"Testator" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of great proprietors. Lands may be held there by a tenure which was abolished in Great Britain hundreds of years ago. In Great Britain, property may only be tied up under fixed conditions during the lives of certain chosen people, in being at the death of the testator. In the State of New York, property may only be tied up during the lives of two persons, in being at the death of the person making the will, and for twenty-one years (the minority of an infant) ...
— My Four Years in Germany • James W. Gerard
... "knowledge''), an admission that something has been given or done, a term used in law in various connexions. The acknowledgment of a debt, if in writing signed by the debtor or his agent, is sufficient to take it out of the Statutes of Limitations. The signature to a will by a testator, if not made in the presence of two witnesses, may be afterwards acknowledged in their presence. The acknowledgment by a woman married before 1882 of deeds for the conveyance of real property not ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... The testator had stopped there, either because he thought it better, before going any further, to consult some legal authority more experienced than himself, or because he had been interrupted in his labor and had deferred completing ...
— A Woodland Queen, Complete • Andre Theuriet
... finding Thorodd inaccessible to argument, she had recourse to caresses and blandishments, and at length extorted permission to separate from the rest of the bed-furniture the tapestried curtains and coverlid; the rest was consigned to the flames, in obedience to the will of the testator. The body of Thorgunna, being wrapped in new linen and placed in a coffin, was next to be transported through the precipices and morasses of Iceland to the distant district she had assigned for her place of sepulture. A remarkable incident occurred on the way. The transporters of ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends; Scandinavian • Various
... in all it's provisions, but the enactment which was received with most scorn was the clause that annulled a Catholic charitable bequest, unless it had been duly made six months at least before the decease of the testator. The prohibition was attributed to an insulting assumption that the Catholic clergymen abused their influence over dying penitents, for sacerdotal or religious, if not for personal aggrandisement, and the impeachment was repelled with bitter ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny
... I can relieve your mind by telling you—which under the circumstances is no breach of professional secrecy, for it is plain that the testator desires you to know his purpose—that Mr. Parsons has done me the honor to request me to act as the executor of his will. As such I shall be in a position to make sure that those to whom the management of his hospital is intrusted ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... them or to manage a plantation. His wife soon fell heir to the land and negroes, and at her death they passed to her children under a will which requested that the blacks be not sold but kept and cared for by the testator's descendants. Douglas, as the guardian of his infant children, respected their grandfather's wishes. For that reason he was called a slaveholder, and a fellow senator once openly accused him of shaping his course as a public ...
— Stephen Arnold Douglas • William Garrott Brown
... with fifty pounds, and a pair of hair-trigger pistols." "They served his purpose well.... The luck of the hair-triggers triumphed, and Toler not only became Chief Justice, but the founder of two peerages, and the testator of an enormous fortune. After his promotion, the code of honor became, as it were, engrafted on that of the Common Pleas; the noble chief not unfrequently announcing that he considered himself a judge only while he wore his robes." The sort of law dispensed by this fire-eating judge ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... testament[9:16], there must also of necessity be brought in the death of the testator. (17)For a testament is of force after men are dead; since it is of no strength at all ...
— The New Testament of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. • Various
... will. She was sure that it had been concealed under the false bottom of a little traveling-desk which he remembered, but beyond that she knew nothing. Maurice wrote to Mr. Burnham, the family lawyer, and the question now was, what had become of the desk? The effects of the testator had been sold at auction, but as they had been largely bought by relatives, Maurice believed that it would not be difficult to ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... intentions in favor of a nephew on his father's side,—an amiable young man, living abroad,—and from whom he had been estranged in consequence of a family quarrel of long standing. The young heir comes to the testator's house, is received with great affection, and is suddenly cut off by illness. The testator then returns to his will in favor of his cousin, who resides abroad. His acute and active brother-in-law has taken the management of his affairs; is well informed of this will; and, when the testator ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various
... two daughters by my executor who is desired to retain the same in his hands until that time. Witness my hand Henry Fielding. Signed and acknowledged as his last will and testament by the within named testator in the presence of Margaret Collier, Richd. ...
