rest by the well-known appellation of game. With regard to these and some others, as disturbances and quarrels *would frequently arise among individuals, contending about the acquisition of this species of property by [*15] first occupancy, the law has therefore wisely cut up the root of dissention by vesting the things themselves in the sovereign of the state; or else in his representatives appointed and authorized by him, being usually the lords of manors. And thus the legislature of England has universally promoted the grand ends of civil society, the peace and security of individuals, by steadily pursuing that wise and orderly maxim of assigning to every thing capable of ownership a legal and determinate owner. (4)

CHAPTER II.

OF REAL PROPERTY; AND, FIRST, OF CORPOREAL HEREDITAMENTS.

THE objects of dominion or property are things, as contradistinguished from persons: and things are, by the law of England, distributed into two kinds; things real and things personal. Things real are such as are permanent, fixed and immovable, which cannot be carried out of their place; as lands and tenements: things personal are goods, money, and all other movables; which may attend the owner's person wherever he thinks proper to go. (1)

In treating of things real, let us consider, first, their several sorts or kinds; secondly, the tenures by which they may be holden; thirdly, the estates which may be had in them; and fourthly, the title to them, and the manner of acquiring and losing it.

First, with regard to their several sorts or kinds, things real are usually said to consist in lands, tenements or hereditaments. Land comprehends all things

(4) [It is not very easy, as the author seems to be aware, for the minds of readers who have been born and bred up in all the habits and with the feelings of civil society, to admit the truth of this reasoning on the acquisition and transmission of property. The subject is too wide a one to be discussed in a note; but two observations may be made as important in forming a sound opinion on the whole matter. First, we should have a clear notion what is meant by natural rights, or rights founded in the laws of nature, as far as regards this subject. When we say that a right to devise property of our own acquisition, or to inherit that left undisposed of by our fathers, is a right founded on the law of nature, we commonly mean, a right founded on those conclusions of natural reason and justice which men in all civil societies have, as it were, by general consent, recognized and established. But it is obvious that the law of nature, thus understood, presupposes the formation, nay, even in some measure, the maturity of civil society, and of course along with it the existence of the right of property. Whereas, strictly considered, the law of nature relates to a time anterior to this, and provides for a state of things independent of civil compact. In this point of view it seems correct to say that inheritance and devise are not founded on the law of nature.

But secondly, in the former sense it may be equally true, that the industrious acquirer of property has a natural right to transmit to whomsoever he pleases, and that the child has a natural right to inherit what his ancestor shall not have transmitted specially to any other person; that is to say, the wisest persons in all societies have agreed that, by the establishment of these two rights, certain great purposes of civil union are best answered. I

(1) The reader will be careful to note here that the learned commentator is speaking of things real, and not of the estate or interest which one may have in those things. We shall see hereafter that an estate in the most permanent species of property may be of such character and duration, that the law does not regard it as real property, but classifies it for most purposes, as respects its control, assignment, and transmission on the of the owner, with things a higher estate in the same things real, vested in some other person, and which is designated as real estate. The nature of the thing itself, therefore, does not determine the character of any particular estate that may exist in it, whether real or personal, but the extent and duration of the estate, as will be hereaf ter explained.

personal. Nevertheless, when such estates exist, there is a death

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337

of a permanent substantial nature; being a word of a very extensive signification, as will presently appear more at large. Tenement is a word of still greater extent, and though, in its vulgar acceptation, it is only applied to houses [*17] and other buildings, yet, in its original, proper and legal sense, it signifies every thing that may be holden, provided it be of a permanent nature; whether it be of a substantial and sensible, or of an unsubstantial, ideal kind. (2) Thus, liberum tenementum, frank tenement, or freehold, is applicable not only to lands and other solid objects, but also to offices, rents, commons, and the like: (a) and, as lands and houses are tenements, so is an advowson a tenement; and a franchise, an office, a right of common, a peerage, or other property of the like unsubstantial kind, are all of them, legally speaking, tenements. (b) But an hereditament, says Sir Edward Coke, (c) is by much the largest and most comprehensive expression; for it includes not only lands and tenements, but whatsoever may be inherited, be it corporeal or incorporeal, real, personal or mixed. Thus, an heir-loom, or implement of furniture which, by custom, descends to the heir, together with a house, is neither land nor tenement, but a mere movable; yet being inheritable, is comprised under the general word hereditament : and so a condition, the benefit of which may descend to a man from his ancestor, is also an hereditament. (d) (3)

