right of entry to restore it, the contingent remainders were destroyed. The grantor indeed, or his heir, might, in that case, re-enter, the seisin under the grant being at an end; but if the latter colluded with the tenant in possession, the whole grant might be defeated, and a complete estate acquired by wrong, with impunity. After uses were converted into legal interests by the statute of Henry VIII., the effect of this inconvenience was prevented, in settlements to uses, embracing provisions for unborn issue, by limiting to trustees an estate commensurate with that of the immediate tenant for life, for preserving these remainders, with a right of entry for that purpose. This cured the particular evil; but it introduced into settlements another system, that of trusts, in order to remedy the inadequacy of the laws of tenure to the necessary modifications of landed property.

At common law, whatever was vested, in a legal sense, was alienable; and dispositions were effected, where the estate was immediate, by feoffment or fine, with livery of the possession; but, where it was expectant, by grant; as none but the tenant in possession could give seisin. Contingent remainders, however, or eventual interests, were inalienable to third persons; but they might be released, or extinguished in the fee.

These different properties of destructibility and inalienableness in contingent remainders, have occasioned distinctions between them and vested

estates; and again, between them and the modifications of interests, called springing uses, and executory devises, which will be hereafter noticed. The variety and nicety of these may be best depicted, by referring to two treatises of about half a century old on these subjects, which, for exact arrangement and acuteness of reasoning, stand almost unrivalled in English jurisprudence (a). It is to be regretted, that the times were not then ripe for directing the talent that produced them, towards simplifying, instead of systematizing, the refinements of landed property.

CHAP. II.-Of Uses.

The next creature of our laws of real property is Uses. These, as has been already explained, were of ecclesiastical introduction, for the purpose of eluding the restrictions against mortmain. They were in time adopted by the laity; partly to avoid the rigour and inconvenience of tenures, and partly as admitting those modifications of property, demanded by the increasing intercourse and wants of society, which were incompatible with the maxims of feudality. After repeated attempts by the legislature to assimilate the two systems, uses were

(a) Fearne on Contingent Remainders, and Executory De

vises.

ultimately converted into legal estates by the statute of 27 Hen. VIII. c. 10. It has been frequently questioned, whether the statute meant to extinguish uses, or to give them legal effect! Whatever was the intention, the latter has certainly been the consequence; and by means of uses, thus legalized, various modifications of property were introduced, to which the system of tenures was a stranger. For instance, expectant interests by way of use did not require to be preceded by an estate in possession, nor to be a remnant of the original fee, like a remainder at common law; but they might be limited, upon any future event, happening within the period for which, by the law of entails, property was usually tied up, namely a life or lives in being, and twenty-one years and nine months afterwards, and that, although the whole fee in the use was first disposed of, if only defeasibly. They also, in their original character, introduced and afterwards preserved a species of dominion almost unknown at common law, called powers. By means of these, a person, having merely a partial interest, or even none whatever, in the land, might dispose of or charge it, in the particular manner authorized. They were dormant till exercised; and then they operated, to the extent of the disposition, in defeasance of the original interests. Their more particular features will be described hereafter.

Uses, however, when legalized, assumed the properties of estates at common law, to which they were assimilated. The inheritance was subject to

the legal incidents hereafter noticed, of curtesy and dower, in a surviving husband or wife. The partial owner in possession under the use, (called the cestui que use in possession) had the same capacity as a similar tenant at common law to destroy the subsequent uses, when bearing the character of contingent remainders. When, however, the whole fee was disposed of, though eventually, as to one and his heirs, if he attained the age of twenty-one; or defeasibly as to one and his heirs, but if he died under twenty-one, then to another, the subsequent limitations no longer bore any analogy to common-law interests, but were then called springing or executory uses; and, as their existence did not technically depend upon the seisin of the tenant in possession, no act of his could destroy them. The same quality, (it may be noticed) and for the same reason, is attributable to executory devises, being a similar description of interest created by will. Powers, however, when they operate by way of use, are (with some qualifications) destroyed by the feoffment or fine of the appointor; and that although he have no such intention, if he be also invested with any estate in possession, as for life, on account of the technical capacity attributed to him of disturbing, by these means, the seisin on which the power, depends. If, however, he have no estate whatever, then his power is not affected by any act of ownership assumed by him over the land.

CHAP. III.-Of Trusts.

Trusts are what uses were, before they were legalized, a confidence reposed in the grantee of the land, which is enforced by a court of equity only. Their revival was chiefly occasioned by the narrowness of construction which the judges at common law put upon the statute of uses, in two instances. This act, it should be noticed, treats uses and trusts as convertible terms. Notwithstanding this, and the obvious intent to reduce the whole of them to estates at law, it was conceited, that no use could be limited on an use; and, therefore, on a feoffment to A. and his heirs, to the use of B. and his heirs, in trust for C. and his heirs, the courts held, that the statute executed the first use only; and that the second was a mere nullity. mentions only such persons as were seised to the use of others. But of terms of years and other interests short of freehold in land, the person entitled is technically described as possessed only, and not seised. To these estates also it was held that the statute did not extend.

Again, the statute

Over the interests which were thus excluded from the operation of the statute, equity resumed its ancient jurisdiction; applying to them the denomination of trusts, in contradistinction to legalized uses. They are resorted to for various purposes, to which even uses, now coerced into the strict rules of legal