— Fielding - (English Men of Letters Series) • Austin Dobson
... tenement in Chapel Lane), and the house in Blackfriars, London, while she and her husband were appointed executors and residuary legatees, with full rights over nearly all the poet's household furniture and personal belongings. To their only child and the testator's granddaughter, or 'niece,' Elizabeth Hall, was bequeathed the poet's plate, with the exception of his broad silver and gilt bowl, which was reserved for his younger daughter, Judith. To his younger ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... from the 'Athenaeum,' which Robert thought out of taste until he came to understand the motive of it—that there had been (two days previous to its appearance) a brutal attack on the will, to the effect that literary persons had been altogether overlooked in the dispositions of the testator, in consequence of his, being a disappointed literary pretender himself. Therefore we were brought forward, you see, together with Barry Cornwall and Dr. Southey, producing a wrong impression on the other ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... in the Court of Hustings in 1398.[145] He desired to be buried in the church of St. Andrew. To Alice, his wife, he left his lands and tenements in Holborn for life, with remainder to John Osbern and his wife, Emma, testator's daughter, in tail; with remainder in trust for the maintenance of a chantry in St. Mary's Chapel in the church of St. Andrew. The annual proceeds of this latter bequest were still being received by the church in the reign of Henry ...
— Memorials of Old London - Volume I • Various
... payment of his debts and liabilities. It was given in recognition of her talents and business integrity during their late association, and as an evidence of the confidence and "undying affection" of the testator. Nevertheless, after the first surprise, the fact was accepted by the community as both natural and proper under that singular instinct of humanity which acquiesces without scruple in the union of two large fortunes, but sharply questions the conjunction ...
— Maruja • Bret Harte
... testator's sister she will come in for something, probably, anyhow. True, it is mostly land, and I believe an uncle abroad will inherit that. But I don't know the legal rights of the matter yet quite. Anyhow, she has something of her own, ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... last concessions have been denounced by priests and bishops as an additional insult, as an unjustifiable and tyrannical interference with their rights. And why? Because Sir Robert Peel clogged the measure with the condition, that any testator so leaving property should have his will made and registered three months before his death. Because he wishes to protect the interests of the Roman Catholic laity, by securing them against the interference of the clergy when their relatives are at the point of death, he stirs the bile and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... shops, houses and land to the value of about 23,000 pounds. Almost all of this was devised to his widow absolutely, so that she could dispose of it in whatever fashion pleased her. Indeed, there was but one other bequest, that of the balance of the 10,000 pounds which the testator had deposited in the hands of a trustee for my benefit. This was now left to me absolutely. I learned the fact from Mrs. Strong herself as we ...
— Doctor Therne • H. Rider Haggard
... of ess, ix, or ine, or the changing of masculines to feminines so terminating: as, heir, heiress; prophet, prophetess; abbot, abbess; governor, governess; testator, ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... estate must be subscribed by at least two, in some slates three, attending witnesses, in whose presence the testator must subscribe the will, or acknowledge that he subscribed it, and declare it to be his last will and testament. If the testator is unable to sign his will, another person may write the testator's ...
— The Government Class Book • Andrew W. Young
... intentions of a testator have never, in any instance, been better fulfilled than this; the residuary rents, owing to the great increase of rental in the Forster estates, became considerably the most important part of the bequest; and the trustees, who ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, No. 375, June 13, 1829 • Various
... is only lately that I have been so called—having legislatively adopted this surname within the last year in order to receive a large inheritance left me by a distant male relative, Adolphus Simpson, Esq. The bequest was conditioned upon my taking the name of the testator,—the family, not the Christian name; my Christian name is Napoleon Bonaparte—or, more properly, these are ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... rat-hole by the river, down lanes and alleys on the other side of the Strand. As to any other person to meet him or obstruct him, Lyons Inn was dreaming, drunk, maudlin, moody, betting, brooding over bill-discounting or renewing—asleep or awake, minding its own affairs. Mr. Testator took his coal-scuttle in one hand, his candle and key in the other, and descended to the dismallest underground dens of Lyons Inn, where the late vehicles in the streets became thunderous and all ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... and his numerous foundations. The Venetians received under this testament a sum of 100,000 ducats, together with all arrears of pay due to him, and 10,000 ducats owed him by the Duke of Ferrara. It set forth the testator's intention that this money should be employed in defence of the Christian faith against the Turk. One condition was attached to the bequest. The legatees were to erect a statue to Colleoni on the Piazza of S. Mark. ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... was frequently mentioned favourably in these old wills. Another Cuckfield testator, in 1539, left to the high altar, "for tythes and oblacions negligently forgotten, sixpence." The same student of the Calendar of Sussex Wills in the District Probate Registry at Lewes, between 1541 and 1652, which the British Record Society have just published, copies the ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... sundry interjections and expressions of anger from George, which it is not necessary to repeat. Nor need I trouble my readers with the will at length. It began by expressing the testator's great desire that his property might descend in his own family, and that the house might be held and inhabited by some one bearing the name of Vavasor. He then declared that he felt himself obliged to pass over his natural heir, believing that the property ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... Mr Farmer, the first-lieutenant, with what he thought infinite cunning, to know, in case of anything fatal happening immediately to the writer, whether his friend would prefer to have bequeathed to him the testator's double-barrelled fowling piece, or his superb Manton's duelling-pistols. Mr Farmer replied, "that he would very willingly take his ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... our right to the inheritance? The Lady Fitz-Eustace had a fair copy of the deed, purporting to be sent by the holy confessor who shrived the testator in his extremity. But how hath this canting hermit gotten the writing into ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... old man dying before she could get him to the point again of doing as she wished? The very existence of the second will was a menace. It only needed that the would-be heirs of the Prince should hear of it, and there would be a swoop on their part to rescue the testator from her clutches. In the balance against 2,000,000 francs and some halfdozen castles with their estates the only wonder is that any reasonable person, knowing the history of Sophie Dawes, should hesitate about the value she was likely to place on ...