Hereditaments, then, to use the largest expression, are of two kinds, corporeal and incorporeal. Corporeal consist of such as affect the senses; such as may be seen and handled by the body: incorporeal are not the object of sensation, can neither be seen nor handled, are creatures of the mind, and exist only in contemplation.

Corporeal hereditaments consist wholly of substantial and permanent objects; all which may be comprehended under the general denomination of land only. For land, says Sir Edward Coke, (e) comprehendeth, in its legal signification, any ground, soil or earth whatsoever; as arable, meadows, pastures, woods, moors, waters, marshes, furzes and heath. *It legally includeth, also, all castles, houses and other buildings: for they consist, saith he, of two things; [*18] land, which is the foundation, and structure thereupon; so that, if I convey the land or ground, the structure or building passeth therewith. It is observable that water is here mentioned as a species of land, which may seem a kind of

(a) Co. Litt. 6.

(b) Ibid. 19, 20.

(c) 1 Inst. 6.

(d) 3 Rep. 2.

(e) 1 Inst. 4.

(2) [Therefore, in an action of ejectment, which, with the exception of tithe and common appurtenant, is only sustainable for a corporeal hereditament, it is improper to describe the property sought to be recovered as a tenement, unless with reference to a previous more certain description. 1 East, 441; 8 id. 357. By the general description of a messuage, a church may be recovered. 1 Salk. 256. The term close without stating a name or number of acres, is a sufficient description in ejectment. 11 Coke, 55. In common acceptation it means an enclosed field, but in law it rather signifies the separate interest of the party in a particular spot of land, whether enclosed or not. 7 East, 207; Doct. and Stud. 30. If a man make a feoffment of a house "with the appurtenances," nothing passes by the words with the appurtenances, but the garden, curtilage, and close adjoining to the house, and on which the house is built, and no other land, although usually occupied with the house; but by a devise of a messuage, without the words "with the appurtenances," the garden and curtilage will pass, and where the intent is apparent, even other adjacent property. See cases, 2 Saund. 401, note 2. 1 Bar. and Cres. 350; see further as to the effect of the word "appurtenant," 15 East, 109; 3 Taunt. 24, 147; 1 B. and P. 53, 55; 2 T. R. 498, 502; 3 M. and S. 171. The term farm, though in common acceptation it imports a tract of land with a house, out-buildings, and cultivated land, yet in law, and especially in the description in an action of ejectment, it signifies the leasehold interest in the premises, and does not mean a farm in its common acceptation. See post, 318.]

(3) [By a condition is here meant a qualification or restriction annexed to a conveyance of land, whereby it is provided that in case a particular event does or does not happen, or a particular act is done or omitted to be done, an estate shall commence, be enlarged or defeated. As an instance of the condition here intended, suppose A to have enfeoffed B of an acre of ground upon condition, that if his heir should pay the feoffor 20s. he and his heir should re-enter; this condition would be an hereditament descending on A's heir after A's death, and if such heir after A's death should pay the 20s. he would be entitled to re-enter, and would hold the land as if it had descended to him. Co. Litt. 211, 214 b.]

solecism; but such is the language of the law: and therefore I cannot bring an action to recover possession of a pool or other piece of water by the name of water only; either by calculating its capacity, as, for so many cubical yards; or, by superficial measure, for twenty acres of water; or by general description, as for a pond, a watercourse, or a rivulet; but I must bring my action for the land that lies at the bottom, and must call it twenty acres of land covered with water. (f) (4) For water is a movable, wandering thing, and must of necessity continue common by the law of nature; so that I can only have a temporary, transient, usufructuary property therein; wherefore, if a body of water runs out of my pond into another man's, I have no right to reclaim it. But the land which that water covers is permanent, fixed and immovable; and therefore, in this, I may have a certain substantial property; of which the law will take notice, and not of the other.

