uncle Richard to the inheritance of his cousin Robert, as there is to allow him to succeed with Richard to that of his uncle James, as he would had the latter survived his son Robert. But the terms of the law being imperative, they must be strictly adhered to, and therefore it must be stated that William the cousin will be excluded by Richard the uncle, to a cou sin's inheritance, for all personal property and real property purchased or gratuitously acquired. Here then we see an additional reason why the benefit of representation should have been extended one degree further in the collateral line, as proposed by the Petitioners in their report.*

In fact, the system of representation, as the remover of injustice, and apparently as the offspring of civilisation, for it may be gradually observed extending its ramifications throughout the law as nations become more humane, and consequently more enlightened, cannot be too powerfully supported as a principle, whenever that can be done without infringing on legislative decrees. ›

The thirteenth article being absolutely detached from collateral successions, and referring more particularly to the rights of parents to the property of their children, it will be reserved for a separate Section.

Preliminary Remarks, setting forth the striking contrast exhibited between the ancient and the reformed laws of different nations.

Upon no subject could unanimity more strongly prevail than in reforming the unnatural usage which debarred parents from their children's inheritance, which went to an uncle, cousin, or other more distant relative, before it could come to the parent; and if the child had no relative, then the crown took it in preference to the parent; though such property had come in the child's possession through that parent's instru mentality and bounty.

In fact as the late system of collateral inheritance was strongly impregnated with that barbarous spirit which pervades rude states, whose notions of government and personal security seem to consist in erecting the law of the strongest into a system; so did this spirit also prevail throughout inheritances in the ascending line, the parent being in every case deprived by law of his offspring's inheritance. In examining the revolutions which have taken place in the system of inheritance, as well in ancient as in modern times, it would appear that mankind in all ages had been doomed to pass through the ordeal of most unnatural and unjust systems in their progress towards civilization, and that it is only long after they enjoy its blessings that they become in any way inclined to exchange their institutions for others better suited to their wants and habits, as may be seen in the reforms effected at various periods in France in the Roman law, and in the French civil law, chiefly during the sixteenth century, most of which now constitute the law of that country, as definitively settled in its Code.

The Roman law as reformed by the humane policy of the Emperors, who assumed justice and the ties of affection as the basis of their system of inheritance, exhibits quite a contrast with that which obtained in earlier ages, and also with those institutions which the spirit of feudalism afterwards introduced in order to transmit property to a few individuals, with the view of investing all the territorial influence, and consequently the government of the country, in their hands.

To destroy the fatal consequences arising from the pernicious system of preferring males to females,-the eldest to all other sons, the nearest in the collateral line, to the prejudice of the unhappy widow and orphans, bereft of their main support, and collateral relatives to parents,—was the work of time, and was gradually accomplished by the Chancellors L'HOPITAL and D'AGUESSAU, the spirit of whose works, from their intrinsic wisdom, gradually gained ground throughout all the provinces of France, notwithstanding the diversity which otherwise prevailed in their civil laws. They, with Lamoignon, Pothier, Valin and Emerigon, may be said to have laid the foundation of the civil and maritime law

which to this day governs that country; and a thorough knowledge of the works of the three latter more particularly, is quite as indispensable to the lawyer of the nineteenth, as ever it was to the lawyer of the eighteenth century; notwithstanding the occurrence of a revolution, which, after powerfully exciting the minds of men throughout all nations, has wrought the completest change in the habits, institutions, government, and laws of France, that was ever exhibited in the annals of any country.

The predominant idea, in reference to ascending inheritance, with which modern lawgivers seem to have been imbued, is to prevent parents who had already incurred the mortification of losing their children, being aggrieved by the additional one of losing their inheritance. Such too was the reason assigned by the Roman law to restore to parents, in preference to all other heirs, the gifts they had presented to their children: Jure succursum est patri ut filid amissá solatii loco cederet rederetur dos ab eo profecta, ne et filiæ amissæ et pecuniæ, damnum sentiret.*