— She Stands Accused • Victor MacClure
... real and personal, to his wife, in full confidence, as he expressed himself but a few hours before he expired, that she would amply provide for his and her child. The value of the property inherited by Mrs. Woodley under this will amounted, according to a valuation made a few weeks after the testator's decease, to between ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... court of probate, with exclusive jurisdiction over all wills containing charitable bequests, or bequests to heretics and strangers, fugitives, exiles, or the dead. Even a doubt as to the probability of being able to execute the bequest according to the wishes of the testator, or an apparent contradiction in the devises themselves, brings the will within the jurisdiction of this tribunal; and should the legatee, after full experience of the law's delay, succeed in obtaining a favorable decree, the income of his legacy, from the death of the testator ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... in court. Intense was the curiosity of the public to know what disposition the eccentric old man had made of his enormous property. This feeling was soon gratified. The will was produced. It was a curious document, written on stout foolscap by the testator himself, in a remarkably neat, clear hand, with the lines as close as type, and his autograph signed to every page. Being an holographic will, under the law of Louisiana it required no witness. Ever since 1838, this will ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... in her troubled heart. An abounding gratitude to Karin at once took possession of the dying woman, and she added an item to her will providing that Karin, who was struggling along with her young family about her, should have a bit of land of her own, and a cottage built upon it, like those the testator remembered in the part of Sweden where she had lived in her childhood. It should all be one great room up to the roof, but very comfortable and convenient. It must not, though, be red like any other cottage, ...
— The Golden House • Mrs. Woods Baker
... at all, it is so drawn that it has given rise to incessant litigation during the last nearly two thousand years and seems likely to continue doing so for a good many years longer. It ought never to have been admitted to probate. Either the testator drew it himself, in which case we have another example of the folly of trying to make one's own will, or if he left it to the authors of the several books—this is like employing many lawyers to ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... think that the testator whose will is referred to in No. 23. p. 336., by "Scala Coeli," meant King Henry the Seventh's ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 25. Saturday, April 20, 1850 • Various
... friend, that they were afraid of the testator's reproaches, and so they passed a law to the effect that a man should be allowed to dispose of his property in all respects as he liked; but you and I, if I am not mistaken, will have something better to say ...
— Laws • Plato
... drafters of the new Code scrupled not to assail that maxim, and to claim for the father larger discretionary powers over the disposal of his property. They demanded that the disposable share should vary according to the wealth of the testator—a remarkable proposal, which proves him to be anything but the unflinching champion of revolutionary legal ideas which popular French ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... one of his children to come into immediate possession of this inheritance. A will or testament must specify the nature of the inheritance, mention distinctly the names of the heirs, must have the signature of the testator affixed in the presence of witnesses, should appoint an executor, and in every respect it must be perfect or it will not stand legally. Scripturally, this is equally as true. The New Testament is the will, which distinctly specifies the nature of the inheritance of the people of ...
— Sanctification • J. W. Byers
... the original proprietors found themselves unable to continue planters with any prospect of advantage. In such cases the property was sold, and the proceeds divided according to law, or in conformity to the will of the testator, and so passed into strange hands; whilst with straitened means the members of the family of the once wealthy planter removed to some city, and here clung to their original habits and prejudices; nor, except in ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power
... these dependents usually took the shape of their being apprenticed to, and trained in the various arts and vocations that constitute the life of civilization. In many cases, at the death of their patrons, the bondsmen who were deemed most worthy were, according to the means of the testator, provided for in a manner lifting them above the necessity of future dependence. Manumission, too, either by favour or through purchase, was allowed the fullest operation. Here then was the active influence of higher motives than mere greed of gain ...
