SOME SINGULAR WILLS. ALMOST daily we may notice paragraphs detailing bequests of more or less ex traordinary nature, and latterly this country would appear to have been more prolific than other regions of singular wills. The late Lord Newborough made the following curi ous provision in his will. He gave most explicit directions that, after a certain period elapses, his body is to be exhumed and reinterred in Bardsey Island. This island, it will be remembered, lies to the north of Cardigan Bay, and is reputed to have had no iewer than 20,000 saints buried in its soil. Quite recently, too, Henry Eberle, of Frankfort, left an estate valued at twentyfive thousand dollars to be expended in the erection of a monument over his grave. His will was executed in 1869, and gives minute instructions as to the monument. Three shares of the cemetery stock are bequeathed to the Cemetery Company, the income upon which is to maintain the monument in good reoair. A far more extraordinary will than either of the above was, however, made by Solo mon Sanborn, of Medford, Mass., who was a hatter by trade. He left his body to Pro fessor Agassiz and Dr. O. W. Holmes, to be by them prepared in the most skilful and scientific manner known to anatomical art. and placed in the anatomical museum of Har vard College. Two drumheads were to be made of his skin. Upon one was to be inscribed Alexander Pope's "Universal Prayer," on the other the "Declaration of Independence"; and then they were to be presented to the testator's distinguished friend, the drummer of Cohasset. This pres entation was subject to the condition that on the I7th of June, at sunrise, every year, the drummer should beat "on the drumheads at the foot of Bunker Hill the spirit-stirring strains of 'Yankee Doodle.'"
Another American, who died recently, re flects in his will that he was shunned by his relatives, "who cannot, now that I am dying, do too much for my comfort." But Dr. Wagner takes on these relations a ghastly revenge. To his brother, Napoleon Bona parte, he bequeathed his left arm and hand; to another brother, George Washington, his right arm and hand; and to others his legs, nose, ears, etc. Further the testator leaves a thousand dollars for the dismembering of his body. Among other testators who have displayed this remarkable tendency to leave legacies in the form of portions of their bodily frame in its entire condition, may be instanced Dr. Ellerby and Jeremy Bentham. The will of Dr. Ellerby, who died in Lon don, in 1827, contained the following be quests: "I bequeath my heart to Mr. W., anatomist; my lungs to Mr. R., and my brain to Mr. F.., in order that they may pre serve them from decomposition; and I do further declare that if these gentlemen shall fail faithfully to execute these, my last wishes, in this respect, I will come and tor ment them until they comply." In spite of this threat, however, the beneficiaries de clined their legacies. Jeremy Bentham, again, bequcated his body to a hospital, with instructions that his skeleton should be prepared and cleaned, and his head preserved entire, and that he should—when thus treated—preside at the meetings of the hospital directors. Whether he was actually ever made to preside is doubtful, but it is certain that the skeleton was preserved, and may now be seen in the hospital museum. The preservation of the head' was, however, blundered, and one of wax had to be substituted. Many wills have reference to the domestic felicity, or otherwise, experienced by those
