Page:William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (3rd ed, 1768, vol II).djvu/190

 178 merger by the operation and contruction, though not by the expres words, of the tatute de donis: which operation and contruction have probably arien upon this conideration; that, in the common caes of merger of etates for life or years by uniting with the inheritance, the particular tenant hath the ole interet in them, and hath full power at any time to defeat, detroy, or urrender them to him that hath the reverion; therefore, when uch an etate unites with the reverion in fee, the law coniders it in the light of a virtual urrender of the inferior etate. But, in an etate-tail, the cae is otherwie: the tenant for a long time had no power at all over it, o as to bar or to detroy it; and now can only do it by certain pecial modes, by a fine, a recovery, and the like : it would therefore have been trangely improvident, to have permitted the tenant in tail, by purchaing the reverion in fee, to merge his particular etate, and defeat the inheritance of his iue: and hence it has become a maxim, that a tenancy in tail, which cannot be urrendered, cannot alo be merged in the fee.