Sir William Follett, firm, compact, massive, remind one forcibly of the workmanship of the poet's celestial artisan Εν δ ̓ ἐθετ ̓ ἀκμοθετῳ μεγαν ἀκμονα, κοπτε δε δεσμους Again, it is declared generally, "there are certainly hereditaments which may be made to descend from ancestor to heir that do not in any degree affect the realty, as personal annuities and offices not having any concern with land."1 It has even been pronounced that "hereditaments is a general term for every possible description of property." Let us however endeavour to see whether an accurate discrimination between the words may not be realized. Our law, resting to appearance and at first view on usage and prescription for its foundations, being, in the idea of those who, like many English lawyers, never care to go beyond its walls to ascertain its origin, what Chrysostom calls the Law of Nations, εύρημα βίου και χρονου, that is the product of time operating on English experience, has nevertheless, there can be little dispute, become cemented in parts, and in parts wholly constructed by and with materials derived from the Roman law. It is natural, therefore, to turn to that deep mine of legislative wisdom to try if in this case, as in so many others, reasons can be found for that which, in our system, seems capricious and empirical. Now we find a great lawyers stating in argument that "the civilians defined hæreditas to be what a man inherits; hæreditamentum is used to express what a man transmits;" and this seems to be substantially correct, it being borne in mind that the latter term was not known to the Roman law, which however defined hæreditas to be "successio in universum jus quod defunctus habebat tempore mortis." Coming down, indeed, to feudal times, we find the term hæreditamentum, and it is defined "id omne quod jure hæreditario ad hæredem transit ac præsertim res immobiles,"5 an explanation which, it must be said, goes far to render identical the meaning of the two terms; but nevertheless we repeat the above distinction will be found substantially correct. At any rate, it is coincident with the law as laid down by Mr. Preston in his edition of Sheppard's Touchstone, where, in speaking of hereditaments," he says, "a mere personal thing, 2 Per M. R. in Buckeridge v. Ingram, 2 Ves. jun. 663. Per Sir L. Shadwell, V. C. E., Harris v. Davison, 15 Sim. 134. 3 Mr. Baron Wood, when at the bar, in Denn v. Moor, 1 Bos. & P. 561. Gaius, Dig. Lib. 50, tit. 16, leg. 24; and so Calvin, Lexic. Jurid. in voc. 5 Du Cange, Spelm. Gloss. in voc. 61 Prest. Shep. T. 91. as an annuity, may be an hereditament, though held for a chattel interest, or an interest merely of freehold, when that interest is carved out of a larger estate which is of inheritance." A corody seems a good instance in illustration; for the grant of a corody was always considered the grant of an hereditament, which, from its nature, it could only be as being something carved out of the estate which the grantor had in it. Therefore, speaking of the grantor, he might be said to have the inheritance in the corody, that is, the right of presenting in perpetuum to it; speaking with reference to the grantee, the proper term to use was hereditament, of which, viz. the estate in the corody for his life, he was the recipient under the grant, which agrees with Mr. Baron Wood's distinction. So it is laid down hereditaments is applicable not only to lands and tenements, but to some of the subjects of personal property, and to mere rights which imply a privation of property." Hence it is that rent, which is an incorporeal hereditament, may be granted for an estate for life or for a less estate, without losing its character as such, and a man may have an estate for years or at pleasure in an office, which is an incorporeal hereditament, and which, in either case, remains so, and must therefore be granted by deed, and can only be held under deed, even in the last case.* The construction which has been put upon the word in numerous cases of devises, seems to agree with the same distinction, as may be found from many other authorities than those cited below, which, however, are some of the leading cases,5 for hereditament has been held--and this is now quite well established -to carry not the fee, but an estate for life, or for a less interest under circumstances. The result then of the above remarks, which we venture to submit, is, that hereditament is the generic name used by the law for an estate of whatever duration or quality which is carved out of the inheritance, meaning by the inheritance such estate as goes to the heirs in case of individuals and in succession in case of corporations; and having offered this definition, we will proceed to spend a few more words in applying it, by way of test of its strength, to the elucidation of a subject which is curious, certainly anything but hacknied, and on which the state of the cases presents at first sight, complicated and ravelled and entangled as they look, very much the idea conveyed by 1 Burton, Compend. p. 2; vide 1 Prest. Estates, 14. 21 Spence, Eq. Jurisd. of Court of Chan. 150, 151; Co. Litt. 150 b. 3 2 Bla. Com. 36. Per Powell, J., Gatton v. Milwich, Salk. 536. Dyer, 351 a, 323 b; Salk. 239; 2 B. & P. 252; 3 T. R. 357; 2 Scott, 738. And see Co. Litt. 374 b; stat. 32 Hen. VIII. c. 2, s. 1. Dr. Johnson's definition of a net, viz. " a texture woven with large interstices, or meshes, used commonly as a snare for animals," we mean the head or department of "offices." The subject is of manifest interest in connection with the rights, &c., of municipal, railway, and some other corporations, and it is within our own knowledge, that difficulties have been felt in such cases, which we trust the remarks we are about to make may be found to indicate the means of solving. One of the meshes is contained in the question, when an appointment to an office must be made by deed, and when it may be good by parol, and the "animal" who ventures upon this field of study finds himself forthwith netted in the leading case on this subject, where the Court of Common Pleas decided the matter one