The Green Bag
576
of the United States, but for the last and
happiest years of my life, a farmer in my native Town." Daniel Webster expressed: My great and leading wish is, to preserve Marshfield, if I can, in the blood and name of my own family. To this end, it must go in the first place to my son, Fletcher Webster, who is
hereafter to be the immediate prop of my house, and the general representative of my name and
the Reverend John Jackson, Vicar of Santry, “lamenting that I had not credit enough with any Chief Governor (since the change of times) to get some addi
tional Church Preferment for s0 virtu ous and worthy a gentleman." Voltaire left a note endorsed "Mon
Testament," which on being opened exhibited these lines in his own hand:
character.
Je meurs en adorant Dieu, En aimant mes amis,
Perhaps the simplest will of all is a short will of seven or eight lines by which
En ne haissant point mes ennemis, En detestant la superstition.
Senator Roscoe Conkling left his whole estate to his wife. The will of the late Edward H. Harriman is hardly any longer, and his millions were given to his wife.
50,‘ too, Russell Sage's will is a
model of simplicity and brevity. Napoleon's will contains some striking passages: I die prematurely assassinated by the English oligarchy. . . . The English nation will not be slow in avenging me. The two unfortunate results of the invasions of France when she still has so many resources, are to be attributed to the treason of Marmont,
Augerau, Talleyrand and La Fayette. I forgive them — may the posterity of France forgive them like me. I disavow the “Manuscript of Helena" and other works under the title of Maxims, Sayings, etc., which persons have been pleased to publish for the last six years. These are not the rules which have guided my life. I caused the Due d'Enghien to be arrested and tried because that step was essential to the safety, interest and honor of the French people, when the Count d'Artois was maintaining, by his confession, sixty assassins at Paris. Under similar circum stances I would act in the same way.
Lord Nelson dates his will “October 21, 1805, in full sight of the combined fleets of France and Spain, distance about ten
miles," and asks the royal favor for Emma, Lady Hamilton.
Lord Bacon, in 1625, bequeathed his soul and body to God, while his name and memory he left to men's charitable
speeches and to foreign nations and next ages. Philip the Fifth, Earl of Pembroke and Montgomery, with grim sarcasm
begins his will: Impn'mis: As for the soul, I do confess I have often heard men speak of the soul, but what may be these same souls, or what their destination, God knoweth; for myself, I know not.
keep it; as you see, the chirurgeons are tearing
it in pieces. Bury me, therefore; I have lands and churches enough for that. Above all, put not my body beneath the church porch, for I am, after all, a man of birth, and I would not that I should be interred there where Colonel Pride was born. Item:
Dean Swift in a long and elaborate will
among other legacies left his third best beaver hat and his horses to his friend,
Men have
likewise talked to me of another world, which I have never visited, nor do I even know an inch of the ground that leadeth thereto. When the King was reigning, I did make my son wear a sur plice, being desirous that he should become a Bishop, and for myself I did follow the religion of my master; then came the Scotch who made me a Presbyterian, but since the time of Crom well, I have become an Independent. These are. methinks, the three principal religions of the kingdom. — if any one of the three can save a soul, to that I claim to belong: if, therefore, my executors can find my soul, I desire they will return it to him who gave it to me. Item: I give my body, for it is plain I cannot
I will have no monument, for then I
must needs have an epitaph and verses over my carcase; during my life I have had enough of these.
