the aforesaid waxen model or bust of his said dear wife Amelia, in testimony of my regard for him, and the respect I have for his domestic character which has induced me to consider him as the best entitled to this striking resemblance of his said dear wife, and whereon I have ever set a very high value. “I also give and bequeath unto Mr. Hollingbery, an officer in the Royal Navy, the sum of 20 guineas for mourning, most sincerely wishing him health happiness and prosperity through life, trusting his behaviour will continue to be such as to merit success and do credit to the assistance I afforded him on his first setting out in the world, which I reflect on with the most real satisfaction.” So John Pybus looks upon the world with a benignant and beneficent eye, happy in his family and his friends, in his life and in his death. CHAPTER XII THE SERVANT PROBLEM “O good old man! how well in thee appears The constant service of the antique world, When service sweat for duty, not for meed! Thou art not for the fashion of these times, Where none will sweat but for promotion, And having that, do choke their service up E’en with the having: it is not so with thee.” Such are the reflections of Orlando upon the decay of service in “As You Like It.” That ingratitude and incivility are not a monopoly of to-day may be seen from such wills as those of Dr. Messenger Monsey and of the Rt. Hon. Humphry Morice. The servant problem, indeed, often forms a diverting feature of wills. And since in current wills we find frequent instances of constancy and corresponding reward, doubtless the lament over the “constant service of the antique world” is one among many cases where the cry of _ætas parentum_ is erroneous or misleading. In Hone’s “Table Book” is this memorandum: “The following memorial I copied from a tablet, on the right hand side of the clergyman’s desk, in the beautiful little church at Hornsey. The scarceness of similar inscriptions makes this valuable.—S. T. L. “Erected to the memory of Mary Parsons, the diligent, faithful and affectionate servant in a family during a period of 57 years. She died on the 22nd day of November, 1806, aged 85. “Also to the memory of Elizabeth Decker, the friend and companion of the above; who, after an exemplary service of 47 years in the same family, died on the 2nd of February, 1809, aged 75. “Their remains, by their mutual request, were interred in the same grave.” But against such examples of a hundred years ago may be set wills like those already mentioned. Dr. Monsey is characteristically vigorous in speaking of his servant Nanney. “This she must take as a reward for her impertinence, sauciness and unwilling service; she’s as proud as the Devil can make her, as much of a prude as the best of you, as self-conceited and pert and self-sufficient as the most flaunting Duchess in the Kingdom.”