way very solemnly, then the Court of King's Bench as solemnly reversed their judgment, and ultimately the House of Lords restored the judgment of the Common Pleas ;1 but after all, the decision seems rather to have rested on the particular circumstances of the case, than to have laid down, with as much distinctness as might be wished, the general principle upon which it might, we believe, be rested. The question was, whether the Custos Rotulorum, on appointing to the clerkship of the peace, might do it by parol, or whether it must not be by deed? Now, alluding to what has been said, the reader will, we think, be in a condition to reply at once, that there being no interest conveyed out of the inheritance, the clerk of the peace not being paid by fee, or salary, moving from the Custos, who departs with nothing and devests no interest, and gives no right of action as against himself by the appointment, therefore no incorporeal hereditament is transferred; it is a mere nomination to an office, and therefore may be made by parol, just as the parson nominates by parol, in circumstances precisely analogous, to the office of parish clerk. That in such cases no estate passes out of the appointor may be seen from this, that in some of them (as, for instance, where the Lord High Admiral, who holds office during pleasure, appoints the registrar, who holds for life) the estate vested in the appointee is the greater of the two, and the rule is general, that a man cannot grant more than he has himself. Another "mesh," though of less strength, has probably heretofore teazed some of our sessions friends in relation to settlement questions, viz. to ascertain precisely what is an office, 1 Owen v. Saunders, 1 Lord Raym. 158; 12 Mod. 200; Salk. 467; Reported in Dom. Proc. in Colles's Parl. Cas. 70; and see 4 A. & E. 809. " Hunt v. Ellisdon, Dyer, 152 b. And see per Treby, C. J., 1 Lord Raym. 164; per Lord Brougham, in Earl of Rosslyn v. Aytoun, 11 Cla. & F. 746. and who an officer. Lord Ellenborough laid down that every office must be derived either mediately or immediately from the crown, unless created by statute,1 which would exclude a parish clerkship, which is elsewhere said to be an office at common law, and has been held to be an office conferring a vote at elections of county members, &c. &c., but however this may be, the test of whether the grant of the place in question is the grant of an incorporeal hereditament, as above stated, will probably be found to solve the doubt in all cases, it being borne in mind that the essence of an office is the salary or fee, not the duties, for they may be dispensed with or suspended from, but in all cases the salary must nevertheless be paid during the term which the grantee has in the office. The same consideration, as it seems, might be applied with advantage to those cases in which officers of corporations have proceeded against them for salary, and the difficulty has been that their appointments, treated as contracts, were not under seal; for wherever the appointment, as it is called, conferred the right of claiming a salary from the corporation, there the appointment properly operates, not as an appointment, nor as a contract, but as the grant of an incorporeal hereditament, and must therefore in the case of an individual grantor be under seal, although the office were only during pleasure, and of course in the case of a corporation, which must do every act under seal that an individual must do under seal. With these remarks we for the present quit the subject, which, however, is far from having been exhausted by what has been said. 3 Co. Litt. 233 b; per Lord Nottingham, C., Slingsby's Case, 3 Swanst. 178, note. S. P. ART. V.-CODES OF MERCHANT LAW. Commercial Law, its Principles and Administration; or the Mercantile Law of Great Britain compared with the Codes and Laws of Commerce of various Mercantile Countries. By Leone Levi, Author of Chambers and Tribunals of Commerce, &c. in Liverpool. Vol. I. 4to. William Benning and Co., and Simpkin and Marshall, London; and T. and T. Clark, Edinburgh. WHEN we first glanced at this volume, we imagined that that which M. St. Joseph's "Concordance entre les Codes de Commerce Etrangers et le Code de Commerce Français" is to the lawyers and merchants of France,-such the work before us was designed to be to us. A very slight inspection, however, showed that Mr. Levi's ambition was far less limited. The object proposed by him is not only to collect, condense and collocate the commercial law (under each of its separate branches) of England and sixty foreign countries, but, to use his own words, " to review all commercial laws now in force,-to compare their respective merit, and to exhibit their conflicting results. It will include the comprehensive work of the legislator, the learned discriminations of the jurist, and the careful digest of the commentator; it will present the union of theory and practice, and the basis of those great principles upon which all laws are founded." Nor does the author stop here. His work is "to illustrate the political, economical and moral state of each country;" and by way of a collateral occupation, Mr. Levi proposes (in order to forward the adoption of a "national and international code of commerce,' ""and to render his labours eminently practical to Great Britain and to all nations"), to prepare a compilation of all the leading principles of commercial law identical in every country, with a view to exhibit them in seven languages. The extent to which our merchants are indebted to Mr. Leone Levi for thus kindly codifying the laws of the world, will, we trust, be duly appreciated when they learn from his preface "that commercial law in the United Kingdom, forming part of the statute and common law of the realm, is at present for all practical purposes unknown to the majority of the mercantile classes!" Having introduced this mighty boon to their notice, it behoves us to impart all we have gleaned of Mr. Levi's qualification for the somewhat extensive work he has embarked upon. Mr. Levi does not appear to have had any experience of foreign |