Page:William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (3rd ed, 1768, vol II).djvu/266

 250 to his eldet on; but by denization it acquires an hereditary quality, which will be tranmitted to his ubequent poterity. Yet, if he had been naturalized by act of parliament, uch eldet on might then have inherited; for that cancels all defects, and is allowed to have a retropective energy, which imple denization has not.

Edward Coke alo holds, that if an alien cometh into England, and there hath iue two ons, who are thereby natural born ubjects; and one of them purchaes land, and dies; yet neither of thee brethren can be heir to the other. For the commune vinculum, or common tock of their conanguinity, is the father; and, as he had no inheritable blood in him, he could communicate none to his ons; and, when the ons can by no poibility be heirs to the father, the one of them hall not be heir to the other. And this opinion of his eems founded upon olid principles of the antient law; not only from the rule before cited, that cetuy, que doit inheriter al pere, doit inheriter al fits; but alo becaue we have een that the only feodal foundation upon which newly purchaed land can poibly decend to a brother, is the uppoition and fiction of law, that it decended from ome one of his ancetors: but in this cae as the immediate ancetor was an alien, from whom it could by no poibility decend, this hould detroy the uppoition, and impede the decent, and the land hould be inherited ut feudum novum; that is, by none but the lineal decendants of the purchaing brother; and, on failure of them, hould echeat to the lord of the fee. But this opinion hath been ince overruled : and it is now held for law, that the ons of an alien, born here, may inherit to each other. And reaonably enough upon the whole: for, as (in common purchaes) the whole of the uppoed decent from indefinite ancetors is but fictitious, the law may as well uppoe the requiite ancetor as uppoe the requiite decent. Rh