— West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Explained by J. J. Thomas • J. J. (John Jacob) Thomas
... will is made in the presence of a notary, and before witnesses who can swear that the testator was in the full possession of his faculties; and if the testator has neither wife nor ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... the clauses in your grandfather's will in your favour; and allow me to send it to my aunt Harman?—She is very desirous to see it. Yet your character has so charmed her, that, though a stranger to you personally, she assents to the preference given you in that will, before she knows the testator's reasons for ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... the sustentation of a grave or monument is not sufficient, in the present day, to remunerate residents in London for looking after it, and the money has been transferred to the parish in which the testator lies, and has become the perquisite ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 436 - Volume 17, New Series, May 8, 1852 • Various
... letters of his children. They were emphatic evidences of their attitude toward him from first to last. There was no such thing as going behind them. It might be possible to produce proof that the testator was unsound of mind, but it would never be possible to wipe out the written declarations of his mentally perfect son and daughters. In these delectable missives they completely disowned him as a father; they raked ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
... office, but I said nothing. Gerald and my mother, the lawyer (a neighbouring attorney, named Oswald), and myself were the only persons present. Mr. Oswald hemmed thrice, and broke the seal. After a preliminary, strongly characteristic of the testator, he came to the disposition of the estates. I had never once, since my poor uncle's death, thought upon the chances of his will; indeed, knowing myself so entirely his favourite, I could not, if I had thought upon them, have entertained a doubt as to their result. What then was my astonishment ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the will of Colonel Edmund Martyn as relates to the Poet and his sister has been already cited, but the testator's situation in life and the respectability of his family are best shown by other parts of that document. He describes himself as a lieutenant-colonel in his Majesty's service, lying sick in the city of Chichester. To his niece Elizabeth, the wife of Thomas Napper, of Itchenor ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins
... bequeathed their carcasses to the hungry dogs and vultures, that hover, and prowl, and swoop, and pounce, and snarl, and scream, and tear. The half-picked bones are gathered and burned by the outcast keepers of the temple (not priests), who receive from the nearest relative of the infatuated testator a small fee for that final service; and so a Buddhist vow is fulfilled, and a Buddhist ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... for it seemed likely that Mrs. Austen's own brother, Mr. Leigh Perrot, would, under the terms of the will, have a life interest in the estate after Mr. Thomas Leigh, if he survived him. It was, however, obviously most in accordance with the desire of the testator, and with the general opinion of the family, that the estate should go according to the usual rules of succession by primogeniture in the Adlestrop branch; and as all the parties to the transaction were on excellent terms with each ...
— Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters - A Family Record • William Austen-Leigh and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh
... that from Mrs. Baker's conversation it was certain that the testator's directions had been carried out, and that the great bulk of these ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... B, and he has to work out the result as an arithmetician works out a sum. Among the irrelevant considerations are frequently some moral aspects of the case. A judge, for example, decides a will to be valid or invalid without asking whether the testator acted justly or unjustly in a moral sense, but simply whether his action was legal or illegal. He cannot go behind the law, even from motives of benevolence or general maxims of justice, without being an unjust judge. Cases may arise, indeed, as I must say in passing, ...
— Social Rights and Duties, Volume I (of 2) - Addresses to Ethical Societies • Sir Leslie Stephen
... "that a testator is manifestly out of his right mind as to the direction given to his property, and bequeaths it in a manner so evidently unwise and improper, that both justice and humanity are served in the act of setting aside the will. And it might prove so ...
— The Allen House - or Twenty Years Ago and Now • T. S. Arthur
... contribute to each other's maintenance. The term is also used in regard to a similar obligation of other parties, as of creditors to imprisoned debtors, the payments by parishes to paupers, &c. Alimentary funds, whether of the kind above mentioned, or set apart as such by the deed of a testator, are intended for the mere support of the recipient, and are not attachable by ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... and declared by the said Testator to be his last Will and Testament, in presence of us, who, at his request, and in his presence, and in the presence of each other, have hereto subscribed our ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... all close personal friends of the testator. The career of John Strachan has already been outlined. Although it was not specified in the will that he should be connected with the proposed College, it may be assumed that because of his close friendship, his marriage ...
