To the sexton, to make up his grave yearly, and to ring the bell, 1_s_. 10_d_. To twenty boys, between the age of six and sixteen, twenty groats. To ten aged and impotent people of the parish, ten threepences. To sweep the path from his house to the church-gate every year, 1_s_. To the crier of Stortford, to make proclamation yearly, on Ascension and Michaelmas Day, that he left his estate to a Matthew, or William Wall, as long as the world should endure, 8_d_. To the parish clerk at Hallingbury for the same, 8_d_., and to the minister and churchwardens, to see his will performed, 5_s_. POWDER PLOT AND SPANISH ARMADA Robert Wilcox, of Alcester, Warwickshire, England, by will, dated 24th of December, 1627, gave a house and grounds to the town of Alcester, for the maintenance of three sermons in the year, viz.: “One upon the 5th of November, in remembrance of our happy deliverance, with our king, nobles and states, from the pestilent design of the Papists in the Powder Plot; one on the 17th of November, in remembrance of that good Queen Elizabeth, her entrance unto the Crown; and the third upon the last day of July, in remembrance of the Lord’s gracious deliverance from the Spanish Armada, in ’88.” And whereas the rent was 20_s_. by the year then, and the good-wife, Lilly, having her life in it, after her decease no doubt the house and close would be worth 30_s_. by the year; then his will was that the said overplus should be given to the poor every year, as the rent should come in, forever. MORE GENEROUS THAN POLITE The will of Edward Wortley Montagu, son of Mr. Montagu, Ambassador to Constantinople in 1716, by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, his wife, the supposed “Sappho” of Pope, is more than singular. After some bequest “to my noble and worthy relation, the Earl of ----,” he adds, “I do not give his lordship any further part of my property because the best part of that he has contrived to take already. Item, to Sir Francis ---- I give one word of mine, because he has never had the good fortune to keep his own. Item, to Lord M---- I give nothing, because I know he’ll bestow it on the poor. Item, to ---- the author, for putting me in his travels, I give five shillings for his wit, undeterred by the charge of extravagance, since friends who have read his book consider five shillings too much. Item, to Sir Robert W---- I leave my political opinions, never doubting he can well turn them into cash, who has always found such an excellent market in which to change his own. Item, my cast-off habit of swearing oaths I give to Sir Leopold D----, in consideration that no oaths have ever been able to find him yet.”