ease.

Much perplexity and confusion must have been experienced by the student, who, out of many disagreeing opinions, equally specious, was to collect the one best supported by principles; and on whom it was incumbent, from a number of particular cases, to propose to himself, or to extract, a general rule, and to mark the cases which were not within the reason or the scope of the rule. This was to be accomplished only by discriminating the very minute circumstances, by which cases. within the reason of the rule, were to be distinguished from those cases which were beyond, or beside that reason.

This was far from being an easy task.

Whoever will trouble himself (a) to trace the decisions of the courts of justice on any general head of the law, with a view to its history, will observe, that at different periods, and under different judges, and sometimes under the same judges at different periods, the same or the like question, on similar cases, and sometimes on the same case (b), has received different determinations: hence, in part, arose the difficulty of studying the law.

By successive determinations, the laws on property have been formed into a fine and artificial

(a) Luder's Pref. 19.

(b) Roe d. Fulham v. Wicket, Willes' Rep. 303.

system, full of connexions and nice dependencies; into a system which has reason for its basis, and convenience and good policy for its object.

Great as is the confusion of the law on some heads, from contrariety of decisions, it is a matter of surprise that there should, in the mass, be such a conformity of cases with first principles; and that there should not be more anomalous cases, or cases devoid of principle.

Within a few years, many learned and valuable tracts have fully and elaborately explained those heads of the law; namely, uses, powers, fines, recoveries, contingent remainders, descents, copyholds, &c. &c. formerly deemed the most abstruse, and involved in the greatest confusion, from contrariety of decisions.

To propound the rules of property fully and with accuracy; to show their object and extent, and to introduce with judgment the cases which form exceptions to these rules, requires the labour of a series of years, and the experience of age matured in the study.

To these qualifications, the present author, at the time of publishing the former edition, had not any pretensions. As a young-a very young man who had just attained the age of majority, he wrote for those who were still younger than himself; designing to propound

to them those rules, and explain to them those cases relating to the subject of the present Treatise, which appeared to him most material to be understood, in the more early part of a professional life.

The study of more mature years, and extensive practice through a period of thirty-five years, have been frequently directed to the extension, the correction, and the improvement of his more early studies, embodied in this elementary Treatise.

The rules of property, relating to the quantity of estates, or the times of their continuance ; the several sorts of estates according to their qualities, as far as the quality of an estate marks the period of its duration; and the rules of construction, and the decided cases by which the time or quantity of these estates may be ascertained, are the subjects of this Treatise.

Before the principal subject of this Essay shall be discussed, it will be useful to advert to the several sorts of property, and the qualities and degrees of the estates which may exist in them. The first chapter of this book will be set apart for this purpose.

It

may be proper to observe, that there is a wide difference between the quantity and the quality of an estate.

By the quantity, must be understood the extent or continuance of time, or degree of interest of the estate; as, for years, for life, in tail, or in fee. By the quality of an estate, the nature, incidents, and other collateral qualifications of that interest; as, a condition, a collateral limitation, a joint-tenancy, and the like, are to be understood.

1

CHAPTER I.

LAND, in its several species, viz. arable, meadow, pasture, &c. and houses and other edifices thereon, and interests arising or issuing out of, and being collateral to land, as rents, commons, &c. &c. and personal duties, as annuities, offices, and privileges, as stewardship, &c. &c. are the subjects of property, in which

estates exist.

These articles of property are generally divided into (c)

1. Lands,

2. Tenements,

3. Hereditaments;

And this division is sufficient for the purposes

of this Treatise, and will be adopted.

(c) 2 Bl. Com. 16; Shep. Touchst. 88.

Land (d) comprehends all external subjects which are the objects of sensation, and admit of manual occupation, and are in their nature permanent and immoveable; in short, are part of the terrestrial globe. Thus a house, a garden, an orchard, a field, &c. is land.

Of an upper chamber a feoffment may be made (e); of course, it is a corporeal hereditament; in other words, land.

A rectory is of the same description; because it is essential to a rectory impropriate, that there should be glebe or some other corporeal hereditament, thus a rectory lies in livery (f).

A tenement comprises every thing which may be holden so as to create a tenancy, in the feudal sense of the word (g).

In this sense land is a tenement; for in reality or in fiction, according to the language of our system of tenures, all land is held mediately or immediately of the crown.

Also, by analogy, analogy, a rent-charge, or common of pasture, (although interests which are collateral to the land itself,) is a tenement, in the legal signification of this term; for a rent-charge is held of the owner of the land, as of freehold,

(d) 1 Inst. 4a; 2 Bl. Com. 16. 17; Vaugh. 188-9; Shep. T. 88. (e) Co. Litt. 48; Shep. T. 202.

(f) Shep. T. 209. 229.

(g) 1 Inst, 17; 2 Bl. Com. 17. 104. 106; 1 Inst. 1 b. 6 a. 164; Wright on Ten. 148; Finch's Desc. of Com. Law, 112; a Woodd. 6; Lord Mountjoy's case; Fleta, 254; 4 Burr. 265; 4 Vin. Ab. 478.