— McGill and its Story, 1821-1921 • Cyrus Macmillan
... to Gray's Inn to his counsel, one Mr. Rawworth, a very fine man, where it being the question whether I as executor should give a warrant to Goldsborough in my reconveying her estate back again, the mortgage being performed against all acts of the testator, but only my own, my cozen said he never heard it asked before; and the other that it was always asked, and he never heard it denied, or scrupled before, so great a distance was there in their opinions, enough to make a man forswear ever having to do with the law; ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... actual deeds of heritage, we find references to property derived from votaries subject to certain duties. Such dispositions of property are closely related to a will or testament, but anticipate the death of the testator. They are really settlements for the future, which exactly answers to the title given them by the Babylonian ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Laws, Contracts and Letters • C. H. W. Johns
... Mornington, which explains your presence here. A sixth person will join us shortly: one of my detectives, whom I instructed to make the first inquiries about the Roussel family and who will give you the result of his investigations. But, for the moment, we must proceed in accordance with the testator's directions. ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc
... has its fundamentum, namely, the matrix of experiential circumstance, psychological as well as physical, in which the correlated terms are found embedded. In the case of the relation between 'heir' and 'legacy' the fundamentum is a world in which there was a testator, and in which there is now a will and an executor; in the case of that between idea and object, it is a world with circumstances of a sort to make a satisfactory verification process, lying around and between the two terms. But just as a man may be called an heir and treated as one before ...
— The Meaning of Truth • William James
... card is "Free Personal Property," or "Settled Property," or "An Estate by itself," or "Property in which the deceased's interest was less than an absolute interest." The card is apparently "aggregable" with something or other for the purposes of duty. Would this be the testator's furniture? ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Dec. 12, 1917 • Various
... natural and lawful authority of Lady Vargrave in all matters connected with Evelyn's education and home. It may be as well, in this place, to add, that to Vargrave and the co-trustee, Mr. Gustavus Douce, a banker of repute and eminence, the testator left large discretionary powers as to the investment of the fortune. He had stated it as his wish that from one hundred and twenty to one hundred and thirty thousand pounds should be invested in the purchase of a landed estate; but he had left it to the discretion ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book I • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... was soon in jeopardy by litigation. Andrews thought he had provided for his relations by leaving to them certain leasehold interests connected with the Provost's estate. The law courts, however, held that these interests were not at the disposal of the testator, and handed them over to Hely Hutchinson, the next Provost. The disappointed relations then petitioned the Irish Parliament to redress this grievance by transferring to them the moneys designed by Andrews for the Observatory. It would ...
— Great Astronomers • R. S. Ball
... whole country, I recommend that at your present session you adopt such measures in order to carry into effect the Smithsonian bequest as in your judgment will be best calculated to consummate the liberal intent of the testator. ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... myself this did not look very like the letter of a suicide, I glanced through the will, as the testator seemed to have wished that I should do so. It was short, but properly drawn, signed, and witnessed, and bequeathed a sum of 9,000, which was on deposit at the Standard Bank, together with all his other property, real and ...
— Finished • H. Rider Haggard
... these, providing if my lady was dead, or if Miss Rachel was dead, at the time of the testator's decease, for the Diamond being sent to Holland, in accordance with the sealed instructions originally deposited with it. The proceeds of the sale were, in that case, to be added to the money already left by the Will for the professorship of chemistry ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... in the person of Peter Bayond, a countryman of the deceased. This man produced a will, purporting to be Columb's, by which the property was left to be divided between Bayond himself and James Columb, a cousin of the pretended testator, then in service with Horace Walpole. Fanny's instant conviction was that the will was a forgery, and the appearance and behaviour of Bayond confirmed her in this belief. James Columb, moreover, concurred in her opinion, and she had decided to ignore this new ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... in revenge, the prudent merchant would not be induced to entrust him with the document, saying he could not give it up till he had heard from the executors, and had been certified of the death of the testator. He withstood both the angry gentlemen, who finally departed in a state of great resentment—Harry declaring that the old land-lubber would not believe that he was his own father's son; and Mr. Rivers, no less incensed, that the House of Commons had been insulted in his person, because ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... discover, in acts of parliament, meanings which escaped the committees that drew them up, and the senates that passed them into laws, and to explain wills, into a sense wholly contrary to the intention of the testator. How easily may an adept in these admirable and useful arts, penetrate into the most hidden import of this prediction? A man, accustomed to satisfy himself with the obvious and natural meaning of a sentence, does not easily shake off his habit; but a true-bred lawyer never ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... Proceed with accounts. We object to item 29—grave-stone to testator. Will said that the funeral was to be of the simplest ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98 January 11, 1890 • Various
... of a will recently admitted to probate it was stated that the testator had disposed of over seven hundred thousand pounds in less than a hundred words. It is not expected that the Ministry of Munitions will ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, February 18th, 1920 • Various
... remark over. "Failing Miss Kent, the five thousand a year goes to George Franklin, a brother-in-law of the testator. We lately received a letter from him, informing us that he intended to claim ...
