menu for her cats, which her sister and niece were to visit three times a week to see that at least thirty sous a week were expended for their living and care.

As an illustration of the generosity and magnanimity of certain Jews, the will of the wealthy Israelite, Pinedo, who died at Amsterdam, in the eighteenth century, is not without interest. He left to the city of his adoption, five tons of gold; to every Christian church in Amsterdam and at the Hague, the sum of 10,000 florins each; to each Christian orphanage in these two towns, 10,000 crowns; to the poor of Amsterdam, forty shiploads of peat; to his synagogue two and a half tons of gold; he lent to the government, at three per cent, ten tons of gold, on condition that the interest should be paid to the Jews domiciled at Jerusalem; he then left certain legacies to his wife and nephew and other members of his family and to every unmarried person of either sex, attending his funeral, 100 florins; to every Christian priest at Amsterdam and the Hague, 100 crowns and to every sacristan, fifty crowns.[50]

Space will not permit the long list of charitable and philanthropic devises that could be collated from ancient and mediaeval times, which many of the testators of today would do well to emulate.

John Wardell, of London, by his will dated August 29’, 1656, devised his tenement, called the “White Bear,” in trust, to light the travelers passing to and fro along the watersides.[51]

Charles Jones, of Lincoln’s Inn, by will dated January 17’, 1640, established a charitable trust for the maintenance of a house to be used as a hospital, near Pullhelly, for twelve poor men.[52]

George Butler, of Coleshill, Warwickshire, by his testament dated September 2’, 1591, gave his house in trust for the lodgment of “any poor travelers” who should desire lodgment, not to exceed one night.[53]

And Valentine Goodman, of Hallaton, England, by his will in 1684, left eight hundred pounds to be invested and the interest spent for the benefit of the “most indigent, poorest, aged, decrepit, miserable paupers.”[54]

Among the freakish wills collected by Harris, may be mentioned that of the nobleman of the house Du Chatelet, who died in 1280,[55] and directed that one of the pillars of the church at Neufchateau should be hollowed out and his body stood upright therein, so that the vulgar might not walk upon his corpse.

The strange request of the great English jurist, Jeremy Bentham,[56] that his corpse might be embalmed and placed in his favorite chair at the banquet table of his friends, on all occasions of state, was carefully carried out by his friend, Dr. Southwood Smith. By some scientific process the body of the philosopher and law writer was preserved, by a French artist and in his usual suit of clothes, with his broad-brimmed sombrero and his favorite walking-stick, in his old armed-chair, the lifeless body of this gifted man graced the meetings of his friends, until it was removed by Dr. Smith to University College.

The will of the great Bard of Avon, has been discussed so frequently that its terms are known to many, but as the last writing of the Poet, like everything connected with his life, it is always of interest to posterity.

The first paragraph of his will, along with the many other prayers and Bible references which he places in the mouths of his characters in the plays,[57] evidences the Poet’s firm belief in Jesus Christ and the “life everlasting.”

In the entailment of his real estate to the bodily heirs male of his daughters, this will evidences the most careful legal preparation and the conclusion is not unreasonable that the same discrimination which characterizes this disposition of his real estate and other property, recognized the futility of any attempted disposal of his literary productions, which lacked the attribute of property, in law, in England, until 1709.[58]

His legacies to his sister and his nieces and nephews is characteristic of his deep affection for his own family; his benevolence is established by his bequests to the “poor of Stratford”; his good-fellowship and love for his friends by the many legacies for rings for his different friends; his indifference toward his wife, by the fact that he only left her his “second best bed, with the furniture,” while all his landed acquisitions, with his gold and silver plate and other property were distributed among his sisters, daughters, nieces and nephews and his trust and confidence in his daughter, Susanna Hall, and her husband, John Hall, is finally established by the fact that he made them his executors and trustees.[59]

The wills of the statesmen and patriots of the past century, in our own country are equally interesting with those of our brothers of yesterday across the sea.

After leaving his land in Nova Scotia, with his books and the debts owing to him by his son, William Franklin, former Governor of the Jerseys, the great statesman, philosopher and patriot, Benjamin Franklin, referred to his son’s part in attempting to deprive him of his property, during the war, as an excuse for not leaving him more of his estate. He left his dwelling house and three new houses, printing office, silver plate and household goods, to his daughter, Sarah Bache, and her husband, in entirety with remainder to their heirs, “as tenants in common and not as joint tenants.”[60] The picture of the king of France, set with four hundred and eight diamonds, he left to his daughter, with the admonition not to use the diamonds to make ornaments for herself, so as not to thereby “introduce the expensive, vain and useless pastime of wearing jewels in this country.” He desired his philosophical instruments in Philadelphia, to go to his ingenious friend, Francis Hopkinson, and by a codicil, he left his “fine crab-tree walking-stick” to his friend and “the friend of mankind, General Washington. If it were a sceptre, he has merited it and would become it. It was a present to me from that excellent woman, Madame de Forbach, the Dowager Duchess of Deux Ponts, connected with some verses, which go with it.” He left a bond to his son-in-law, on the condition that he manumit and set free his negro man. This great patriot and friend of mankind, like General Washington, in his last testament, therefore, registered his opposition to human slavery, an institution that was to be finally abolished a half century later in the United States, through the efforts of the great “Emancipator.”

