with a door to it, which did not happen to be
upon the ground floor—for then it was an ante-
chamber, or a butler's pantry, as the case might
be—a "bedroom."

All this was bad enough, but there was a
worse trial still for Blank. Not having an
appreciation for the nice points of the law, when
once he became involved in the question of
lease and agreement, he fairly broke down.
"Tell me," he said, having arrived at this crisis,
"what are the consequences of a lease, what
the effects of an agreement?" Whereupon we
let off a dreadful charge of arid law upon the
perturbed head of our illustrative man, as
follows.

By an Act of Parliament, about the meaning
of which many great legal battles have been
fought since the twenty-ninth year of the reign
of his Majesty King Charles the Second, entitled
the Statute of Fraud, and the construction of
which no one has been able to determine, every
lease which was not in writing and signed by
the parties granting it, with the exception of a
lease for three years only, was declared to be
void at law. So far, the law affecting leases
appeared to be sufficiently clear; but what was a
lease? The Act of Parliament was delightfully
ambiguous on this point; and this point was
too good a one to be lost sight of. The legal
mind consequently occupied itself in an
endeavour to discover whether an instrument—
call it a lease, or term it an agreement as you
might—signed by the parties in accordance
with the requirements of the statute, was in
reality a lease, or merely an agreement for a
lease. The courts were continually occupied in
discussing the question. Unfortunate lessors
were ruined, in their endeavours to get at the
truth. Unfortunate lessees heaped curses both
loud and deep upon the short-comings of a
statute which dragged them unwillingly into the
Court of Chancery.

At length the matter became so bad, that,
according to proverbial philosophy, it must
mend. Consequently, some fifteen or sixteen
years since, an act was passed which declared
that every lease required by law to be in writing
(that is, every lease for a period longer than
three years) should be void unless made by
"deed," and this is the present position of the
law.

To bring it home more clearly to Mr. Blank.
If that gentleman wish to take a house for no
longer a period than three years, he need not
incur the expense of a lease, but may safely
become a tenant under an agreement containing
such conditions as he may approve. If he
contemplates a tenancy for more than three
years, and has no especial predilection for
appearing in Her Majesty's High Court of
Chancery, he must by solemn deed, "sealed and
delivered," enter into a lease with his landlord.
Supposing that he were, from motives
of economy, or a natural aversion to parchment,
to occupy a house under an agreement,
though contemplating a long tenancy, he would,
in the eye of the law, be a tenant at will
merely until he had paid his rent. After that,
he would be a tenant from year to year, and be
liable to be turned out by his landlord at any
time after having received the proper notice.
On the other hand, having entered into a lease
by deed, he would possess an indefeasible
estate at law in the premises, and might consider
himself as secure as the proverbial uncertainty
of the legal element allows any man in his senses
to consider himself.

Let us, for our present purpose, suppose that
Blank has been wise enough to take his house
under lease, and let us, on that supposition, glance
at a few of the covenants which would be entered
into between himself and his landlord. Many of
them are common to both lease and agreement.
First of all, there would be the covenant on
the part of Mr. Blank to pay rent. Out of this
the landlord is bound to deduct the income-tax,
under a penalty, and whether the question of
the deduction be or be not mentioned in the
lease. Then, there would possibly be a
covenant from Mr. Blank to pay the rates and
taxes. As it has been a question whether this
makes the tenant liable to pay sewers-rate, it is
advisable to make an exception of this charge,
and to throw it upon the landlord. A covenant
to pay taxes, by-the-by, will extend to those
which may be imposed during the term, as well
as those existing at the time the agreement is
entered into.

Then would follow a covenant by Mr. Blank
"to repair," and as to the wording of which
that gentleman cannot be too cautious. If no
exception be made in it, for example, as to the
destruction of his house by fire, or lightning
—which the law appears to consider another
element—or tempest, then would it be Blank's
duty to repair the same. More: if it were burnt
down, and his lease contained no condition to
the contrary, he would be obliged to pay rent
during the time of its rebuilding. Further still:
supposing the landlord to have insured the
premises, and Blank to have neglected that
precaution, the repair of the house in the event of its
destruction by fire, and the absence of any
agreement to the contrary, would fall upon Blank's
shoulders; his rent would continue payable, and
he could not compel the landlord to lay out the
insurance money in the rebuilding of the premises.
We have Sir John Leach's authority for the latter
statement, who laid it down that "there was no
principle on which the tenant's situation could be
changed by a precaution on the part of the
landlord with which the tenant had nothing to do."
Lord St. Leonards is of a different opinion,
but an opinion, we need not say, is one thing,
and "law" another. Addressing the landlord,
in his Handybook of Property law, he says:
"If, however, you have insured, although not
bound to do so, and receive the money, you
cannot compel payment of the rent if you
decline to lay out the money in rebuilding."

Quite alive to the distinction between
opinion and law, the Court of Queen's Bench,
in the case referred to, refused to follow the
dictum of Lord St. Leonards, and elected to