— A Coin of Edward VII - A Detective Story • Fergus Hume
... could have been more emphatic than this? How could the testator have more delicately, but clearly, indicated his anxiety that his estate should be regarded as a sacred provision for poor orphans, and not 'spoils' for ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... how Noel d'Arnaye came to be immortalized by a legacy of two hundred and twenty blows from an osierwhip—since (as the testator piously affirms), "chastoy ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... ye must know,' Baines began with sarcasm, 'the will is as follows: The testator—that's Mr. Beechinor—leaves twenty guineas to his brother Mark to show that he bears him no ill-will and forgives him. The rest of his estate is to be realized, and the proceeds given to the North Staffordshire Infirmary, to found a bed, which is to be called the Beechinor bed. If there is ...
— Tales of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... more than to this extent: (1) The cantonal testamentary laws almost invariably prescribe division of property among all the children—as in the code Napoleon, which prevails in French Switzerland, and which permits the testator to dispose of only a third of his property, the rest being divided among all the heirs. (2) Highways, including the railways, are under immediate government control. (3) The greater part of the ...
— Direct Legislation by the Citizenship through the Initiative and Referendum • James W. Sullivan
... have not yet thought fit to strip the parent, as has been done in France, of one of the chief elements of parental authority, by depriving him of the power of disposing of his property at his death. In the United States there are no restrictions on the powers of a testator. In this respect, as in almost all others, it is easy to perceive, that if the political legislation of the Americans is much more democratic than that of the French, the civil legislation of the latter is infinitely more democratic than that of the former. ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... could never quite make up his mind, as to how best to give effect to a malignity whose direction was constantly being modified. He had had instructions for drawing a will a dozen times over. But the process had always been arrested by the intending testator. ...
— J.S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 5 • J.S. Le Fanu
... conscientious, and scarcely knew what advice to give. 'My mother was in want, and to desert her would be cruel; yet the money that was devised me was my own: it was bequeathed for a good purpose, and the pious will of the testator ought to be held sacred. I was young, the grandson of a good man, an excellent man, and his dear friend. I had great learning and good sense, and ought not to be deprived of the means that had been left me of establishing myself in life. ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... was this: "Out of the kind love and respect that I bear my much-honoured and good friend, Mr. Matthew Stradling, gent., I do bequeath unto the said Matthew Stradling, gent., all my black and white horses." Now the testator had six black horses, six white, and six pied horses. The debate, therefore, was whether the said Matthew Stradling should have the said pied horses, by virtue of the said bequest. The case, after much debate, is suddenly ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... was a restitution made by one of my dying friends, who made me trustee of it upon condition that I should distribute it among decayed families who were ashamed to make their necessities known, and that I had taken an oath to distribute it myself, persuant to the desire of the testator, but that I was at a loss to find out fit objects for my charity; and therefore I desired her to take the care of it upon her. The good woman was perfectly transported, and said she would do it with all her heart; but because I had sworn to make the distribution ...
— The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Complete • Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz
... annulled, even supposing the heiress were still living), a testament framed a few months before his uncle's death; in which the latter had bequeathed all his possessions to Edith, the child of his adoption. That such a second will had been framed, appeared from the testator's own admissions; at least, he had so informed Edith, repeating the fact on several different occasions. The fact, indeed, even Braxley did not deny; but he averred, that the second instrument had been destroyed by the deceased ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... family—this time a man—is announced, to the surprise of almost everybody, but at first only causing a little natural jealousy in Pierre. Charitable remarks of outsiders, however, suggest to him the truth—that Jean is the fruit of his mother's adultery with the testator—and this "works like poison in his brain," till—Jean, having gained another piece of luck in Mme. Rosemilly's hand, and having, though enlightened by Pierre and by his mother's confession, very common-sensibly ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... very short. The executors were Charles Rowse and Peter Ball, and the whole property was devised to them, and to Lieutenant-Colonel Robert Brownlow, as trustees for the testator's great-niece, Mrs. Caroline Otway Brownlow, daughter of John and Caroline Allen, and wife of Joseph Brownlow, Esq., M.D., F.R.C.S., the income and use thereof to be enjoyed by her during her lifetime; and the property, after her death, to be divided among her children in such proportions ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... is actually bequeathed, supposing the circumstances of the case and the usages of society to leave a practical discretion to the testator, it is most frequently in such portions as can be of the least service. Where there is much already, much is given; where much is wanted, little or nothing. Poverty invites a sort of pity, a miserable dole of assistance; necessity, neglect and scorn; wealth attracts and allures to ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... the word 'sheriff' was written instead of 'sheriffs,' or that of a lady who was deprived of an estate of L14,000 a year because by a mere mistake of the conveyancer one material word was omitted from the will, although the clearest possible evidence was offered showing the wishes of the testator.