"commit a plan of such a regulation to writing; "but, after I made some progress, I reflected on "the great number of avocâts, attornies, and officers "of justice, whom it would ruin: compassion for "them made the pen fall from my hand. The

length and number of lawsuits confer on the gen"tlemen of the long robe their wealth and authority; "one must therefore continue to permit their infant growth and everlasting endurance."" This anecdote is taken from the Memoirs of the Duke de St. Simon: the editor of that work shrewdly remarks, that, "if a person should consider the im"mense sums of money which the crown acquires, "in various forms, from lawsuits, he would soon perceive that the lawyers are not the sole gainers by them; and therefore not the only persons in"terested in their preservation t."

III. 7.

Some Remarks on the English Law of Property. THE actual jurisprudence of the law of England is not entitled to the praise of simplicity: that branch of it, which the Reminiscent has professed during

* Euvres complettes de Louis de St. Simon. Tom. ix. p. 12. + Throughout the whole of this article the Reminiscent has particularly availed himself of an excellent work recommended to him by the late Sir Samuel Romilly, "De l'origine et du "progrès de la législation Française, ou l'histoire du droit public "et privé de la France, depuis la fondation de la monarchie, "jusques et compris la Révolution. Par M. Bernardi, de "l'Académie Royale des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres, Paris, " 8vo. 1806."

almost half a century, the jurisprudence of its real and personal property-is singularly and surprisingly complicated.

This is occasioned principally by five circumstances-1. The perpetual conflict between the law of tenure and the law of contract.-During many centuries, all the real property of the nation was governed by the former, and the latter was not judicially acknowledged. When it was introduced under the appellation of trusts, the obligations which it created were merely honorary: to give them effect it was found necessary to invest the court of chancery with powers unknown to the laws and constitution of the country. This produced the distinct and discordant classes of legal and equitable rights, and legal and equitable courts for enforcing them. 2. The same cause produced differences in real and personal property, in the important articles of succession and settlement. In the civil law, these differences are altogether unknown. 3. The feudal restrictions on alienation did not exist in the civil law; there, of course, the devices to elude it had no existence; and, consequently, it was without the abstruse and complicated doctrines of discontinuances, lineal and collateral warranties, fines and recoveries. 4. The substitutions of the Roman law were extremely simple; our entails are singularly complicated; the consequence has been, that the modifications of property, received into the law of England, are numerous and refined, and years of profound study are necessary to enable a person to acquire a full and accurate knowledge of their nature and

incidents. 5. According to the English law, property, speaking generally, cannot be settled without the intervention of trustees; hence, half the property of the land is vested in nominal owners; and a multitude of very nice cases incessantly occur, in which it is difficult to ascertain whether third persons are safe in dealing for fiduciary property with its trustee, without the concurrence of the beneficial owner. In most countries on the continent, the claims of the beneficial owner on the trustee are personal upon him, and the trustee is the real owner, for all purposes, in respect to the public.

It must, however, be added, that the judicial system of property received in England, though complicated, is perfect, both in theory and for practical objects. Every intelligent person must consider with admiration, how completely a marriage settlement or a will, when it is properly prepared, confers the beneficial ownership on the temporary possessor, for every legitimate purpose, while his abuse of it is prevented. He must also admire the good sense, with which the present system of entailing property has been formed; which, while it provides for the perpetuation of a numerous and respectable aristocracy, leaves a sufficient proportion of land in commerce, to answer the demands of individuals, and to effectuate the general object of the national policy, that the owners of personal property should both have opportunities of realizing it, and be allured to its realization by the superior stability of landed property, and the importance which the ownership of it confers.

This, it is known, has been effected by the esta blishment of a general rule, that the absolute owner ship of property may be suspended from vesting in any one during the life of a person in being at the time of the creation of the entail, and a further period of twenty-one years, to be computed from his decease; but that, at the end of this period, the entail shall cease of itself in some cases, and be barable in others. The series of decisions, by which this salutary rule has been established, may be traced to the time of Charles the second, and was not perfected till the last reign. However abstruse and complicated it may be, the system is coherent; the decisions, upon which it is founded, are countless, but they all converge to the same result,—an incontestible proof of the great good sense, the profound knowledge of law, and the mature deliberation, with which they have been framed.

The complicated nature of the modification of property in England has given its legal instruments a length unknown on the continent; but even on the continent, the length of legal instruments has been an incessant subject both of complaint and ridicule. Considering the multitude of combinations, of which even the most ordinary and simple transactions are susceptible, the necessity of providing for them all, and the accuracy of the terms in which this must be effected, it is obvious that some prolixity and minuteness of form, and some verbosity are necessary. But it admits of no doubt that these have been carried to excess: this has been most sensibly felt since the stamp laws have added so considerably to the

expense of legal instruments and forensic proceedings. Of late, a great disposition has existed in the profession to shorten legal instruments, and to expunge much of their unnecessary tautology. To this system of curtailment, the Reminiscent hopes that he and his school,--(it must be acknowledged that they do him great honour), -will be thought to have contributed; but much, certainly, remains to be done: yet, when forms, however prolix, have been found to answer their purpose, experienced practitioners only should tamper with them; it should not, however, be forgotten, that attempts to lengthen are at least as dangerous as attempts to shorten them *.

* The length of legal instruments is often owing to the necessity of providing for a multiplicity of contingent events, each of which may happen, and must, therefore, be both fully described, and fully provided for. Of the nature and extent of this multiplicity, the party himself is seldom aware: sometimes even his professional adviser does not feel it, until he begins to frame the necessary clauses. A gentleman, upon whose will the Reminiscent was consulted, had six estates of unequal value, and wished to settle one on each of his sons and his male issue, with successive limitations over to the other sons, and their respective male issue, in the ordinary mode of strict settlement; and with a provision, that, in the event of the death and failure of issue male of any of the sons, the estate devised to him, should shift from him and his issue male to the next taker and his issue male, and failing these, to the persons claiming under the other limitations; with a further proviso, that such next taker's estate, should then shift in like manner to the taker next after him, and the persons claiming under the other limitations. It was considered, at first, that this might be effected by one proviso; then, by two; and then by six; but upon a full investigation, it was found that it required as