A freehold was originally simply the smallest estate which any freeman could worthily accept. Now it will be easily understood that, in a warlike time, this smallest estate in a piece of land which it was worth the while of a soldier to accept at once as a reward for past services, a means of subsistence, and a retainer for any future services which he might be called on to perform, was an estate, or the right of ownership, for the term of his own life. If the ownership was given so that it would descend to his children or other relatives after his death, so much the better. But so far as the first recipient was concerned, anything less than an estate for his life was in those days unworthy of his acceptance, and so came it to pass that such an estate was called a freehold; and estates in land which were not only for life but went to the owner's relatives on his death, being still more worthy of a freeman's acceptance, were called freeholds also.

But in the days when our land laws had their origin a great number of Englishmen were not freemen. They were serfs or villeins, as they were technically called— slaves under a very peculiar and special code of law. Under this code numbers of these serfs were attached to the soil, bound to till it for the lord, but having a right to a maintenance at the hands of their master. In such circumstances, as might have been expected, the lords in the management of their estates adopted a very simple plan. They exacted a certain amount of work from each serf, and allowed him a piece of land to get his living out of when not working for his owner. After a time these serfs acquired a fixed estate in their pieces of land, and they gradually grew from being mere slaves existing at the will of the lord into tenants,

bound indeed to perform certain work for their lord which in a military age was deemed degrading, but still tenants holding their lands by right of the entry of their allotments on the court rolls of their lord's manor, or copyholders.

In the earlier days of our land laws leases for terms of years were scarcely known. They were beneath the acceptance of the military freemen, and much too defined for a lord to give his serf. It was not until the relationships of life became more complicated that leases for years, under which so much property is now held, became common and the estimation in which they were originally held is shown by the fact that in law the smallest freehold estate-that for life -is considered greater than the longest term of years; so that a man possessing a lease for life of a piece of land, at a high rent, is considered technically as having a larger estate in the land than if he had a lease of it for a thousand years at a peppercorn per annum.

Freehold estates are of many sorts-estates for life, or in tail, or in fee. For the purpose of describing the chief characteristics of each of these, it is better to take them separately.

A life estate is created by the grant of land to a man for his life. Such an estate was formerly deemed the smallest of freehold estates. Still smaller estates, however, such as the estate a woman would hold in lands given her during widowhood, are now considered freehold; but such estates are comparatively rare. estate for life, on the other hand, is very common. Indeed, most of those who are called landowners in England are simply tenants for life of their lands. This state of things arises from the custom of settling

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family estates on marriages. By these settlements, as a rule, the person actually in possession of the lands, and those living who are to succeed him, are made tenants for life, the next generation of successors being made tenants in tail. Thus, on the occasion of the marriage of the eldest son of a landowner, who we may suppose possesses his estate in fee simple, the custom is to cut down this estate to that of a tenant for life, give another life estate to the son who will come into possession on the father's death, and give estates tail to the children of the marriage. If the father is only a tenant for life already under a prior settlement, there are generally other means whereby the same object, that of preserving the lands in the family by giving to the possessor only a limited ownership, can be accomplished. It is under such settlements as these that most of the land in the kingdom is held.

A tenant for life has a very restricted estate. Of course, he can sell or give away his own life interest in the lands if he wishes, but he cannot in any way affect the estates of those who are to succeed him. He therefore cannot encumber the estate with mortgages, nor could he formally grant leases which would be valid after his death. By strict law he cannot cut timber, or open mines or quarries, though he may work those already open. The rigid rules of the old law, however, have been relaxed; and by virtue of modern Acts of Parliament tenants for life may now grant leases for certain periods. It is customary also to give special powers in settlements, enabling tenants for life to deal with their lands in a manner which they could not otherwise do. Still most of these

tenants for life hold their estates under very stringent practical restrictions. For instance, there are very few who could in any way grant a lease of a farm for fifty years, or of a house for one hundred, or receive or take a sum of money down in lieu of part of the rent reserved on a lease they could grant; and as nearly all the large landowners in England are, tenants for life, it will be seen how restrained ordinary dealings with land. must be.

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LECTURE II.

Estates in tail-Their history-Recoveries-Barring entails-Rights of the owner of an estate in tail-Estate in fee simple-Its historyHistory of the power of alienation of land inter vivos-Of the power of devising land by will-Rights of an owner in fee-Descent of estates of inheritance-Rights of husband and wife-Marriage settlements, their object and effect.

AN estate depending on the existence of a single life is not technically an estate of inheritance, although, if the owner of such an estate has it for the life of another man, it will, under certain circumstances, descend to his heirs. Estates of inheritance, or those which may be inherited, are of two sorts estates in tail, and estates in fee simple.

An estate tail is created by the grant of lands to a man and the heirs of his body. Strictly speaking, such a grant gives an estate in tail general, for the grant may be made to the heirs male, or heirs female, or the heirs by a particular wife-then the estate is said to be in tail male, or tail female, or special tail.

The creation of this species of estate more than of any other is a pure matter of custom in this country. But for the practice of limiting the ownership of land by marriage settlements which is so universal, estates in tail would soon fall into disuse. It is because their incidents are so peculiarly adapted for all the purposes