[40] Such lawyers argue that in will cases 'the true question is not what the testator intended to do, but what is the meaning of the words of the will,' and that the balance of advantages is in favour of a strict adherence to the construction of ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... papers, there was found a will which he had executed so long before as the year 1837, for a reason assigned in that document, viz., that on the 3d of July in that year, was passed the important Act of 7 Will. IV., and 1 Vict. c. 26, which rendered it necessary for all wills to be signed by the testator in the presence of two or more attesting witnesses, none having till then been necessary in the case of wills of personal estate, which alone Mr. Smith left behind him. This document contains some characteristic touches. It begins in this ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... ten thousand dollars for the aid of schools then existing, and for the aid of a school whose existence was already contemplated by the laws of the state. No change has been wrought in your institutions; they are still public,—your generous testator has only contributed to their support. And, in considering yet further the question, "How can the advantages of a high-school education be best secured?" I shall proceed to compare, with what brevity I can command, the public ...
— Thoughts on Educational Topics and Institutions • George S. Boutwell
... was rewarded with legacies to the amount of a hundred and seventy thousand pounds; [108] nor do the friends of the younger Pliny seem to have been less generous to that amiable orator. [109] Whatever was the motive of the testator, the treasury claimed, without distinction, the twentieth part of his estate: and in the course of two or three generations, the whole property of the subject must have gradually passed through the coffers ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... examine a will, your best course is to go to "The Wills Office," at Somerset House, Strand, have on a slip of paper the name of the testator—this, on entering, give to a clerk whom you will see at a desk on the right. At the same time pay a shilling, and you will then be entitled to search all the heavy Index volumes for the testator's name. The name found, the clerk will hand over the will ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... illness, he submitted the copy to a high legal authority. The written opinion of this competent person declares the clause, bequeathing the Vange estate to Father Benwell, to be so imperfectly expressed, that the will might be made a subject of litigation after the testator's death. He has accordingly appended a form of codicil amending the defect, and we have added it to the will. I thought it my duty, as one of your legal advisers, to accompany Father Benwell on his return to Paris ...
— The Black Robe • Wilkie Collins
... into the case his joy abated somewhat, for it was one of the most perplexing that he had ever known. The will contested, which was that of a Yorkshire money-lender, disposed of property to the value of over L80,000, and was propounded by a niece of the testator who, when he died, if not actually weak in his mind, was in his dotage, and superstitious to the verge of insanity. The niece to whom all the property was left—to the exclusion of the son and daughter of the deceased, both married, and living ...
— Beatrice • H. Rider Haggard
... ascertain that there is no will of Miss Halliday's subsequent to this; and that will be rather difficult to find out. Women never know when to leave off making wills, if they once begin making them. They have a positive rage for multiplying documents, you know. If the testator in that great codicil case had been a woman, a jury would scarcely have refused to believe in the story of half a dozen different codicils hidden away in half a dozen different holes and corners. Women like that sort of thing. Of course, I quite understand that you ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... impostor innovator investor legislator narrator navigator numerator operator originator perpetrator personator predecessor protector prosecutor projector reflector regulator sailor senator separator solicitor supervisor survivor tormentor testator transgressor translator divisor director dictator denominator creator counsellor councillor administrator aggressor agitator arbitrator assessor benefactor collector compositor conspirator constructor ...
— The Art Of Writing & Speaking The English Language - Word-Study and Composition & Rhetoric • Sherwin Cody
... Ellen Irwin, as long as she lived unmarried. The document was perfectly coherent; and although written during the height of his monomania, contained not a word respecting the identity of the youthful widow and the Laura whose sad fate had first unsettled the testator's reason. ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 434 - Volume 17, New Series, April 24, 1852 • Various
... is of further interest as shewing the testator’s connection and dealings with members of families of position once, or still, well known ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter
... fact of his oath—whatever its nature; he justifies its breach because it was taken against is will, and because it was in itself of no strength, as binding him to do impossible things. He does not deny Edward's earlier promise to William; but, as a testament is of no force while the testator liveth, he argues that it is cancelled by Edward's later nomination of himself. In truth there is hardly any difference between the disputants as to matters of fact. One side admits at least a plighting of homage on the part of Harold; the other side admits Harold's nomination and election. ...
