will was the officiating Burgomaster in person, the
under-executors were the Municipal-Councilors. Presently the charter
and the will were fetched from the Council-chamber into the
Burgomaster's office, they were passed around to all the Councilors
and the heirs, in order that they might see the privy seal of the city
upon them, and the registry of the consignment written by the town
clerk upon the charter was read aloud to the seven heirs. Thereby it
was made known to them that the charter had really been consigned to
the magistrates by the late departed one and confided to them _scrinio
rei publicae_, likewise that he had been in his right mind on the day
of the consignment. The seven seals which he himself had placed upon
it were found to be intact. Then--after the Town-Clerk had again drawn
up a short record of all this--the will was opened in God's name and
read aloud by the officiating Burgomaster. It ran as follows:

"I, Van der Kabel, do draw up my will on this seventh day of May 179-,
here in my house in Haslau, in Dog Street, without a great ado of
words, although I have been both a German notary and a Dutch _domine_.
Notwithstanding, I believe that I am still sufficiently familiar with
the notary's art to be able to act as a regular testator and
bequeather of property.

"Testators are supposed to commence by setting forth the motives which
have caused them to make their will. These with me, as with most, are
my approaching death, and the disposal of an inheritance which is
desired by many. To talk about the funeral and such matters is too
weak and silly. That which remains of me, however, may the eternal sun
above us make use of for one of his verdant springs, not for a gloomy
winter!

"The charitable bequests, about which notaries must always inquire, I
shall attend to by setting aside for three thousand of the city's
paupers an equal number of florins so that in the years to come, on
the anniversary of my death, if the annual review of the troops does
not happen to take place on the common that day, they can pitch their
camp there and have a merry feast off the money, and afterward clothe
themselves with the tent linen. To all the schoolmasters of our
Principality also I bequeath to every man one august d'or, and I leave
my pew in the Court church to the Jews of the city. My will being
divided into clauses, this may be taken as the first.

"SECOND CLAUSE

It is the general custom for legacies and disi