Land hath also, in its legal signification, an indefinite extent, upwards as well as downwards. Cujus est solum, ejus est usque ad cælum, is the maxim of the law; upwards, therefore no man may erect any building, or the like to overhang another's land: and downwards, whatever is in a direct line, between the surface of any land and the centre of the earth, belongs to the owner of the surface; as is every day's experience in the mining countries. So that the word "land" includes not only the face of the earth, but every thing under it, or over it. And therefore, if a man grants all his lands, he grants thereby all his mines of metal and other fossils, his woods, his waters, and his houses, as well as his fields and meadows. Not but the particular names of the things are *equally sufficient to pass them, except in the instance of water; by a grant of which, nothing passes but a right of fishing: (g) (5) but the [*19 ] capital distinction is this, that by the name of a castle, messuage, toft, croft, (6)

(4) The grant of a stream of water eo nomine, will not pass the land over which the water runs; Jackson v. Halstead, 5 Cow. 216; Egremont v. Williams, 11 A. and E. (N. S.) 701; the grant of a parcel of land, on the other hand, passes the property in a stream of water which runs over it, as much as it does the property in the stones upon the surface. Buckingham v. Smith, 10 Ohio, 288; Brown v. Kennedy, 5 H. and J. 195; Canal Commissioners v. People, 5 Wend. 423; Elliot v. Fitchburg R. R. Co., 10 Cush. 193. One who owns land on both sides of a stream owns the whole bed. If he is bounded upon it, he owns to the thread of the stream. Hatch v. Dwight, 17 Mass. 289; Mead v. Haynes, 3 Rand. 33; Morrison v Keen, 3 Greenl. 474; Middleton v. Pritchard, 3 Scam. 510; Jones v. Soulard, 24 How. 41; Fletcher v. Phelps, 28 Vt. 257; Stolp v. Hoyt, 44 Ill. 219; Berry v. Snyder, 3 Bush. 266. Prima facie, every proprietor on each bank of a river is entitled to the land covered with water to the middle thread of the stream, or, as is commonly expressed, usque ad filum aquæ. In virtue of this ownership he has a right to the use of the water flowing over it, in its natural current, without diminution or obstruction. But strictly speaking he has no property in the water itself, but a simple use of it while it passes along. The consequence of this principle is, that no proprietor has a right to use the stream to the prejudice of another. This is a necessary result of the perfect equality of right among all the proprietors of that which is common to all. Story, J. in Tyler v. Wilkinson, 4 Mason, 400; Beissell v. Sholl, 4 Dall. 211; Ingraham v. Hutchinson, 2 Conn. 584; Hendricks v. Johnson, 6 Port. 472; Omelvany v. Jaggers, 2 Hill (S. C.), 634; Elliott v. Fitchburg R. R. Co., 10 Cush. 193; Tillotson v. Smith, 32 N. H. 94.

Where parties are owners of adjoining premises bounded upon a river, and the division line between them does not strike the river at right angles, it is extended to the centre thread of the stream, not in the same direction, but in a line at right angles to the general direction of the river at that point. See Wonson v. Wonson, 14 Allen, 71; Clark v. Campau, 19 Mich. and cases cited.

(5) [Or the right to use the water as in the case of rivers and mill streams.]

(6) [By the name of a castle, one or more manors may be conveyed, and ceonverso, by the name of manor a castle may pass. I Inst. 5; 2 id. 31. "When land is built upon it is a messuage, and if the building afterwards fall to decay, yet it shall not have the name of land, although there be nothing in substance left but the land, but it shall be called a toft, which is a name superior to land and inferior to messuage; and this name it shall have in respect of the dignity which it once bore." Plowd. 170. A croft is an enclosed piece of land near to a

messuage.

