ance of title. From the same reasoning we may de duce a confirmation of the propriety of the decision in the case of Goodtitle v. Otway. For if we hold to the cases which say, that if a man makes a feoffment in fee to a stranger to the use of himself in fee, there though the old estate is said to return, yet it is not the identical estate, since it comes back first in the shape of the use, and then the statute carries the legal estate to the use which is in a manner a new purchase; then the cases upon re-entry for breach of condition are much stronger, to shew the legal consequences of the estate's being once out of the party, for in such cases the identical estate does certainly return. At the same time it must be confessed, that if we adopt the opinion that in the case of a feoffment to the use of the feoffor and his heirs, the old use was never drawn out of the party; the above cases upon re-entry upon condition performed or broken, seem to be somewhat weaker than the doctrine which maintains a will to be revoked by an act which never disturbed the real interest of the devisor, but left that use (which before the statute of uses was the proper equitable subject of devise) still remaining unchanged in the party conveying.

I come now to speak of that stricter sort of rela- of relation in tion before alluded to, and which, in its true notion,

is that principle by which an act of law is made to

1 Roll, Abr. 615, 616.

its strict sense.

date back, in legal consideration, to the time of some precedent act, so as to be regarded as the completion of that of which such first act was the proper beginning, and forming in conjunction with it one integral and consummate transaction of law. Thus it has been properly said, that where the commencement, progression, and consummation of a thing are necessary to go together, all of them are to be respected. But the thing is to be considered as receiving its perfection from the first. So where divers acts concurrent go to constitute a conveyance estate or other thing, the original act shall be preferred, and to this the other acts shall have relation, as was said by Berkley and Jones, justices in the case of Harper v. the Bailiffs of Derby. But Lord Hobart has explained this sort of relation with most strength in the case of Needler v. the Bishop of Winchester, on the question as to the relation of the inrolment of a deed to the king, where that profound Judge observed, "that there are certain relations which cannot properly be called fictions of law, but are real acts, compounded of some simples, which make not a complete or entire act till they come together, and then they make one perfect act working by their nature ab initio, even as others do that are in their nature single; but those things are properly fictions of law, that have no real essence in their own body, but are so acknowledged and accepted in law for some special purpose." Of this

sort of compounded act the case of a grant to the king, not perfected by inrolment, but which when the inrolment takes place has its effect not from or by the inrolment, but from and by the first act, is said by Lord Hobart to be an example'; of which kind also is a feoffment within view and a subsequent entry, which entry dates back in effect to the time of the feoffment*.

The same principle governed the opinion of the bench, as to the second point, in Shelley's case (6), which turned upon the retrospect of the execution to the judgment in the recovery, so as to make the act consummate by relation, in the life-time of the party dying between the judgment and the execution. And there it was said that the execution of every thing which is executory always respects the original act, and all make but one act or record,. although performed at different times, for causa et origo est materia negotii. Upon the same principle stands the case, of dower mentioned in Bingham's case (7), that if a husband levies a fine with pro

i Plowd. Com. 31.

k Vid. Parsons v. Pierce, Pollexfen, 45.

(6) 1 Rep. 106, b. Where, in the vigorous dialect of those times, the recovery is said to be the mother which conceived the use, and the fountain out of which it rose.

(7) 2 Rep. 93, b. Dyer, 72, b. 224. And note that the statute 32 H. 8, which gives an entry to the wife and her heirs, against the alienation of the husband, helps the discontinuance but not the bar.

Of the relation, in respect to copyholds, of the admittance

to the surrender.

clamations, and dies, and five years pass after his death, the wife is barred of her dower, for though at the time of the fine levied her title was not consummate, yet the law respects the first and original causes, viz. marriage and seisin.

Thus also although a surrenderee of a copyhold has no estate in the premises surrendered until his admission, yet on being admitted he is in by relation to the surrender, from the date whereof his admission operates. Should the surrenderor die before such admission of the surrenderee, he dies indeed seised in law of the premises, and though his widow night in strictness claim her free bench, yet on the admis

See Co. Litt. 326, a. To understand this point, respecting the operation of the fine as a bar of dower, it is necessary the reader should know, that where a person has neither a right in presenti or in futuro, at the time of the fine levied, he is out of the pur view of the statute; for as the reporter, in his note to the case of Stowell v. Lord Zouch, page 373, expresses it, the purview is against those who have right at the time of the fine levied, or have future right afterwards upon cause arising before, to which future right wrong was done before the fine, or by the fine. Upon the foundation of this proposition, the learned reporter denies the case in the text, contending that in the case of dower the title wholly accrued after the fine, viz. by the death of the husband, for he was of opinion that until the death of the husband no title was consummate, nor wrong done by the conusee in detaining the land from the wife; and that therefore the fine did not reach the title, in as much as it accrued upon cause wholly after the fine, the two first points, marriage and seisin, being of no moment without the third. But this opinion of Plowden is contradicted by all the books. See the English Plowden, 373.

sion of the surrenderee that estate is defeated (8), together with all the mesne acts of the surrenderor'. And as all the mesne acts of the surrenderor would be defeated by this relation, so by force of the same relation all the mesne acts of the surrenderee would be confirmed; and accordingly the surrenderee, after admittance, in declaring in ejectment might lay the demise immediately from the surrender", and recover mesne profits from that time". On this ground it was, that in a case where a copyholder surrendered to the use of himself for life, with remainders over, and the ultimate limitation to himself and his heirs, and afterwards surrendered to the use of his will, and made and executed. his will accordingly, and after such surrender and will made, was admitted upon the former surrender, the will was held not to be revoked, because the admittance related to the time of the first surrender, and the whole transaction

1 Carthew, 275, Benson v. Scott, 5 Burr. 2764, 2787, Vaughan v. Atkins.

m 1 T. R. 600, Holdfast and Woollams v. Clapham. » 2 Wils. 15, Roe d. Jeffereys, v. Hicks.

(8) Sir W. Jones, 451, Parker v. Bleake. It is to be observed, that the relation defeats the widow's bench, because it prevents the husband's dying seised, which (except where it is otherwise by special or local custom, for which see Robinson on Gavelkind, p. 172.) is necessary to ground the title to dower; and therefore an alienation by the husband to take effect in his life-time, bars the claim of the widow. Cro. Jac. 126, Lashmer v. Avery.