A Whimsical Will !!

Charles Williams after Woodward

A Whimsical Will !!

London, Thomas Tegg, October 1^st. 1807

Etching

Original hand colouring

250 x 350 mm

Neat marginal repairs

£250

An elderly lawyer (left) reads a will to the legatees, who are grouped round a table: a young couple looking slyly at each other, a fat and startled butcher, a drunken dishevelled butler, an elderly doctor smelling his cane, a would-be fashionable in a wrinkled Jean-de-Bry coat (cf. No. 9425) and tasselled Hessians. The lawyer reads: “The Genuine Will of Timothy Whimsey Esqr of Whimsey Hall—I give and bequeath to my young Wife the bulk of my Fortune for the trouble she has had with me, and to my secretary Tom Cunningham I bequeath the said Wife . . . as by amourous glances, I have at different times noticed, I think there will be no objection on either side—To my old Friend Briskett the Butcher, I leave him a small portion of common honesty and advise him to cut his steaks thicker in future—To Timothy my Butler, I leave sixty pounds per Annum for his extreme Sobriety!!!—to Doctor Bolus I leave all the pill boxes—phials—potions—lotions &c &c &c accumulated at different periods, and deposited in my corner cupboard—and lastly I leave my Nephew Tim Dash—a small portion of advice viz—not to act and dress so like a puppy in future!!!” The butler says: “Very sensible in respect to the Butler”, the nephew: “What a Quiz I’11 report him at Brooks’s”.