hours are ufually reckoned; the law generally rejecting all fractions of a day, in order to avoid difputes. Therefore, if I am bound to pay money on any certain day, I discharge the obligation if I pay it before twelve o'clock at night; after which the following day commences (2). But to return to eftates for years. THESE eftates were originally granted to mere farmers or husbandmen, who every year rendered fome equivalent in money, provifions, or other rent, to the leffors or landlords; but, in order to encourage them to manure and cultivate the ground, they had a permanent interest granted them, not determinable at the will of the lord. And yet their poffeffion was esteemed of fo little confequence, that they were rather confidered as the bailiffs or fervants of the lord, who were to [142] receive and account for the profits at a fettled price, than as having any property of their own. And therefore they were not allowed to have a freehold eftate: but their interest (such as it was) vefted after their deaths in their executors, who were to make up the accounts of their teftator with the lord, and his other creditors, and were entitled to the stock upon the farm. The leffee's eftate might alfo, by the antient law, be at any time defeated by a common recovery suffered by the tenant of the freehold ; which annihilated all leafes for f Co. Litt. 46. e Co. Litt. 135. cafe, ftates it as confidently to confift of 182 days; and in neither report is the difference taken notice of. From the cafes in 3 Wilf. 21. and 1 T. R. 159. it appears that a notice to a tenant from year to year to quit the premises, muft be half a year, and not fix calendar months, though the computation. by the latter would be more fimple and convenient; and that was understood to be the proper notice by the court of common pleas in 2 Bl. Rep. 1224. (2) See 4 T. R. 170. where there was a difference of opinion in the court upon the queftion, whether a bill of exchange could be protested for non-payment on the fame day that it was due, or the acceptor had the whole of the day to discharge it in? years then fubfifting, unless afterwards renewed by the recoveror, whose title was fuppofed fuperior to his by whom those leafes were granted. WHILE eftates for years were thus precarious, it is no wonder that they were ufually very fhort, like our modern leafes upon rack rent; and indeed we are told that by the antient law no leafes for more than forty years were allowable, because any longer poffeffion (efpecially when given without any livery declaring the nature and duration of the cftate) might tend to defeat the inheritance. Yet this law, if ever it exifted, was foon antiquated; for we may observe, in Madox's collection of antient inftruments, fome leafes for years of a pretty early date, which confiderably exceed that period and long terms, for three hundred years or a thoufand, were certainly in ufe in the time of Edward III 1, and probably of Edward I. But certainly, when by the ftatute 21 Hen. VIII. c. 15. the termor (that is, he who is entitled to the term of years) was protected against thefe fictitious recoveries, and his intereft rendered fecure and permanent, long terms began to be more frequent than before; and were afterwards extensively introduced, being found extremely convenient for family fettlements and mortgages: continuing subject, however, to the fame rules of fucceflion, [143] and with the fame inferiority to freeholds, as when they were little better than tenancies at the will of the landlord. EVERY eftate which muft expire at a period certain and prefixed, by whatever words created, is an eftate for years. And therefore this eftate is frequently called a term, terminus, because it's duration or continuance is bounded, limited, and determined: for every fuch eftate muft have a certain beginning, and certain end. But id certum eft, quod certum reddi 143 poteft: therefore if a man make a leafe to another, for fo many, years as J. S. fhall name, it is a good leafe for years"; for though it is at prefent uncertain, yet when J. S. hath named the years, it is then reduced to a certainty. If no day of commencement is named in the creation of this eftate, it begins from the making, or delivery, of the leafe ". A leafe for fo many years as J. S. fhall live, is void from the begin-. ning; for it is neither certain, nor can ever be reduced to a certainty, during the continuance of the leafe. And the fame doctrine holds, if a parfon make a leafe of his glebe for fo many years as he fhall continue parfon of Dale; for this is still more uncertain. But a leafe for twenty or more years, if J. S. fhall fo long live, or if he fhould fo long continue parfon, is good for there is a certain period fixed, beyond which it cannot laft; though it may determine fooner, on the death of J. S. or his ceafing to be parfon there. WE have before remarked, and endeavoured to affign the reafon of, the inferiority in which the law places an estate for years, when compared with an