the life of the grantor; or, 2. For twenty-one years from the death of the grantor or testator; or, 3. During the minority of any person or persons living or conceived at the death of the grantor or testator; or, 4. Who, if of full age, would be entitled, under the limitations, to the profits: but with an exception of provisions for payment of debts; or for raising portions for any children of the settlor, or of any persons taking an interest under the settlement; and of directions touching the produce of timber.

These restrictions are, in general, good, inasmuch as they confine accumulation either to fixed periods, or to persons connected with the estate. They occasion, however, one law for the capital, and another for the profits; and have already introduced several distinctions as to the latter; producing thus, as is ever the case, when partial correction is attempted, the greater evil, of swelling the mass of law.

The exception of provisions for payment of debts is of more doubtful policy. It affords, when the debts are large, an opportunity of evading the spirit of the act, by directing an accumulation through a long series of years; and it may produce the still greater evil of enabling a testator to delay his creditors for an unreasonable period. In this view it seems to sanction an opinion, questioned by some, that any provision for payment of debts takes the case out of the statute of fraudulent

devises. Surely if an efficient remedy is ever necessary, it is for the prompt discharge of debts.

CHAP. III.-Of Estates for life.

These form the next description of partial interests. Simple in their nature, and already somewhat anticipated, in describing the preceding interests, they require but little additional explanation. A tenant for life holds, either for his own life, or for the life or lives of another or others. The first interest (being what the civilians call an usufruct) is the more frequent. It originates either from our legal institutions, as tenancy in curtesy and in dower; or under our ecclesiastical establishments, as rectories, and other church preferments; or from actual dispositions by grant, settlement, or will. Estates for the lives of others are usually granted, either under statutory powers of leasing, in corporations, for instance, the crown and ecclesiastical bodies; or in particular districts, chiefly in the west of England, where this mode of farming out lands more or less prevails; or in copyhold estates, by the special custom of

some manors.

Estates for the lives of others, or pur autre vie, (as they are called,) have some peculiarities; but which here need only be briefly stated. If limited

to the grantor and his heirs, they pass to the heir, in case of intestacy, as the person designated. If to one and his executors and administrators, they become in effect, under certain statutory provisions, personal estates. They are capable of being limited by settlement to the issue of the marriage, as fee-simple property is; but with this difference, that the quasi estate tail, as it is called, in leasehold pur autre vie, may be barred by the simple deed of the person entitled.

CHAP. IV.-Of Leases for Years.

These form the next modification of real property. In granting them the original object was, the productive cultivation of such of their lands as the great proprietors could not themselves occupy, either with their domestic servants, or by means of their villains. For this purpose they were granted out for a definite term of years, at a certain rent. Being carved out of land, leases for years ought, from analogy, to have the same qualities as other real property. Our law has, however, viewed them as mere contracts between landlord and tenant, for the latter's occupation of the land, on specified terms; and, as the tenant's property employed in it consists of his stock and crops, which are personal estate, leases for years are also considered as such, and class accordingly, as to

their transmissibility by deed or will, or in case of intestacy; their liability to creditors, and other legal properties.

The ingenuity of the ecclesiastics to evade the laws against mortmain, and the inaptitude of the system of tenures to bend to the various wants of proprietors, particularly in the instance of mortgaging, occasioned the creation of fictitious leases for this and similar purposes, the terms in which were so long as to amount in effect to a perpetuity; and the rents reserved (for the analogy was preserved throughout) were merely nominal, as a peppercorn, a rose, &c. The tenant's entry on the land was indeed necessary, to give effect to this supposed contract for its occupancy; but even this requisite was dispensed with, when uses were legalized by the statute of 27 Hen. VIII., and in consequence of this law, long terms equivalent to the fee, might be created by mere writing, without any further solemnity; as will hereafter be shewn, in speaking of assurances operating by way of use.

CHAP. V.-Of Estates in possession and expectancy.

The several foregoing interests may be created either in possession, or in expectancy; and, in the latter case, to take effect either absolutely, as in a gift to an existing son, after the death of a parent; or else eventually, as to an existing son, if he survives

his parent-or to an unborn son or after an intended marriage. These are all natural characters; but there are others, merely technical, which have been already shortly noticed; as, contingent remainders, when the disposition forms a consecutive portion of the original fee; springing uses, and executory devises, when they do not immediately succeed, or, (as it is technically termed) depend upon a preceding partial estate, but form unconnected dispositions, to take effect, either at a future period, the intermediate interest being undisposed of, or else after a prior defeasible limitation of the fee.

CHAP. VI.-Of Mortgages and other Charges.

Real property has also been ever chargeable, both by the common law, and by way of use, with rents or yearly sums; and partly under these systems, and partly by special statutory provisions, with a power of distress and sale for enforcing them. With respect, however, to capital monies, as loans, portions for children, &c.-by the system of tenures, lands were granted, not in absolute property, but in return for services, either military or of the plough. These dispositions did not allow

of

any effectual mode of charging the lands for the benefit of strangers, and at the same time leaving them, subject to the charge, in the hands of the tenant. Such charges were consequently effected