Page:William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (3rd ed, 1768, vol II).djvu/24

 12 earliet witnees of his deceae. They became therefore generally the next immediate occupants, till at length in proces of time this frequent uage ripened into general law. And therefore alo in the earliet ages, on failure of children, a man's ervants born under his roof were allowed to be his heirs; being immediately on the pot when he died. For we find the old patriarch Abraham exprely declaring, that "ince God had given him no eed, his teward Eliezer, one born in his houe, was his heir ."

property continued only for life, tetaments were ueles and unknown; and, when it became inheritable, the inheritance was long indefeaible, and the children or heirs at law were incapable of excluion by will. Till at length it was found, that o trict a rule of inheritance made heirs diobedient and head-trong, defrauded creditors of their jut debts, and prevented many provident fathers from dividing or charging their etates as the exigence of their families required. This introduced pretty generally the right of dipoing one's property, or a part of it, by tetament; that is, by written or oral intructions properly witneed and authenticated, according to the pleaure of the deceaed; which we therefore emphatically tile his will. This was etablihed in ome countries much later than in others. With us in England, till modern times, a man could only dipoe of one third of his moveables from his wife and children: and, in general, no will was permitted of lands till the reign of Henry the eighth; and then only of a certain portion: for it was not till after the retoration that the power of deviing real property became o univeral as at preent.

therefore and tetaments, rights of inheritance and ucceions, are all of them creatures of the civil or municipal laws, and accordingly are in all repects regulated by them; every ditinct country having different ceremonies and requiites to make a tetament completely valid: neither does any thing vary more than the right of inheritance under different national etablih- Rh