The Sun.
London, England, 1858-07-06 00:00:00

THE LATE PETEI?, THELLUSSON.

Ye who listen with credulity to the whispers of
vanity, and pursue with eagerness the phantom of
a name, attend to the history of one richer than
Rasselas,—even to the history of one Peter Thel-
lusson, late of the City of London, merchant.
It is now sixty-two years since Peter Thellusson
took stock of his worldly possessions, and found
that he had 600,0001. in money, and land of the
annual value of 4,5001. Peter Thellusson had satis-
ged the ordinary ambition of an English bourgeois
—he had founded a family. Peter Isaac, the son
of his youth and the prop of his house, was heir to
35,0001. a-year in money and land, and might
claim to be a born gentleman. Peers and Peer-
esses might hereafter spring in intermediate suc-
cession from the loins of that denizen of a
dingy little back parlour behind the Bank. The
best man upon 'Change envied the rich and
prosperous Peter Thellusson, who had no object of
ambition unsatisfied. Peter was of a different
mind ; he had not nearly money cnough. Let
other men be satisfied to found one family ; Peter
was lucky enough to have three sons, and he would
found three families. It was not that he loved his
sons, or his sous' sons ; but it was the hope and
desire of this magnificently posthumous miser to
associate his name in future generations with three
colossal fortunes. If lie did not love his sons, he
did not hate them ; he was simply indifferent to
everything except to his one cherished object.
Peter Thellusson took the very best legal advice,
and made a will. He left a few trifling legacies,
probably to show that no unnatural antipathy to
his children tainted that will with mania. But his
great fortune was all conveyed to trustees. It was
to accumulate until every man, woman, and child
of the offspt iug of Peter, and alive or begotten at
the moment of Peter's death, should also be de-
funct. No one of the children or grandchildren
who had ever looked Peter in the face, or trembled
in his presence, or squalled at the ,sound of his
harsh, hard voice, should ever be the richer for
Peter's wealth. "And the rich man also died."
Twelve months after making his will, and sixty•
one years from the present time, Peter was gathered
to his unknown fathers. The will was opened,
and created sensations which vibrated through the
land in widening circles. Our law books picture
to us the blank disappointment of the then living
relatives, the gentle cachinations of a past gene•
ration of lawyers, and the gaping wonder of the
general public. There were three sons and six
grandsons of this malignant old merchant then
alive—all destined to live the life of Tantalus ; to
see this great pagoda-tree growing up before them,
yet never to pluck one unit of its fruit. The terms
of the will enjoined, that when the last survivor of
all the nine children and grandchildren should
yield, up his breath, then the charm was to
end ; the great mountain of accumulated wean
was to be divided into three portions, and one-
third was to be given to each of the " eldest
male lineal descendants" of his three aons.
Having thus done what he liked with his own,
and excluded all his living progeny from all benefit,
he ends with a whine to the Legislature worthy of
Shylock appealing against mercy—he bad earned
his money with honesty and industry, and he hoped
the Legislature would not alter his will. Of course,
the first thing that followed was a Chancery suit of
the fattest bulk. The common-sense view of the
case would have been to set aside the will, as the
product of a diseased mind—a mind rendered
morbid as to its disposing powers by dwelling
upon an irrational object. But Lords Loughborough
and Alvanley and Eldon, and judges of kindred
sympathies, seem to have been led by their love of
art to admire the skill with which the technicalities
of our blessed real property law had been adapted
to the object of this old trader. Perhaps, also, they
saw something eminently sane and matter-of-fact
in this good old sordid vice of accumulation, or
were excited to admiration by seeing the meanest
vice of man expanded into something like sublimity
in its gigantesque proportions. The litigation went
up to the House of Lords, and the will was con-
firmed. This affair naturally made a great noise.
The Legislature took it up, and although they
would not set aside the will by an ex post facto
law, they branded Peter Thelluson's memory with
the imputation of " vanity, illiberality and folly ;"
and enacted by statute, 39th and 40th of George
111., cap. 98, that the power of devising property
for the purpose of accumulation shall be restrained
in general to 21 years after the death of the testa-
tor. Persons of an arithmetical and statistical turn
of mind also occupied themselves with the matter,
and, with the aid of life insurance tables and
Cocker, they calculated that this fund, accumulat-
ing at compound interest, could not amount t 9 less
than nineteen millions at the moment of distribu-
tion, and would very probably reach the tremen-
dous figure of thirty-two millions. But "nothing is
so false as facts, except figures." The calculators
had forgotten to take account of that unknown
quantity which must, in practical matters, be repre-
sented, not by the letter "x," but by the word
"litigation." Contemporaneously with the Chan-
cery suit to set aside the will there was a cross•suit
to have the trusts of the will performed under the
direction of the Court of Chancery. That suit is
nand, although children and
row sixty
grandchildren are old, and,
the suit is as hale and
lively as it was in their earliest youth. That suit
was the true heir to Peer Thellusson, and it is still
spending his money like a frolicksome young cor-
net. Necessarily, there were other suits. There
were suits about post-testament acquisitions of
real property, there were suits about advowsons,
there were suits about other matters, so numerous
that even equity lawyers, not stingy of their words,
are fain to descrihe them as " various." The care-
ful and improving management of the Court of
Chancery has also exercised its influence upon this
estate. The Yorkshire estates have participated in
that excellent system, which has been so uniform
in its action, that when we see a house all window-
less and unpainted, tottering and decaying, we can
predicate with a tone of undoubting conviction,
" That property is in Chancery."
The last survivor of the nine lives died in
February, 1856, and four new bills were immedi-

ately filed. The property is now to be divided, not
into thirds, but into moieties. There is, however,
a question raied as to who is entitled. Who wore
the eldest male lineal descendants of old Peter
Thel'u•son in February, 1856 ? There are two
who are eldest in point of lineage, and two who are
eldest in point of-personal age. This point is still
sub judice. It would not be very difficult to guess
how it will be decided ; but that is no matter of
ours, nor would it have been a matter of the least
interest to old Peter Thellusson. His object was
to make the heap very large ; he evidently cared
not one lock of wool as to which of his descendants
might be the possessors. The public interest in
this long line of litigation is confined to its general
Peter Thellusson's clever scheme has