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may judge fit; and he may, perhaps properly, be allowed to appoint a destination of heirs after them, which shall have effect if they do not alter it, or appoint a new destination to heirs named by themselves. Thus he may give a liferent to one and the fee to another, or successive liferents to more than one and the fee to a third or fourth, all these parties being existing persons, with a destination, over in the event of the fiar dying without disposing of the land, or settling it on new heirs. But there ought, in every generation, to be a full right of property vested in some existing individual or individuals, and it should not be put in abeyance for beings not yet born. This seems the natural rule; and it would afford, in general, a sufficient means of restraint, on the part of a proprietor, against the dreaded extravagance or imprudence of an heir in particular cases, without altogether disinheriting him.

The main difficulty, however, has reference, not to the execution of new entails, but to the mode of dealing with entails already in existence. The number of these, and the immense extent of territory which they affect, render this a matter of the titmost importance, not only in regard to the degree to which the fetters shall be removed, but as to the time within which this shall be done. Some, indeed, declaim against what they call the injustice of depriving any single individual of the whole host of substitute heirs under any entail, who shall have come into being prior to the change in the law, of his vested interest under the entail; and so would allow no entail to be brought to an end till after the death of every substitute heir who had been in life when the change was effected. If this view should be acted upon, it would postpone the commencement of the process of disentailing for half a century at least, putting off for that period all the benefits to be derived from a repeal of the present system, and prolonging its monstrous evils. Justice, however, requires no such sacrifice of the welfare of the community to these supposed vésted rights in abuses, as a short consideration of their nature and value will show.

The value of the interest of these substitute heirs, whose right is not defeasible by the existence of nearer heirs-such as the eldest son of an entailed proprietor, and the eldest son of tlie eldest son-can easily be calculated, being determinable by the chance of survivance, and the probable period of accession; and such an interest might be appreciable to the extent of four substitute heirs after the heir in possession. No such number of heirs with in defeasible rights, however, can be expected to be in existence at one and the same time, as, unless in very peculiar cases which would be extraordinary exceptions, this would require five gene

Rights and interests of Substitute Heirs.

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rations of males in the direct line-father, son, grandson, greatgrandson, and great-great-grandson, all living at once. Three would be the utmost for whose interests it would be necessary to provide, and a perfectly sufficient protection to those would be secured by the scheme to which we shall immediately advert.

Even three such heirs with absolutely indefeasible rights would seldom exist; and in the generality of cases there would probably only be one whose expectations would not be liable to be excluded by the existence of issue of a nearer heir. As to all substitutes, however, whose succession might be excluded by nearer heirs coming into being, the present value of their interest is scarcely appreciable at all, and certainly beyond the third substitute it is utterly inappreciable; and without the slightest injustice it may be dealt with as a honentity. In any view, therefore, it would only be necessary to give protection to the interests of the three substitute-heirs next in order to the heir actually in possession at the time the change was made.

This, however, would be effectually and sufficiently done by allowing the heir now in possession to hold one-fourth of the estate in fee-simple, he always discharging, to the extent of its value, the capital sums of any burdens to which the estate is subject; and by allowing the next in order, on accession, to hold another fourth in fee-simple, he in like manner discharging any balance of such burdens; the next to hold another fourth, and the next again to hold the remainder, or the whole, if not sold by preceding heirs, entirely free from the fetters of entail.

Minute and varied calculations as to the comparative value of the interests of these substitute heirs under the subsisting entails; and that of the rights which would belong to them under such a scheme as this, were laid before the Committee of the House of Commons in 1828; and treating their right of succession as indefeasible, and also taking the value under the existing entails as at the date of probable accession, that value was found to be fully made up to them; while, taking the present value of the expectancy, and looking to the contingency of the existence of nearer heirs, the value under the proposed scheme exceeded that under the existing entails.

To these calculations we can only refer the reader; but they show the perfect safety and justice, so far as regards any really substantial or appreciable interest on the part of substitute-heirs, of the scheme which was then suggested, and which certainly appears to us the best fitted, of any that has been proposed, for putting an end to the present monstrous and injurious system. But we would incline to go somewhat further than was then proposed, with a view to the more immediate attainment, on the

part of the community, of the benefits to be derived from restoring to the market, land now extra commercium, and opening to the employment of capital in agricultural improvements, territories now excluded from it. We would suggest that, under certain restrictions for preventing the mere gratification of jealousy of a substitute-heir, or capricious ill-will to him, such as the consent, probably, of the heir next in order, and the approbation of the Court of Session, that heirs in possession might be authorized to sell, not merely the one-fourth proposed to be allowed to be held by them in fee-simple, but the whole estate, the price being invested in the public funds, there to remain for behoof of the heirs to succeed, who should, in their order, have right to a share in feesimple, and to a liferent of the rest, just as if the estate had not been sold. In this way much of the land now under fetters might instantly be set free, and the country would at once have all the advantage of an immediate and total abolition of entails, while the fair interest of those substitute-heirs, whose interest was appreciable, would be sufficiently protected and secured.

