Page:William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (3rd ed, 1768, vol II).djvu/263

 Ch. 15. in any part of it's body, yet if it hath human hape, it may be heir. This is a very antient rule in the law of England ; and it's reaon is too obvious, and too hocking, to bear a minute dicuion. The Roman law agrees with our own in excluding uch births from ucceions : yet accounts them, however, children in ome repects, where the parents, or at leat the father, could reap any advantage thereby ; (as the jus trium liberorum, and the like) eteeming them the misfortune, rather than the fault, of that parent. But our law will not admit a birth of this kind to be uch an iue, as hall intitle the huband to be tenant by the curtey ; becaue it is not capable of inheriting. And therefore, if there appears no other heir than uch a prodigious birth, the land hall echeat to the lord.

5. are incapable of being heirs. Batards, by our law, are uch children as are not born either in lawful wedlock, or within a competent time after it's determination. Such are held to be nullius filii, the ons of nobody; for the maxim of law is, qui ex damnato coitu nacuntur, inter liberos non computantur. Being thus the ons of nobody, they have no blood in them, at leat no inheritable blood; conequently, none of the blood of the firt purchaor: and therefore, if there be no other claimant than uch illegitimate children, the land hall echeat to the lord. The civil law differs from ours in this point, and allows a batard to ucceed to an inheritance, if after it's birth the mother was married to the father : and alo, if the father had no lawful wife or child, then, even if the concubine was never married to the father, yet he and her batard on were admitted each to one twelfth of the inheritance, and a batard was like- Rh