The will of the great Chief Justice John Marshall, is declared by him to be “entirely in my own handwriting”; he left his estate equally to his only daughter and his five sons and accompanying the will is a splendid eulogy to his deceased wife, whom he characterized as the “most affectionate of mothers.”[61]

The will of Captain Miles Standish, Longfellow’s hero, was made March 7’, 1656. He desired his just debts to “bee paied”; that his body should be “buried in Decent manor ... as near as conveniently may bee to my two daughters, Lora Standish, my daughter, and Mary Standish, my daughter-in-law.” His dear and loving wife, Barbara Standish, was left a third of his estate; forty pounds were left to each of four sons and to his son Josias, upon his marriage, he left “one young horse, five sheep and two heifers,” with his forty pound legacy, if his estate “will bear it att p’sent.” His friends, Mr. Timothy Hatherly and Capt. James Cudworth, were appointed “supervisors” of his will, for he knew that they would “be pleased to Doe the office of Christian love to bee healpfull to my poor wife and Children by their Christian Counsell and advice.”[62]

The “Father of our Country,” General George Washington, left the bulk of his estate to his wife, Martha Washington, for life,[63] with the “liquors and groceries” on hand at his death, to dispose of as she saw fit. Upon her death he willed that all slaves owned by him, in his own right, should have their freedom and that the old and infirm and sick ones should be protected and maintained by his heirs so long as they lived and the younger ones educated and maintained the same as other poor children.

He left the fifty shares in the Potomac Company, given him for his services in the Revolutionary War, to endow a University within the limits of the District of Columbia; some of his lands were distributed among the sons of his deceased brothers; his military and state papers were left to his nephew, Bushrod Washington; he recommitted the “box of oak that sheltered the great Sir William Wallace,” to the Earl of Beuban; to his brother, Charles, he left the gold headed cane left him by Dr. Franklin and among the “mementos of esteem and regard,” to his many friends, are a pair of pistols to General De La Fayette. He desired that in case of any dispute over his will that the disputants select each an arbitrator, the two thus selected to agree upon a third and the finding of any two as to his intentions, he desired to be “as binding upon the parties as if it had been given in the Supreme Court of the United States.”

Like Washington, and many other of the patriots of the past century, William Penn prepared his own will, in 1718, so as to cause no little concern to his friend, James Logan, as to the different constructions that could be placed upon it.

The Government of the Province of “Pennsylvania and territories thereto belonging,” he devised in trust to the Earls of Oxford, Mortimer and Powelett, “and their heirs, upon trust, to dispose thereof to the Queen” or to any other person to the best advantage to carry out the object of the devise.

He further devised to his wife, Hannah Penn; to her father, Thomas Callowhill; to his sister, Margaret Lowther; to his friends “Gilbert Heathcote Physitian, Samuel Waldenfield, John Field, Henry Gouldney, all living in England” and to his friends, Samuel Carpenter, Richard Hill, Isaac Norris, Samuel Preston and James Logan, “liveing in or near Pensilvania and their heires” all his lands, tenements and hereditaments, with “other profitts scituate, lyeing and being in Pensilvania and the territores thereunto belonging,” in trust, first for the payment of his debts, second, to convey 10,000 acres each to the three children of his son, William, a like quantity to his daughter, Aubrey, and the rest to be divided among the children of his present wife, “in such proporcon and for such estates as my said wife shall think fit.” His wife was made executrix and all his personal estate was left to her.

Penn was a man of far more than the ordinary ability and wisdom in the customary affairs of life, but as his friend, James Logan, foresaw, from the contents of this will, which left such a large and varied estate to so many people to convey, with so little instructions regarding his intentions, it is not strange that litigation covering a period of nine years should have resulted from such a testament.[64]

The searcher for the curious in testaments, will find wills in poetry as well as in prose, collated in Harris’ Ancient Wills.

William Jackett, of the parish of St. Mary, Islington, died in 1789 and his will in the following form was admitted to probate:

William Hicklington, who dubbed himself, the Poet of Pocklington, penned his will in rhyme, in 1770, as follows:

Apropos this will, is the rhymed testament of the sacriligious Irishman, who, as the old books record, in this quatrain disposed of his earthly effects: