Ancient instances of fee simple conditional Effect of the statute Quia emptores upon such limitations. Fee tail under the statute De donis . Attornment to grant at common law-abolished by statute AN ELEMENTARY DIGEST OF THE LAW OF PROPERTY IN LAND BY STEPHEN MARTIN LEAKE BARRISTER-AT-LAW LONDON STEVENS AND SONS 119 CHANCERY LANE 1874 LIBRARY OF THE LELAND STAKEOPP, JR., UNIVERSITY 57,7357 PRINTED BY TAYLOR AND CO., PREFACE. THE complaint is found in the earliest writers on our law, that the laws and customs of the realm are not put into writing, that they may be known by all who have to administer or to obey them (a). This complaint has been continually repeated, under an ever increasing pressure of the inconvenience, but with very little attempt at a remedy (b), up to the present time; when, at last, it has called forth some more decided efforts for relief. These efforts have already produced some useful results, chiefly in rendering the Statute law more compendious and accessible; but in the direction of their immediate object of reducing to writing that body of law which rests upon custom and precedent, they appear to have been arrested by the preliminary question whether the written exposition of law should take the form of a Code or a Digest; and much discussion has ensued upon the essential distinctions and comparative advantages of these two forms of a corpus juris, but without any conclusion as yet upon the future course of proceeding. If, as seems generally agreed, the main distinction between (a) See Horne's Mirror of Justices, Chap. V. sect. 1, 3, where this is reckoned as one of the "abusions" of the common law. (b) See Bacon's "Offer of a Digest of the Laws of England," Law Tracts, p. 15. a Code and a Digest be that a Code is the immediate emanation of authority, at once both the source and the text of the law, legislating as it speaks; while a digest is an exposition of the law compiled from the various existing sources, having no independent authority beyond the credit due to the compilation; then a Code, as such, is necessarily a public undertaking and must await the action of the public powers. It is at once seen to be altogether beyond the scope of private exertion and enterprise. But if, passing over this extrinsic point of difference, it be considered that either Code or Digest must contain the same matter, and for the same purpose, namely, that the law may be readily accessible to all; and that for this purpose it must be equally an object with either that it should be framed in the most serviceable and intelligible form; also that even public authority must submit to the laws of scientific order, and that every general exposition of law, whether Code, or Digest, or separate Treatise, to be practically convenient and useful, must conform to a correct method and to sound principles of arrangement; then it may be seen. that a wide field of inquiry lies open, in which private exertions may be permitted to assist,-a field of inquiry in which public authority can stand at no advantage, and in which the result of any successful exertions would be equally applicable either to a Code or a Digest, either to authoritative or unauthoritative expositions of law. The following work is an essay in this field of inquiry; and it has been undertaken and executed under a firm conviction that an essential condition of obtaining a public Code or Digest, whether of the whole or of detached portions of the law, will be found in the attainment of correct principles of order. The law has here been carefully collected, point by point and case by case, as found in its |