THE NATURE OF PERSONAL PROPERTY.

UNDER the name of things personal are included all sorts of things moveable, which may attend a man's person wherever he goes, and therefore, being only the objects of the law while they remain within the limits of its jurisdiction, and being also of a perishable quality, are not esteemed of so high a nature, nor paid so much regard to by the law, as things that are in their nature more permanent and immoveable, as lands and houses, and the profits issuing thereout. These being constantly within the reach, and under the protection of the law, were the principal favourites of our first legislators: who took all imaginable care in ascertaining the rights, and directing the disposition, of such property as they imagined to be lasting, and which would answer to posterity the trouble and pains that their ancestors employed about them; but at the same time entertained a very low and contemptuous opinion of all personal estate, which they regarded as only a transient commodity. The amount of it indeed was comparatively very trifling, during the scarcity of money and the ignorance of luxurious refinements, which prevailed in the feudal ages. Hence it was, that a tax of the fifteenth, tenth, or sometimes a much larger proportion, of all the moveables of the subject, was frequently laid without scruple and is mentioned with much unconcern by our ancient historians, though now it would justly alarm our opulent merchants and stockholders. And hence likewise may be derived the frequent forfeitures inflicted by the common law, of all a man's goods and chattels, for misbehaviours and inadvertencies that at present hardly seem to deserve so severe a punishment. Our ancient law-books, which are founded upon the feudal provisions, do not therefore often condescend to regulate this species of property. But of later years, since the introduction and extension of trade and

commerce, which are entirely occupied in this species of property, and have greatly augmented its quantity, and of course its value, we have learned to conceive different ideas of it. Our courts now regard a man's personalty in a light nearly, if not quite, equal to his realty: and have adopted a more enlarged and less technical mode of considering the one than the other; frequently drawn from the rules which they found already established by the Roman law, wherever those rules appeared to be well-grounded and apposite to the case in question, but principally from reason and convenience, adapted to the circumstances of the times; preserving withal a due regard to ancient usages, and a certain' feudal tincture, which is still to be found in some branches of personal property.

QUESTIONS.

What are called "things personal?"

Which was the more esteemed by our ancestors-real or personal property, and why?

Does this account for the number and weight of the taxes anciently imposed upon one of these two kinds of property? How?

Has any alteration taken place in latter times, in the estimation of personal property? Why?

THE SUPERIOR COURTS OF LAW AND OF EQUITY.

By the ancient Saxon constitution there was only one superior court of justice in the kingdom; and that court had cognizance both of civil and spiritual causes: viz. the wittenagemote, or general council, which assembled annually or oftener, wherever the king kept his Christmas, Easter, or Whitsuntide, as well to do private justice as to consult upon public business. At the conquest the ecclesiastical jurisdiction was diverted into another channel; and the conqueror, fearing danger from these annual parliaments, contrived also to separate their ministerial power, as judges, from their deliberative, as counsellors to the crown. He therefore established a constant court in his own hall, thence called by Bracton and other ancient authors aula regia, or aula regis. This court was composed of the king's great officers of state resident in his palace, and usually attendant on his person: such as the lord high constable and lord mareschal, who chiefly presided in matters of honour and of arms; determining according to the law military and the law of nations. Besides these, there were the lord high steward, and lord great chamberlain; the steward of the household; the lord chancellor, whose peculiar business it was to keep the king's seal, and examine all such writs, grants, and letters, as were to pass under that authority; and the lord high treasurer, who was the principal adviser in all matters relating to the revenue. These high officers were assisted by certain persons learned in the laws, who were called the king's justiciars or justices; by the greater barons of parliament, all of whom had a seat in the aula regia, and formed a kind of court of appeal, or rather of advice, in matters of great moment and difficulty. All these in their several departments transacted all secular business both criminal and civil, and likewise the matters of the revenue; and over all presided one special magistrate,

and

called the chief justiciar or capitalis justiciarius totius Anglia; who was also the principal minister of state, the second man in the kingdom, and by virtue of his office guardian of the realm in the king's absence. And this officer it was who principally determined all the vast variety of causes that arose in this extensive jurisdiction; and from the plenitude of his power grew at length both obnoxious to the people, and dangerous to the government which employed him.

This great universal court being bound to follow the king's household in all his progresses and expeditions, the trial of common causes therein was found very burthensome. to the subject. Wherefore king John, who dreaded also the power of the justiciar, very readily consented to that article which now forms the eleventh chapter of magna carta, and enacts, "that COMMUNIA PLACITA non sequantur curiam regis, sed teneantur in aliquo loco certo." This certain place was established in Westminster-hall, the place where the aula regis originally sate, when the king resided in that city, and there it hath ever since continued. And the court being thus rendered fixed and stationary, the judge became so too, and a chief with other justices of the "common pleas was thereupon appointed; with jurisdiction to hear and determine all pleas of land, and injuries merely civil between subject and subject. Which critical establishment of this principal court of common law, at that particular juncture and that particular place, gave rise to the inns of court in its neighbourhood; and, thereby collecting together the whole body of the common lawyers, enabled the law itself to withstand the attacks of the canonists and civilians, who laboured to extirpate and destroy it. This precedent was soon after copied by king Philip the Fair in France, who about the year 1302 fixed the parliament of Paris to abide constantly in that metropolis; which before used to follow the person of the king wherever he went, and in which he himself used frequently to decide the causes that were there depending: but all were then referred to the sole cognizance of the parliament and its learned judges. And thus also in 1495 the emperor Maximilian I. fixed the imperial chamber, which before always travelled with the court and household, to be held constantly at Worms, from whence it was afterwards translated to Spire.

The aula regia being thus stript of so considerable a branch of its jurisdiction, and the power of the chief justi ciar being also considerably curbed by many articles in the great charter, the authority of both began to decline apace under the long and troublesome reign of king Henry III. And, in further pursuance of this example, the other several offices of the chief justiciar were, under Edward the first, who new modelled the whole frame of our judicial polity, subdivided and broken into distinct courts of judicature. A court of chivalry was erected, over which the constable and mareschal presided; as did the steward of the household over another, constituted to regulate the king's domestic servants. The high steward, with the barons of parliament, formed an august tribunal for the trial of delinquent peers; and the barons reserved to themselves in parliament the right of reviewing the sentences of other courts in the last resort. The distribution of common justice between man and man was thrown into so provident an order, that the great judicial officers were made to form a check upon each other; the court of chancery issuing all original writs under the great seal to the other courts; the common pleas being allowed to determine all causes between private subjects; the exchequer managing the king's revenue; and the court of king's bench retaining all the jurisdiction which was not cantoned out to other courts, and particularly the superintendence of all the rest by way of appeal; and the sole cognizance of pleas of the crown or criminal causes. For pleas or suits are regularly divided into two sorts: pleas of the crown, which comprehend all crimes and misdemeanors, wherein the king, on behalf of the public, is the plaintiff; and common pleas, which include all civil actions, depending between subject and subject. The former of these were the proper object of the jurisdiction of the court of king's bench; the latter of the court of common pleas which is a court of record, and is styled by sir Edward Coke the lock and key of the common law; for herein only can real actions, that is, actions which concern the right of freehold or the realty, be originally brought: and all other, or personal, pleas between man and man are likewise here determined; though in most of them the king's bench has also a concurrent authority.

The judges of the Common Pleas are at present five in number, one chief and four puisné justices, created by the