682 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, .Arts, and Letters. 
THE LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT AS A FORM OF 
LITERATURE. 
Eber Carle Perrow; 
PART I. 
CHAPTER I. 
The antiquity of the last will and testament as a social in¬ 
strument, 1 its universal currency among all peoples and among 
all ranks of society, and still more, the solemn character of the 
document have all had an influence in making it especially 
adapted to the purposes of those who have wished to express 
in the form of parody a humorous conceit, a bit of biting satire, 
i For the general subject of the Last Will and Testament the fol¬ 
lowing works may be consulted: 
Thomas Jarman, A Treatise on Wills, fifth edition, London, 1861; 
G. W. Kircheway, article in The Universal Cyclopedia, New York, 1900, 
XIT, 444; The Jewish Encyclopedia, N. Y. and L. ; 1906, XII, 522; A 
Catholic Dictionary, London, 1884, p. 860; W. Smith and S, Cheetham, 
A Dictionary of Christian Antiquities, London, 1880, II, 2037. 
For the study of the Will as a legal document see: G. Peignot, Chodx 
de Testamens Anciens et Modernes, Remarquarhies par leur import¬ 
ance , leur singularity, ou leur bizarrerie, Paris, 1829; C. Gross, Sources 
and Literature of English History, London, 1900; F. J. Furnival, Fifty 
English Wills, (E. E. T. S.), London, 1882; James Raine, Testamenta 
Eboracensis, 1836; Sir N. H. Nicholas, Testamenta Vetusta, London, 
1826; H. Littlehales, The Mediaeval Records of a London Church, 
(E. E. T. S., London, 1904; L. L. Duncan, Testamenta Cantiana, Lon¬ 
don, 1906: Mathews and Mathews, Year Booh of Probates, London, 
1902; Alfred Gibbons, Early Lincoln Wills, London, 1903; J. Nichols, 
A Collection of Wills, London, 1780; H. R. Plomer, Abstracts of Wills 
’from English Printers, London, 1903; R. R. Sharpe, Calendar of Wills 
of Court Hustings, London, 1889; Henry Swinburne, A Treatise of 
Testaments and Last Wills, London, 1667. 
