the grand English system of " conveyancing"
—that wonderful science elaborated with
prodigious art, with all its attendant incidents
of 'uses, lease and release, estates for Life,
for Years, and in Fee, and the tremendous
science of Contingent remainders. What was
that artful, yet mysterious, device known as
a lease and release, " first invented by
Serjeant Moore soon after the statute of
Uses, and now" (in Sir W. Blackstone's time)
"the most common of any, and therefore not
to be shaken, though very great lawyers"
(particularly Mr. Roy, Attorney-General to Charles
the First) " have, formerly doubted its validity?"
The point of that pleasant device lies in the
making of two voluminous instruments, by the
first of which the purchaser pretends to become
merely a tenant to the seller for one year. This
relationship being duly perfected by all
formalities, next day a new instrument is
prepared, releasing to the tenant the regular
freehold; and this was done to satisfy the scruples
of the law, which deemed a person in possession
only as fitted to receive the sacred boon of a
feeoffment. There were, besides, thirteen other
modes of " leasing" property from one party to
another, all of the most artful and ingenious sort
—namely, by Bargain and Sale, Covenant to stand
seised, statute of uses, &c.; when suddenly, a few
years back, it occurred to some straightforward
minds that, instead of these elaborate tricks,
perhaps the simple course would be for the
seller to convey his land by a plain deed; and so,
with another stroke of a pen, all the bargains and
sales, and leases and releases, which " Serjeant
Moore" so craftily invented—that most
intricate machinery in the world—passed away
quietly, and has never been missed. It took
with it many more tons weight of practice
books, precedents yards long, dissertations by
"eminent" pleaders, and countless discourses of
still more eminent judges, construing with much
nicety all knotty points. Would that it could
have taken with it the hours of unprofitable
drudgery, the weary days and nights of worn
pleaders and weary draughtsmen, sitting
through the long night and fitting Serjeant
Moore's ingenious trick of lease and release to
the exigencies of the special case before them!
It is not too much to say, that the deeds
constructed on these intricate " lines" of lease and
release are to be counted by the hundred
thousand.

Gravely, and with a certain pride, we tell our
intelligent foreigner " we are unwilling that the
laws of England should be changed." How
grandly rings put that sentence! And in the same
breath we invite his attention to the department
of Irish Chancery. What the process was for
foreclosure of mortgage, and how it took about a
lifetime on the average to sell an estate (some-
times three lifetimes, sometimes half a lifetime;
so that, on the whole, a lifetime would be about
a fair average), has been set out pretty fully in
preceding numbers of this journal. How, for
long suits, searchers and burrowings in Masters'
offices, and cumbrous deeds, was substituted one
single skin of parchment, which, curious to say,
was found to answer equally well, is now matter
of history. Still this has had the effect of
further clearing the shelves for the researches
of our intelligent foreigner.

But the fact is, the whole spirit of the law is
change. Nearly every portion of it has been
meddled with, gutted, pulled down, widened,
narrowed, or altered in certain respects.
Chancery? Only a few years ago the whole system
was " regulated" and remodelled. Common law?
Some twelve years ago, it was altogether
"razéed," as they say ot ships, cut to the very
water's edge, and built again afresh. Gone, now,
the precious " forms of action," the " counts in
formedon," the " declaration" of quare impedit
and quare clausum, and a host more. Gone, t6o,
those useful persons of the family of Roe
(familiar John and Richard), who did such good
service in ejectments. With what face could
we explain to the inquisitive foreigner, the
function of these auxiliaries, or the absurd
childishness of that fiction long permitted to
disgrace our law? Would he be more inclined to
pity, or to laugh, when he was told that every one
bringing an ejectment had first to proceed, not
against his tenant, but against an imaginary
person of the name of Roe (Richard), and must
proceed, not in his own character, but by the agency
of another imaginary person, Doe (John)?

"Subscribed to this declaration," says Serjeant
Stephen, " is a notice in the form of a letter from
the fictitious defendant to the tenant in possession,
apprising the latter of the nature and object
of the proceeding, and advising him to appear in
court the next term, to defend his possession.
Accordingly, the next term, the tenant obtains
a rule of court allowing nim to be made
defendant, instead of Richard Roe, upon certain
terms," &c. These, says Serjeant Stephen,
naively, " are fictions invented and upheld by
the courts for the convenience of justice." It
was astonishing the niceties involved in the use
and proper manipulation of these sham characters,
who might imperil the whole case. Yet
one day the whole disappeared together, the
waters covered John Doe and Richard Roe;
with these vanished also Mr. Thrustout. And,
strange to say, the "convenience of justice"
has never for one instant been imperilled. So
with wills; the whole procedure of which has
been altered and repaired, and an enormous bulk
of labour and learning made useless. So with
Chancery procedure, wholly remodelled, and not
to be recognised by that splendid legal obstructive,
Lord Eldon, were he to return again to his
woolsack. So with our procedure at trials, where
plaintiff and defendant may now be questioned
upon oath. So with bankruptcy; so with
juries, whose wild vagaries have been wisely cut
down and held in check by various processes.
In short, the whole has changed, and is
changing; and now the cunning legal artificers,
trowel in hand, are actually casting about for
fresh mutation. The law-offices of the crown
are filled with schemes, and their pigeon-holes
bursting with undeveloped projects.