the heirs males of the body, &c. operate as words of purchase; that is, when they do not give to the ancestor the interest they import, but are to vest the interest in the person answering the description of such special heirs, they appear to have an equivocal or mixed effect. Though they give the estate to the special heir originally, and not through or from his ancestor, yet the estate which he takes under this gift, has such reference to the ancestor, as to pursue the same course of succession, in the same extent of duration or continuance, through the same persons, as if it had attached in and descended from the ancestor (o). As this rule is of great importance to the profession, and intimately connected with those chapters of this work, which treat of estates in fee and fee-tail, and disclose various instances in which a person shall have an estate of inheritance or mere estate of freehold, a succinct view of the rule will be introduced in a chapter to follow the one on Freeholds. This new chapter should be read after a perusal of the chapters on Fee Simple, Estate Tail, and for Life. Limitations are of several sorts: 1. As to the terms on which they are to give the right of enjoyment; they are, 1. Absolute, 2. Conditional. (0) 1 Inst. 24, Mandeville's case; Southcot v. Stowell, 1 Mod. 226; 2 Mod: 211; Willes v. Palmer, 5 Burr. 2615. 2. As to the terms on which the estate is to be held; they are, 1. Direct, 2. Collateral. An absolute limitation names a day, a time, or an event, for the commencement of the estate, which will certainly happen. A conditional limitation, or, as it is otherwise denominated, a limitation upon condition (p), renders it necessary that some act should be done, or that some event, which will not certainly happen, should take place before a right to present or future enjoyment can arise. Contingent remainders, and estates which have their operation by resulting or springing use, or by executory devise, and which are to commence on an event, are all raised by conditional limitations. In short, every limitation which is to vest an interest on condition, or rather a contingency, (for that is the correct phrase,) in other words, an event which may or may not happen, is a conditional limitation (q). And whether a limitation of this sort is to give an interest to commence on and immediately after the regular and proper determination of a preceding estate, so as to fall within the description of a remainder; or independently of and in derogation, and to the exclusion of a pres ceding estate, it is properly denominated a (p) Fearne, 14, 15; Dougl. Rep. 727. conditional limitation, contingency. or a limitation on a In practice, those limitations which are to give an estate, to take effect in abridgment and exclusion of another estate, are more generally distinguished by this term; and those limitations which give contingent remainders, are distinguished by the appellation of limitations upon contingency. Sometimes mention is made of estates as limited on conditions precedent; and at other times of estates limited on conditions subsequent. This is not a very accurate mode of distinguishing the nature or operation of the gift. Conditions precedent are properly denominated limitations, and relate to the commencement or vesting of the estate, as to A and his heirs if he shall go to Rome. Conditions subsequent are those conditions which are to defeat the estate; as that the estate of A shall be void if he should not go to Rome within a limited time. One term relates to the perfection or completion of the estate, while the other relates to the defeasance of the estate. Thus, a contingent remainder is an interest to commence on a condition precedent; it is a conditional limitation; and an estate to be defeated by a condition, is a condition subsequent. And it depends on the intention whether words shall be construed as creating a condition precedent or condition subsequent (r). (r) 1 R. A. 415. 1. 45; Peyton v. Bury, 2 P. W. 626. A direct limitation marks the duration of estate by the life of a person; by the continuance of heirs; by a space of precise and measured time; making the death of the person in the first example; the continuance of heirs in the second example; and the length of the given space in the third example, the boundary of the estate or the period of duration. A collateral limitation, at the same time that it gives an interest which may have continuance for one of the times, in a direct limitation, may, on some event which it describes, put an end to the right of enjoyment during the continuance of that time. Thus, a limitation to a man and his heirs, tenants of the manor of Dale; or to a woman during widowhood, or to C till the return of himself or of B from Rome, or to D for twentyone years if A should live so long, marks some event for the determination of the estate, which is collateral to the time of its continuance, so far as that time depends on the clause of direct limitation, and the construction of law on the extent of the words of limitation; and it is said to be a collateral limitation. The circumstance that A and his heirs shall be tenants of the manor of Dale, is collateral to the continuance which the estate would have under the limitation to him and his heirs; for A may alive, and may have heirs, without continuing the tenancy of the manor of Dale; so after his death there may be a continuance of heirs, be although there be a cessation of the tenancy of this manor. Also, a woman may live, though she does not continue a widow; and the event of the return of B from Rome will not affect the continuance of her own or of C's life; and though A should die, his death will neither lengthen or protract the space of time in twenty-one years: but as each of these estates may have continuance to the end of one time, under the clause of limitation, so far as it is direct; and may be. determined in the mean time by some circumstance or event collateral to that time, by reason of the superadded clause of qualification, these additional clauses give to the estate a determinable quality, and a denomination expressive of this quality. Under limitations of estate, subject to collateral determination on events described in that branch of those limitations which causes the determinable quality, the estates will determine as soon as the events arise: and an estate once determined (s) by a collateral limitation, cannot possibly exist at any subsequent period. Thus, if a grant be made to a man and his heirs, tenants of the manor of Dale, and the person to whom this limitation is made parts with the tenancy for any time, even an instant, and though he afterwards resumes it, the estate will determine, and never revive to be enjoyed under the first limitation. However, according to the opinion of An- (s) Peele v. Needham, Yelv. 150. |