By a grant of a house or messuage a garden and curtilage will pass (Co. Litt, 56): and see Partridge v. Strange, Plowd. 85, 86, where it is said that eleven acres might pass by the grant of a messuage, as being parcel of it: Nicholas v. Chamberlain, Cro. Jac. 121; Hill v. Grange, Plowd. 170 but the land must consist only of the close on which the house is built: see

or the like, nothing else will pass, except what falls with the utmost propriety under the term made use of; but by the name of land, which is nomen generalissimum, every thing terrestrial will pass. (h) (7)

CHAPTER III.

OF INCORPOREAL HEREDITAMENTS.

AN incorporeal hereditament is a right issuing out of a thing corporate (whether real or personal) or concerning, or annexed to, or exercisable within, the same. (a) (1) It is not the thing corporate itself, which may consist in lands, houses, jewels, or the like; but something collateral thereto, as a rent issuing out of those lands or houses, or an office relating to those jewels. In short, as the logicians speak, corporeal hereditaments are the substance, which may be always seen, always handled: incorporeal hereditaments are but a sort of accidents, which inhere in and are supported by that substance; and may belong, or not belong to it, without any visible alteration therein. Their existence is merely in idea and abstracted contemplation; though their effects and profits may be frequently objects of our bodily senses. And indeed, if we would fix a clear notion of an incorporeal hereditament, we must be careful not to confound together the profits produced, and the thing, or hereditament, which produces them. An annuity, for instance, is an incorporeal hereditament; for though the money, which is the fruit or product of this annuity, is doubtless of a corporeal nature, yet the annuity itself, which produces that money, is a thing invisible, has only a mental existence, and cannot be delivered over from hand to hand. So tithes, if we consider the *produce of them, as the tenth sheaf or tenth [*21] lamb, seem to be completely corporeal; yet they are indeed incorporeal hereditaments; for they being merely a contingent springing right, collateral to or issuing out of lands, can never be the object of sense; that casual share of the annual increase is not, till severed, capable of being shewn to the eye, nor of being delivered into bodily possession. Whit

Incorporeal hereditaments are principally of ten sorts; advowsons, tithes commons, ways, offices, dignities, franchises, corodies or pensions, annuities and

rents.

(h) Co. Litt. 4, 5, 6.

(a) Ibid. 19, 20.

Blackbone v. Edgley, 1 P. Wms. 600; Bodenham v. Pritchard, 1 B. and Cr. 350; Smith e. Martin, 2. Saund. 401, see n. 2; Doe d. Norton v. Webster, 12 A. and E. 442. In Doe *. Collins, 2 T. R. 498, a coal pen on the side of a public road opposite to that of a house, was held to pass as part of the house. See also as to what are or are not appurtenances, Loudon v. Coll. St. Mary, Hob. 303; Higham v. Baker, Cro. Eliz. 15; Shep. Touch. 89, 94, Prest. ed.; Cowlam v. Slack, 15 East, 109; Morris v. Edgington, 3 Taunt. 24; Buck d. Whalley . Clark, 1 B. and P. 53, 55; Barlow v. Rhodes, 1 Cr. and M. 439; James v. Plant, 6 Nev. and M. 282. Much discussion has recently taken place upon the meaning of the word "house" in cases arising under sec. 92 of the lands clauses consolidation Act, 1845. See 1 J. and H. 400; 28 Beav. 104; 27 id. 242; 30 id. 556; 2 J. and H.248; 11 W. R. 1088; 33 Beav. 644; 12 W. R. 969; 1 New R. 517; Law R. 1 Ch. 275.]

(7) [See judgment in Hill v. Grange, Plowd. 170; Den d, Bulkley v. Welford, 8 D. and Ry. 549 R. v. Great Northern R. Co., 14 Q. B. 25, where a ferry passed under a conveyance of land "with all profits and commodities belonging to the same."]

(1) [Not necessarily, as in the case of an annuity granted by one person to another and his heirs, and not charged on any property. Co. Litt. 20, 144, b; 2 Ves. Sr. 179. It is true that where the annuity was not granted by the crown or other corporation: 2 Ves. Sr. 170; after the death of the grantor the annuity would cease, so far as he left no property or assets for the payment of it; and so indirectly it would be charged on property. Offices and dignities are also examples of incorporeal hereditaments which do not issue out of any thing corporate; bat though so called, they seem scarcely to partake of the nature of property. See 1 J. B. Moore, 353.]