In fact, as Justinian abolished the last vestiges of the old Roman law which excluded all females from inheriting, and parents from succeeding to their children-the severity of which had been in great measure removed by the decrees of different Emperors, who, in opposition to the law of the TWELVE TABLES, had admitted the mother to inherit from her child, and children to inherit from their mother-so did rulers, in more modern times, gradually remove the rust of feudalism from their own laws; thus, as civilization advanced, the barbarity of the law disappeared, until it may be said that Justinian, by his celebrated 118 of the Novelles, caused justice and humanity to triumph by establishing three degrees of inheritance, the Lineal, Ascending, and Collateral, which, however variously modified, have nevertheless formed the basis of the modern system of inheritance throughout Europe, the children first succeeding, to the exclusion of all others; secondly, the parents succeeding in conjunction with brothers and sisters, and, in default of the latter, the parents succeeding exclusively of all other heirs, a system in principle adopted by the modern French Code.

L. 6. ff. De jure dotium. L. 4. Cod. Solut, matrim.

The different systems of inheritance which at various periods prevailed at Rome, from the promulgation of the Twelve Tables to its final reform by Justinian, who admitted indifferently the female sex to divide with the male, form some of the most complicated features in the annals of jurisprudence. At one time neither parent inherited from his children; at another the father was admitted exclusively of the mother, sons sometimes excluded daughters; at others they jointly participated; even grandchildren who had lost their parent were not always allowed to inherit from their grandparent, whose children were deemed nearer a kin than grandchildren, and consequently preferred. The feudal law of the middle ages was no less replete with subtleties and still greater incongruities, inheritances to certain kinds of property in the same province being absolutely different to that which obtained in other kinds of property. In fact the history of all nations proves that as civilization advances the laws of inheritance become less complicated, less arbitrary, and in consequence more conformable to the dictates of justice and humanity; then it is that REPRESENTATION, the great remover of unnecessary hardships, by tempering justice with principle, assumes the ascendant, by setting aside undue severity, without diminishing the force of principle. The history of those gradual reforms introduced into the system of inheritance, in its different stages, from a comparatively rude to a civilized state of society, presents as inextricable a labyrinth as is any where to be found, and if it be borne in mind that no two of any state perfectly correspond, the attempt of finding out the best may well be given up as unattainable; the prevailing notions of rulers and people upon this point at different periods, being still more greatly diversified, than even those they entertain respecting the best system of government, and the degree of power to be vested in the executive authority.

Whoever reflects on this tendency of rulers to improve the condition of the laws, as civilization progresses, will not be surprised at the declaration set forth by the Court's committee in reference to the twelfth article proposed in the Petition, qu'on ne peut trop approuver cette proposition. Now, by the second clause of that article, it was demanded that parents

should inherit all the personal property as well as the real property purchased by their children, besides being entitled to the enjoyment during life of the real property inherited by them, a proposition conformable to the law of many states, even where the principle of affection has been in great measure sacrificed to political considerations on the subject of inheritance. The illustrious DOMAT, after stating that the Roman law acknowledged the right of parents to succeed in preference to all collateral relatives, observes that even in the provinces of France, governed by their own particular customs, of which Normandy was one, most of them left parents and ascendants the right of succeeding to all the personal property and real property purchased, as well as inherited, by their children, from their own line; and to the usufruct, or enjoyment, of the real property inherited, even from a different line from that whence the parent himself was descended; in order, it was said, to reconcile the natural claims of parents with the principle that property should return to the stock or family whence it sprang. " Ces coutumes," says Domat, (the customs here alluded to were laws or usages peculiar to the Northern and Western provinces of France before the revolution, which were styled pays coutumiers, in contradistinction to other provinces, mostly in the South and East of France, called pays de droit écrit, where the Roman law chiefly prevailed) "laissent aux ascendans les meubles et acquêts de leurs descendans, et les propres venus de leur estoc. Ce qui a ce double effet de conserver les propres dans les familles d'où ils sont venus, et de pourvoir à ce que l'équité demande pour les ascendans.”*

The foundation of this right of parents and grandparents to inherit from their children, has never been more admirably exposed than in this truly great civilian's own words, and they who would attempt to reconcile the institutions of feudalism in matters of inheritances with the precepts of either natural or revealed religion would do well to ponder on them. After stating that there are three orders of succession ;-the first, that children should inherit from their parent,-the second, that parents should inherit from their children,-and the

* Lois civiles. Liv. 4. DES SUCCESSIONS. Sec. 4, page 302.