Page:William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (3rd ed, 1768, vol II).djvu/137

 Ch. 8. not have ditinguihed him from others; and beides he has no longer an etate of inheritance, or fee, for he can have no heirs, capable of taking per formam doni. Had it called him tenant in tail without iue, this had only related to the preent fact, and would not have excluded the poibility of future iue. Had he been tiled tenant in tail without poibility of iue, this would exclude time pat as well as preent, and he might under this decription never have had any poibility of iue. No definition therefore could o exactly mark him out, as this of tenant in tail after poibility of iue extinct, which (with a preciion peculiar to our own law) not only takes in the poibility of iue in tail which he once had, but alo tates that this poibility is now extinguihed and gone.

etate mut be created by the act of God, that is, by the death of that peron out of whoe body the iue was to pring; for no limitation, conveyance, or other human act can make it. For, if land be given to a man and his wife, and the heirs of their two bodies begotten, and they are divorced a vinculo matrimonii, they hall neither of them have this etate, but be barely tenants for life, notwithtanding the inheritance once veted in them. A poibility of iue is always uppoed to exit, in law, unles extinguihed by the death of the parties; even though the donees be each of them an hundred years old.

etate is of an amphibious nature, partaking partly of an etate-tail, and partly of an etate for life. The tenant is, in truth, only tenant for life, but with many of the privileges of a tenant in tail; as, not to be punihable for wate, &c : or, he is tenant in tail, with many of the retrictions of a tenant for life; as, to forfeit his etate if he alienes it in fee-imple : whereas uch alienation by tenant in tail, though voidable by the iue, is no forfeiture of the etate to the reverioner; who is not concerned in interet, till all poibility of iue be extinct. But, in Rh