Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume V.djvu/758

 754 DEED long imprisonment, but released in 1555. On Elizabeth's accession he was introduced to her, and was requested to name a propitious day for the coronation. In 1564 he returned to the continent, ostensibly to present the emperor Maximilian with a copy of a work he had dedi- cated to him, but probably as a secret agent of the English government. When in 1571 he fell dangerously ill abroad, the queen sent two of her own physicians to his relief. After his return he settled at Mortlake, Surrey, where he calculated horoscopes and nativities. In 1576 the people in the neighborhood attacked his house, and he barely escaped with his life, his library, furniture, and apparatus being all de- stroyed. He was sent abroad again in 1578 to consult with German physicians touching Eliza- beth's health, and probably also for some se- cret political object. In 1581 he made the ac- quaintance of Edward Kelly, an apothecary whose ears had been cropped for forgery. He pretended to be as sincere a devotee to magic as was Dee himself; and with his assistance spirits were raised and information obtained by use of a crystal or magic mirror, in which, after invocation, responses were granted to their in- quiries. In 1583 they made the acquaintance of Albert Laski, a Polish nobleman, and ac- companied him abroad. They exhibited before the emperor at Prague, and resided there for a time, asserting that they had the art of trans- muting metals, enabling them to live in con- siderable splendor. At Prague they separated. Dee returned to England, and was appointed on Dec. 8, 1594, chancellor of St. Paul's cathe- dral, and in the following year warden of Man- chester college, which he left in 1602 or 1604 to return to his old residence near London. A catalogue of his printed and published writings is contained in his " Compendious Eehearsal of his Life and Studies," prepared in 1592, on the appointment of a commission by Elizabeth to inquire into his circumstances. His diary was printed in 1842 by the Oamden society, together with the catalogue of his library of MSS., made before the pillage of his house by the mob, and containing the titles of several medieval works, not now known to be in exist- ence. Dee's " Relation of what passed for many years between him and some Spirits," edited by Casaubon, appeared in London in 1659. One of his magic mirrors is in the British museum. DEED, a term originally employed to express an act for the disposition of lands, which at an early period was by the actual or symboli- cal delivery of possession in the presence of witnesses ; but when a writing was substituted in place of this formality, the same name continued to be applied. Strictly, any instru- ment in writing, sealed and delivered, is a deed ; but the word is most commonly applied to those instruments only whereby real estate, or some interest therein, present or prospec- tive, is transferred or created. In English con- veyancing, a deed to which there are several parties is called an indenture, and properly counterparts should be made on parchments, the edges of which should be cut (indented) like the teeth of a saw to correspond with each other. A deed poll (polled or shaved even) is one executed by a single party. The term indenture is used in tins country simply as expressing that there are several parties; and though in form the deed purports to be executed by all the parties named, yet in fact the ordinary deed in lands is executed by the grantor only. The deed chiefly used in the United States is what in the English law is called a conveyance by bargain and sale. (See BAKGAIN AND SALE.) No particular form, how- ever, is required if the intention be sufficiently expressed, and a very simple one will be found in general use in most of the states ; though very cumbrous forms are still employed more or less, particularly by old conveyancers, which combine the various operative words of the sev- eral English conveyances ; as give, grant, bar- gain, sell, remise, release, alien, enfeoff, and con- firm ; a collocation of words which has this ad- vantage, that the form may fit almost any pos- sible case. In some states a short form is given by statute, and the effect of the terms employed, as covenants or otherwise, is prescribed. The consideration for a deed may be either good, or valuable, i. e., that which has a pecuniary value, as money or other property, or mar- riage ; but a deed without any consideration, deliberately made and delivered, is perfectly good as between the parties, and as against all other persons except creditors and subsequent purchasers. If, however, a voluntary convey- ance, or one made on good consideration only, or even on a valuable consideration, if wholly inadequate, would have the effect to hinder, delay, or defraud the creditors of the grantor in the enforcement of their demands, it may be avoided at their suit; as it may also at the suit of a subsequent purchaser who has bought in good faith and without notice of it, actual or constructive. In common law conveyances it was not necessary that the consideration should be expressed, nor was it necessary to prove one, the conveyance itself being an act of such formality that the law raised a pre- sumption of a consideration ; but in deeds which were introduced under the doctrine of uses held in courts of equity, it was necessary that a consideration should either be expressed in the deed, in which case it could not be con- troverted by the parties or their privies, or the deed should purport to be upon a valuable consideration, and then one might be proved when the deed was brought in question. As it is not necessary to name any particular sum, the nominal sum of $1 is often expressed ; but the actual consideration, and whether paid or not, may always be inquired into, when essen- tial for other purposes than the mere validity of the deed, notwithstanding a sum has been named or the receipt acknowledged. It has indeed been held that in order to prove any
 * . <?., natural affection between near relations,