14. SCOTT, Montagu, Esq., Solicitor, aged 55. Admitted 1845.

TOMLIN, George Taddy, of the Inner Temple, Esq., Barrister-at-Law, J.P. for Kent, aged 51. Called 1855. 19. SMITH, Thomas Henry, Esq., Solicitor, aged 66. Admitted 1857.

20. FRY, Alfred Augustus, of Lincoln's Inn, Esq., Barrister-at-Law, aged 64. Called 1835.

THE LATE DR. GEORGE MATCHAM.

He was the eldest son of George Matcham, Esq., of Ashfold Lodge, Sussex (of whom an excellent account is given in the "Gentleman's Magazine" for 1833), by Catherine, youngest daughter of the Rev. Edmund Nelson, Rector of Burnham Thorp, Norfolk, by Catherine Suckling, great-niece of Sir Robert Walpole, K.B. To Mrs. Matcham's male issue, after the male descendants of her eldest sister, Mrs. Bolton, the title and estates of Nelson are limited.

The "Salisbury and Winchester Journal" of 20th January, 1877, correctly states that the subject of this notice was born in 1789, and was educated at St. John's College, Cambridge, where he took the degree of LL.B. in 1814, and that of LL.D. in 1820. In the same year he was admitted an Advocate in Doctors' Commons. In 1836 he succeeded the late Earl of Radnor as Chairman of the Wilts Quarter Sessions, held in the city of Sarum, an office which he continued to hold down to April, 1867, when he received a vote of thanks from the Magistrates assembled in Quarter Sessions for his courteous and upright conduct as Chairman for a period of thirty years. He brought," continues the writer of that notice, " to the discharge of his duties a profound knowledge of the Law, and dispensed Justice in the most impartial manner. His decisions were given without the slightest exhibition of temper, and were the result of impartiality and investigation. Mr. Matcham was from an early period addicted to antiquarian pursuits; and when Sir Richard Colt Hoare undertook the publication of the

'Modern History of Wilts,' he contributed those portions of the work which are devoted to the Hundreds of Downton and Frustfield."

Mr. Matcham's reminiscences went back to the beginning of this century. He could relate how that in 1805, being then about 16 years of age, he was the guest of his uncle, Lord Nelson, at Merton, and listened to the conversation of men very eminent at that period in war and in politics. He heard Lord Nelson, when relating the last interview he ever had with Mr. Pitt, say, "Mr. Pitt paid me a compliment which I believe he would not have paid to a Prince of the Blood, he left the room with me, and attended me to the carriage." And, finally, Mr. Matcham witnessed the departure of the great Admiral to the achievement of his crowning victory at Trafalgar.

Later in life he was an Advocate frequenting the Courts presided over by Lord Stowell, whose acquaintance he was honoured with, and whose hospitality he enjoyed. A sound scholar himself he could fully appreciate the conversation of that remarkable man, and he has given some anecdotes of him in the "Gentleman's Magazine,” signed Wiltonensis.

In 1825, as a coadjutor of Sir Richard Hoare, in his History of Wilts, he commenced a series of visits to that venerable baronet, at Stourhead, where Lord Arundell of Wardour, Mr. Rokewode Gage, Mr. Robert Benson, and other accomplished antiquaries were accustomed once a year to assemble.

Ripe in years, and honoured and revered by all his relatives and friends, with a vigorous mind, unimpaired to the last, he passed away on the 18th January last, leaving a character, almost peculiar to our nation, of an accomplished, an able, and useful country gentleman.

Mr. Matcham married, 1817, Harriet, eldest daughter and heiress of Mr. William Eyre, of Newhouse. She was the representative of the Newhouse branch of that ancient

family in Wilts, and was a descendant of Chief Justice Eyre. With this lady, whom he survived, he lived in affectionate union for fifty-four years. He leaves a son and two daughters.

THE

LAW MAGAZINE AND REVIEW.

No. CCXXV.-AUGUST, 1877.

ART. I. CURIOSITIES OF ENGLISH LAW.

No. II.-CONDITIONS IN RESTRAINT OF MARRIAGE.

WE

E now propose to review a branch of the Law which, if it were on no other account open to comment, would be abundantly worthy of notice as having given rise to a most remarkable Rule of Construction.

This Rule of Construction, commonly known as the Doctrine of Conditions in terrorem, may be shortly stated as follows: Where a testator attaches to his bounty a condition of forfeiture on marriage, the Court often refuses to construe his words according to their natural meaning, and holds that he did not really intend the threatened forfeiture to take effect, but only inserted the condition in the hope that the legatee by taking an erroneous view of his intentions might be intimidated into remaining single.

We believe no one has succeeded in discovering when this doctrine which traces its origin to the Civil Law first became naturalized in this country. Like the family of Douglas, there never seems to have been a time when it did not flourish. We never come across it in an embryo state; on the very first introduction we are presented to it in a high stage of development as an incontestible dogma. Yet so long ago as the leading case of Scott v. Tyler, it was spoken of very disrespectfully both by the Judge and by some of

the principal counsel of the day, and since that time its. position has by no means improved.

It is no doubt a matter of congratulation that the Judges have, in this instance, been content simply to perpetuate a time-honoured doctrine which has been universally condemned for a century, and have not thought it necessary (as is often the case) to add to the sanction of antiquity the weight of their own approbation. The vigorous assaults on the part of the highest functionaries of the Law to which this devoted doctrine has been subjected, certainly affords a gratifying spectacle of judicial independence. Lord Thurlow in Scott v. Tyler, after referring to some early cases, observes, "I do not find it was ever seriously supposed to have been the testator's intention to hold out the terror of

that which he never meant should happen, " and for a modern exposition of judicial opinion on the doctrine, it will be sufficient to refer to the judgment of Jessel, M.R., in Bellairs v. Bellairs (L.R. 18, Eq. 510), in which he follows the current of authority with extreme reluctance. Satisfactory as it is to find that the undisguised opinion of the Judges is in this instance not opposed to the plain dictates of common sense, we may well feel some little disappointment when we reflect that a doctrine, on the face of it utterly absurd, which has been energetically condemned by the highest legal authority nearly a century ago, should still be permitted to flourish in undiminished vigour. The vitality of legal abuses must indeed be great, if such a one as this can escape the raid of Law Reformers uninjured. Without a friend in the world, planted no one knows how or why, it exists simply because it has existed. Possibly like the reed in the fable, its very weakness constitutes its strength. There is, it may be, a kind of chivalrous feeling in the breasts of Law Reformers, impelling them "parcere subjectis et debellare superbos," that is, to spare the small game,

* See also the observations of Lord Mansfield, in Long v. Dennis, 4 Burr 2055.