Thomas Hobbes, of Gray’s Inn (1632), had also one especial object of his anxiety and affection. “And whereas the Lord hath left me now one only tender plant for raising my posterity, whose religious and virtuous education and transplanting into some godly family in a fit season of marriage is my greatest worldly care, my humble request unto the Right Honourable the master of his Majesty’s ward and his associates is, that the wardship of my sole daughter and heir and of her lands may be granted to my approved loving cousin Peter Phesant of Gray’s Inn, and Richard Bellingham of Lincoln’s Inn, Esquires. And my earnest desire and serious charge to them is, that they permit my said daughter to be continually abiding and educated with my worthy respected friend Mrs. Moore, if she shall be pleased to perform so great a kindness, and in testimony of my grateful respect to her undertaking the said charge of my daughter I bequeath to her my best diamond ring.... And I further wish that my said friends ... as shall educate my said daughter, as is aforesaid, during her wardship, shall have the further government of her after her wardship expired until her age of one and twenty years.... And I do expressly charge and command in the Lord my said daughter, her weak and tender constitution of body well considered, that she consent not to be married to any whomsoever before her age of eighteen years at the soonest, nor after such her age and before her age of one and twenty years without such consent as hereunder I require; nor to any man whensoever, but such as is of an approved holy just and sober conversation, preferring one of a competent estate and degree, fearing the Lord, before the greatest that may be, being profane or licentious.” Of Bishop Corbet’s solicitude for his son we have seen something, nor could anything exceed the kindliness of John Pybus (v. p. 166). Such feelings are summed up in the prayer of Anne Covert, widow of Sir Walter Covert, in the eighth year of Charles I. “And for my children, O God, I give and bequeath them all into Thy gracious protection, most earnestly desiring Thy temporal and spiritual blessings to continue with them both here and hereafter.” So human and emotional these old wills often are. CHAPTER IX WILLS OF FANCY AND OF FANTASY It is said that Lord Eldon, in early days, would wrest pieces of poetry into the form of legal instruments, and that he succeeded in reducing “Chevy Chace” into the style of a bill in Chancery. The opposite tendency, it may be imagined, is the more common, and from the history of England to the last will and testament there is little that has not been converted into verse from time to time. It is rumoured that the essential points of those prosaic documents, the acts relating to Death Duties, have been versified: certainly the “Canons of Descent” are in verse and in print. Their quality is not high. _Canon I._