Note 64 — Chapter XI · Wills, Quaint and Curious.
Reading edition
Dixon’s “Life of Penn”; Stoughton’s “William Penn”; Harris, Ancient Wills, p. 291.
The will of Penn, and other of the earlier patriots of the United States who drew their own wills, in such manner as to cause protracted litigation, suggests the old poem, tuned to the toast of a century ago, “The lawyer’s best friend—the man who makes his own will,” inscribed 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. ... You had better pay toll when you take to the road, Than attempt by a by-way to reach your abode; You had better employ a conveyancer’s hand, Than encounter the risk that your will shouldn’t stand. From the broad beaten track, when the traveler strays, He may land in a bog, or be lost in a maze; And the law, when defied, will avenge itself still, On the man and the woman who make their own will.”
For reproduction of this quaint poem in full, see, Harris, Ancient Wills, p. 209.