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 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 Viscount Falkland, on the other hand, made his will when mortally wounded after a duel at Chalk Farm in 1809.