“Item: And to those who are no longer children or youths or lovers, I leave memory, and I bequeath to them the volumes of the poems of Burns and Shakespeare and of other poets, if there be others, to the end that they may live over the old days again, freely and fully, without tithe or diminution. “Item: To our loved ones with snowy crowns I bequeath the happiness of old age, the love and gratitude of their children, until they fall asleep.” THE LAWYER’S BEST FRIEND A hundred years ago, English lawyers, when dining together, used to drink to the health of “The Schoolmaster,” for schoolmasters then often drew up wills for people, and by their ignorance of legal technicalities gave the gentlemen of the long robe much remunerative business. “To the lawyers’ best friend--the man who makes his own will,” was also a regular toast at dinners of the Bar. The following poem is inscribed to the legal profession: THE JOLLY TESTATOR WHO MAKES HIS OWN WILL “Ye lawyers who live upon litigants’ fees, And who need a good many to live at your ease; Grave or gay, wise or witty, whate’er your degree, Plain stuff or State’s Counsel, take counsel of me:-- When a festive occasion your spirit unbends, You should never forget the profession’s best friends: So we’ll send round the wine, and a light bumper fill To the jolly testator who makes his own will. “He premises his wish and his purpose to save All dispute among friends when he’s laid in his grave; Then he straightway proceeds more disputes to create Than a long summer’s day would give time to relate. He writes and erases, he blunders and blots, He produces such puzzles and Gordian knots, That a lawyer intending to frame the thing ill, Couldn’t match the testator who makes his own will. “Testators are good, but a feeling more tender Springs up when I think of the feminine gender! The testatrix for me, who, like Telemaque’s mother, Unweaves at one time what she wove at another. She bequeathes, she repeats, she recalls a donation, And ends by revoking her own revocation; Still scribbling or scratching some new codicil, Oh! success to the woman who makes her own will. “‘Tisn’t easy to say, ’mid her varying vapors, What scraps should be deemed testamentary papers. ’Tisn’t easy from these her intention to find, When perhaps she herself never knew her own mind. Every step that we take, there arises fresh trouble:-- Is the legacy lapsed? Is it single or double? No customer brings so much grist to the mill, As the wealthy old woman who makes her own will.