I. Advowson is the right of presentation to a church, or ecclesiastical benefice, Advowson, advocatio, signifies in clientelam recipere, the taking into protection; and therefore is synonymous with patronage, patronatus: and he who has the right of advowson is called the patron of the church. For, when lords of manors first built churches on their own demesnes, and appointed the tithes of those manors to be paid to the officiating ministers, which before were given to the clergy in common (from whence, as was formerly mentioned, (b) arose the division of parishes), the lord who thus built a church, and endowed it with glebe or land, had of common right a power annexed of nominating such minister as he pleased (provided he were canonically qualified) to officiate in that church, of which he was the founder, endower, maintainer, or, in one word, the patron. (c)

This instance of an advowson will completely illustrate the nature of an incorporeal hereditament. It is not itself the bodily possession of the church and its appendages; but it is a right to give some other man a title to such bodily possession. The advowson is the object of neither the sight, nor the touch; and yet it perpetually exists in the mind's eye, and in contemplation of law. It cannot be delivered from man to man by any visible bodily transfer, nor can corporeal possession be *had of it. If the patron takes corporeal possession of the church, the church-yard, the glebe, or the like, [*22] he intrudes on another man's property; for to these the parson has an exclusive right. The patronage can therefore be only conveyed by operation of law, by verbal grant, (2) either oral or written, which is a kind of invisible mental transfer: and being so vested it lies dormant and unnoticed, till occasion calls it forth when it produces a visible corporeal fruit, by entitling some clerk, whom the patron shall please to nominate, to enter, and receive bodily possession of the lands and tenements of the church.

Advowsons are either advowsons appendant, or advowsons in gross. Lords of manors being originally the only founders, and of course the only patrons, of churches, (d) the right of patronage or presentation, so long as it continues annexed to the possession of the manor, as some have done from the foundation of the church to this day, is called an advowson appendant: (e) and it will pass, or be conveyed, together with the manor, as incident and appendant thereto, by a grant of the manor only, without adding any other words. (f) But where the property of the advowson has been once separated from the property of the manor by legal conveyance, it is called an advowson in gross, or at large, and never can be appendant any more; but it is for the future annexed to the person of its owner, and not to his manor or lands. (g)

Advowsons are also either presentative, collative, or donative: (h) an advowson presentative is where the patron hath a right of presentation to the bishop or ordinary, and moreover to demand of him to institute his clerk, if he finds him canonically qualified; and this is the most usual advowson. An advowson collative is where the bishop and patron are one and the same person in which case the bishop cannot present to himself; but he does, by the one act of collation, or *conferring the benefice, the whole that is done in common [*23] cases, by both presentation and institution. An advowson donative is

(b) Book I, page 112. (c) This original of the jus patronatus, by building and endowing the church, appears also to have been allowed in the Roman empire. Nov. 26, t. 12, c. 2. Nov. 118, c. 23. (d) Co. Litt. 119.

(e) Ibid. 121.

(f) Ibid. 307.

(g) Ibid. 120.

(h) Ibid.

(2) [Mr. Wooddeson has taken notice of this inaccuracy, and has observed that "advowsons merely as such [i. e. in gross] could never, in any age of the English law, pass by oral grant without deed." 2 Woodd. 64. Lord Coke says expressly that "grant is properly of things incorporeal, which cannot pass without deed." 1 Inst. 9. But before the Statute of Frauds, 29 Car. II, c. 3, any freehold interest in incorporeal hereditaments might have passed by a verbal feoffment accompanied with livery of seisin. Litt. § 59. And by such a verbal grant of a manor, Mr. Wooddeson justly observes, before the statute, an advowson appendant to it might have been conveyed. But he who has an advowson or a right of patronage in fee may by deed transfer every species of interest out of it, viz.: in fee, in tail, for life, for years, or may grant one or more presentations.]