As to enfranchisement, it is always desirable to give every facility to it when both lords and tenants are agreed; it then becomes a matter of personal convenience to all parties, and probably tends to some measure of practical advantage (such as buildings, &c.) in which the community may be the gainers.

On the whole, the Act is likely to become a useful and popular measure.

Copyholders, however, must not run away with the notion, that because commutation and enfranchisement are provided for them, that therefore it is incumbent upon them to select the one or the other without delay. I have attempted in the following pages to give, in as few words as possible, a clear and impartial essay on this tenure, pointing out its errors and advantages; for it possesses both. Copyholders will weigh them in the universal scale of self-interest, and judge accordingly; remembering still, that enfranchisement is an act of grace on the lord's part, and not a matter of right which they can at pleasure demand.

Filling the office of Steward of the Manors and Courts of the Bishop of Salisbury, and having other engagements of a similar nature, I have seen a good deal of the practical working

of the copyhold system, and have tried to embody, in a concise form, such hints upon it as may be found useful to those whom it chiefly

concerns.

I have, it will be found, adverted to the common topic of declamation against copyholds, viz. their dilapidated state-lack of timber and general appearance of decay; but let any man consider how this property is usually managed, especially in ecclesiastical and collegiate manors, and he will see that the fault lies not so much in the system, which he is too apt to condemn without a hearing, as in the strange out-of-the-way fashion in which it is worked out.

For example:-to a manor, or number of manors of the above description, a steward is appointed—usually a professional man- - who resides at a distance. He goes down periodically or at irregular intervals to hold a court, and learns of the property, during the few minutes' interval of business that may occur, just as much as the parties principally interested choose to tell him.*

It is in the nature of all things human, if neglected, to fall to decay; and copyhold lands do not claim exemption from the common lot.

* See observations on this subject, p. 91.

But only let lords of manors set to work in earnest, and bestow ordinary care upon these estates, and they will soon become more creditable to themselves and not less so to those holding under them.

Feeling that such care and attention are most necessary, must be my apology for enlarging upon topics which have never, in any treatise on this subject that I have yet met with, been alluded to; and it is only from not having their attention so directed that lords and stewards have gone on, from generation to generation, without maintaining for copyhold lands that forward position in the march of improvement which might fairly have been expected from them.

In selecting for their secretary, Mr. J. Stewart of Lincoln's Inn-a gentleman favourably known to the professional world—the commissioners have offered a fair guarantee for the care and ability with which all matters connected with their office will be conducted. It may, perhaps, be convenient to add here, that the commissioners give notice that they are ready to forward, gratuitously, all forms as they may be successively framed to meet the objects of the late Act, to such lords and stewards as will furnish them with the following particulars; requesting that they will not

address them on the subjects of tithes and copyholds in the same letter:

1. Name of the manor.

2. Name of the county in which it is situate, and of the parish or parishes which it comprises or in which it is comprised.

3. Name and address of the lord.

4. Name and address of the steward.

14, Gray's Inn Square,

5th July 1841.

A. C.

A

TREATISE

ON

COPYHOLDS, &c.

CHAPTER I.

OF A MANOR.

As to the antiquity of manors, we find that the ancient kings of this realm, who had all the lands of England in demesne (i.e. in their own hands), did grant a certain compass or circuit of ground to certain lords and great personages, with liberty to parcel the lands out to other inferior tenants, reserving such duties and services as they thought fit, with power to keep courts wherein they might redress misdemeanors and nuisances within such their precincts, and punish the offences of their tenants, and debate and decide controversies of meum and tuum between them-the said lords performing such services, and paying such rents, &c. as the said kings reserved by such their

B