Perrow—The Last Will and Testament in Literature. 691 
a confession testament although the word testament is not used 
therein. 1 The author deplores his loss of health and the fact 
that he is ripe for the grave. His disease has been brought on 
by a dissolute life. He gives an account of his youthful ex¬ 
cesses. If he can recover he will try to lead a better life. 
Of similar character is the same author’s How to Learn to 
Hie which he says he translated from a Latin treatise. 2 Its 
date is about 1421. In this piece is introduced a dying man 
who makes a confession. He sees that he cannot escape death 
and bewails his misspent life. He tells at length of his excesses., 
warns others to avoid his fate, and concludes with a farewell to 
his friends. 3 
§3 Another form of literature to which the Last Will and 
Testament easily relates itself is the Adieu. The Adieu is 
usually indulged in when one is going on a journey or is about to 
die, both of which situations may give rise to the Last Will and 
Testament. 4 We are not surprised, then, to find that the Adieu 
often plays no inconsiderable part both in the legal document 
and in the literary parody. Especially was the Adieu likely 
to find a place in the Will during the period in which last wishes 
were expressed in spoken words rather than in a set document. 5 
But even in later times when the Will has become a rather cold 
and formal document there is constantly rising in the heart 
of the testator the impulse to say farewell to his friends and his 
family. So we find the Last Will and Testament of Louis XYI 
and again that of Marie Antoinette almost entirely taken up 
with adieux. 6 
The Adieu is a form that could develop independently at al¬ 
most any time. There are examples enough of its existing 
without implication of the Testament. Theocritus in his first 
Idyl makes Daphnis, who is dying of disappointed love, com¬ 
plain of his woes and say adieux to the things with which his 
iF. J. Furnival, Hoccleve's Works (E. E. T. S.), London, 1892, p. 25. 
2 Ibid., p. 178. 
3 For later examples containing the confession element cf. pages 471, 
473, 479, 483. 
4 See pages 467, 471. 
s Cf. Genesis XLIX, 1, and Homer's Iliad , bk. VI, 11. 486. 
e Peignot, II, 45 and 61. 