eftate for life, or an inheritance: obferving, that an estate for life, even if it, be pur auter vie, is a freehold; but that an eftate for a thoufand years is only a chattel, and reckoned part of the perfonal eftate. Hence it follows, that a leafe for years may be made to commence in futuro, though a leafe for life cannot. As, if I grant lands to Titius to hold from Michaelmas next for twenty years, this is good; but to hold from Michaelmas [144] next for the term of his natural life, is void. For no eftate' of freehold can commence in future; because it cannot be created at common law without livery of feitin, or corporal poffeffion of the land: and corporal poffeflion cannot be given of anftate now, which is not to commence now, but hereaster. And, because no livery of seifin is neceffary to à lease for years, fuch letfee is not faid to be feifed, or to have true legal feifin of the lands. Nor indeed does the bare leafe veft any estate in the leffee; but only gives him a right of entry on the tenement, which right is called his intereft in the term, or intereffe termini: but when he has actually fo entered, and thereby accepted the grant, the estate is then, and not before, vefted in him, and he is poffeffed, not properly of the land, but of the term of years; the poffeffion or seifin of the land remaining still in him who hath the freehold, Thus the word, term, does not merely fignify the time specified in the leafe, but the estate also and intereft that paffes, by that lease; and therefore the term may expire, during the continuance of the time; as by furrender, forfeiture, and the like. For which reafon, if I grant a leafe to A for the term of three years, and after the expiration of the said term to B for fix years, and A furrenders or forfeits his lease at the end of one year, B's intereft fhall immediately take effect but if the remainder had been to B from and after the expiration of the faid three years, or from and after the expiration of the faid time, in this cafe B's intereft will not commence till the time is fully elapfed, whatever may become of A's term '. TENANT for term of years hath incident to and infeparable from his estate, unless by special agreement, the same eftovers, which we formerly observed" that tenant for life was entitled to; that is to say, houfe-bote, fire-bote, ploughbote, and hay-bote ; terms which have been already explained *. W WITH regard to emblements, or the profits of lands fowed [145] by tenant for years, there is this difference between him, and tenant for life: that where the term of tepant for years depends upon a certainty, as if he holds from midfummer for ten years, and in the last year he fows a crop of corn, and it is not ripe and cut before midfummer, the end of his term, the landlord fhall have it; for the tenant knew the expiration of his term, and therefore it was his own folly to fow what & Co. Litt. 46. ↑ Ibid. 45. w Co. Litt. 45 x pag. 35. he he never could reap the profits of, But where the leafe for years depends upon an uncertainty: as, upon the death of the leffor, being himself only tenant for life, or being a husband seised in right of his wife; or if the term of years be determinable upon a life or lives; in all these cafes, the estate for years not being certainly to expire at a time fore-` known, but merely by the act of God, the tenant, or his executors, shall have the emblements in the fame manner that a tenant for life or his executors fhall be entitled thereto. Not fo, if it determine by the act of the party himfelf: as if tenant for years does any thing that amounts to a forfeiture: in which cafe the emblements fhall go to the leffor, and not to the lefsee, who hath determined his estate by his own de fault". II. THE fecond fpecies of eftates not freehold,' are estates, -at will. An estate at will is where lands and tenements are let by one man to another, to have and to Hold at the will of the leffor; and the tenant by force of this leafe obtains poffeflion. Such tenant hath no certain indefeasible eftate, nothing that can be affigned by him to any other; because the leffor may determine his will, and put him out whenever he pleases. But every estate at will is at the will of both parties, landlord and tenant; fo that either of them may determine his will, and quit his connexions with the other at his own pleasure. Yet this must be understood with fome refiriction. For, if the tenant at will fows his land, and the landlord be- [146] .fore the corn is ripe, or before it is reaped, puts him.out, yet the tenant fhall have the emblements, and free ingrefs,.egrefs, and regrefs, to cut and carry away the profits". And this for the fame reafon, upon which all the cafes of emblements turn; viz. the point of uncertainty: fince the tenant could not poffibly know when his landlord would determine his will, and therefore could make no provifion against it; and having fown the land, which is for the good of the public, upon a y Litt. § 68. M 4 b Litt. § 68. reafonable |