— William the Conqueror • E. A. Freeman
... descriptive of the quantum of interest devised, as well as of its locality. I am in hopes, however, you have not copied the words exactly, that there are words of inheritance to all the devises, as the testator certainly knew their necessity, and that the conflict only will be between the different wills, in which case I see nothing which can be opposed to the last. I shall be very happy to eat at Pen-park, some of the good mutton ...
— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson
... bane of my existence," declared the lawyer, with exasperation. "Those women are determined to obtain a much greater share of the estate than belongs to them or than the testator ever intended. Their testimony, I believe, is false. But as the apportionment of the property of the deceased Mr. Ellison must be decided by verbal rather than written evidence, the story those women tell—and stick to—bears weight ...
— The Campfire Girls of Roselawn - A Strange Message from the Air • Margaret Penrose
... Jones Chaplin and Chanter my Surveying Books and Instruments To the Servants of the House Forty Shillings ROB. BURTON—Charles Russell Witness—John Pepper Witness—This Will was shewed to me by the Testator and acknowledged by him some few days before his death to be his last Will Ita Testor John Morris S Th D. Prebendari' Eccl Chri' Oxon ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... distinctly stated, and of course that statement was made on evidence adduced, that Sir George Buck was seised in fee of certain lands and tenements in Boston and Skydbrooke, both of which places, I need scarcely say, are in Lincolnshire. It is therefore, at least, not improbable that the testator was a native of Lincolnshire. It also appears that the proceedings in Chancery were instituted previously to June, 1623; and, inasmuch as Sir George Buck's will is recited in those proceedings, he must have died before they were ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 35, June 29, 1850 • Various
... will give me pleasure to anticipate this posthumous revenge and insult inflicted upon that which has caused me so much suffering in this life. Such bequests are not common; reversionary benefits contingent upon the death of the testator are indeed dangerous to announce in many cases: of this we have a remarkable instance in the habits of a Roman prince, who used, upon any notification made to him by rich persons that they had left him a handsome estate in their wills, ...
— Confessions of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas De Quincey
... pair of gladiators to the people, beside an entertainment according to the direction of Arrius; and as much corn as is cut in Africa. Whether I have willed this rightly or wrongly, it was my will; be not severe against me, [cries the testator]. I imagine the provident mind of Staberius foresaw this. What then did he moan, when he appointed by will that his heirs should engrave the sum of their patrimony upon his tomb-stone? As long as he lived, he deemed poverty a great vice, and nothing ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... Burgundians, in their Roman laws, allowed the parent to dispose of three-fourths, the Visigoths one-third or one-fifth, according as the testator disposed of his property in favour of a child or a stranger. The national law of the Burgundians allowed to the father the absolute disposal of his acquisitions, but prescribed the equal sharing of the property among all ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... a character, to which it has neither right nor title. It changes itself from a Legislator to a Testator, and effects to make its Will, which is to have operation after the demise of the makers, to bequeath the Government; and it not only attempts to bequeath, but to establish on the succeeding generation, a new and different form of Government under which ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... the first testament, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance, Heb. ix. 15. Now, Christ, by his death, hath confirmed this testament; "for where a testament is, there must also of necessity be the death of the testator; for a testament is of force after men are dead," vers. 16, 17. Christ, then, dying to make the testament of force, hath made the legacy of the promises sure unto the believer; so that now all the "promises are yea and amen in Christ," 2 Cor. i. 20. "He was made a minister of circumcision to confirm ...
— Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life • John Brown (of Wamphray)
... extracted a document from his pocket, 'but gey easy to understand. Weel, this document is a bit codicil to the will of a far-off cousin o' mine, but it wasna signed, as ye'll note, and i' the eye o' the law, as they call it, o' nae value. Noo the testator, Mistress Wallace, was a widow wi' a bit heritable property the whilk she'd but a life interest in, but she had a bit siller i' the bank, an' 'twas this she was leavin' awa different frae her will ...
— Border Ghost Stories • Howard Pease
... death, with whatever he possesses—the charitable objects or the persons to whom he wishes to leave his goods. This will is called also the last testament. It is signed by witnesses, and after the death of the testator is committed to the care of a person—called the executor—whose business it is to see that all stated in the will or testament is carried out. There is an officer in the State to take these things in hand and settle them according ...
— Baltimore Catechism No. 4 (of 4) - An Explanation Of The Baltimore Catechism of Christian Doctrine • Thomas L. Kinkead |