We cannot at present enter more fully into a consideration of the details of the plan to which we have referred; but we trust that the subject of the freedom of the soil will now obtain that degree of attention from the public which its vast importance demands; for we believe it is scarcely possible to over-estimate the advantages which-alike in an agricultural, a commercial, a social, and a moral view-would result from the overthrow of an entail system so utterly factitious and unnatural, and so deeply and extensively injurious, as that under which this country has so long groaned.

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ART. VIII.-1. Researches on Light; An Examination of all the Phenomena connected with the Chemical and Molecular Changes produced by the Influence of the Solar Rays, embracing all the known Photographic Processes, and new Discoveries in the Art. By ROBERT HUNT, Secretary to the Royal Cornwall Polytechnic Society. Pp. 304. London, 1844.

2. A Treatise on the Forces which produce the Organization of Plants; with an Appendix containing several Memoirs on Capillary Attraction, Electricity, and the Chemical Action of Light. By JOHN WILLIAM DRAPER, M.D., Professor of Chemistry in the University of New York. Royal 4to, pp. 324. New York, 1844.

3. Nouvelles Instructions sur l'usage du Daguerreotype. Par CHARLES CHEVALIER. Paris, 1841.

4. Mélanges Photographiques. Complement des nouvelles Instructions sur l'usage du Daguerreotype. Pp. 128. Paris, 1844. 5. The Pencil of Nature. By HENRY FOX TALBOT, Esq., F.R.S., &c., &c. Nos. I., II., III., IV., V. London, 1844. 6. Traité de Photographie, contenant tous les perfectionnements trouvées jusqu'à ce jour, appareil panoramique, différences des foyers, gravure Fizeau, &c. Par LEREBOURS et SECRETANS, Opticiens de l'Observatoire, et de la Marine. 5me Edit. Pp. 268. Paris, Octobre 1846.

7. Des Papiers Photographiques, Procédés de M. BlanquartEvrard et autres, avec Notes de N. P. LEREBOURS. Pp. 31. Paris, Mar. 1847.

8. Excursions Daguerriennes. Collection de 114 Planches, représentant les vues et les monumens les plus remarquables du Globe. 2 Vols.

THE history of science presents us with very few instances in which great inventions or discoveries have burst upon the public view like meteors, or startled the public mind by their novelty and grandeur. The greatest feats of intellect have, like the intellect itself, been of tardy growth. A suggestion from one mind and in one age, has become a fact in another; and some sickly embryo of thought, which has preserved its vitality for a century, has often assumed the form and beauty of a living truth, when the public taste or the wants of society have stimulated research, or created a demand for the productions of genius. So slow, indeed, has been the march of great ideas, and so obscure the path by which they reached their gigantic consummation, that the historian of science has often been unable to trace their steps, and the arbiter of genius to discover the brow upon which he might plant the laurel which they deserved. The astronomy which in one

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century gave immortality to a priest, in the next immured a philosopher in prison; and geological truth passed through the phases of a presumptuous speculation, and of an atheistical dogma, before it became the handmaid of piety and the creed of the Church. It is with much difficulty and some uncertainty that we can trace even the telescope and the microscope to their humble origin. The steam-engine has not yet owned its obligations to a single mind, and little more than half a century has elapsed since an English court of law came to the decision that James Watt had made no improvement on this mighty instrument of civilization. The steam-ship and the railway-chariot-the locomotives on water and on iron-at once the benefactors and the wonders of the age, will continue to be disputed or unclaimed inventions till society has forgotten the prediction of the poet, or lamented its fulfilment :

"Soon shall thine arm, unconquer'd Steam! afar

Drag the slow barge, or drive the rapid car."

There are other inventions and discoveries, on the contrary, on which are stamped imperishable names, or with which these names are inseparably associated. Kepler's laws are engraven on the planetary heavens. Newton will never cease to be named, while satellites revolve and terrestrial bodies fall; and while Neptune bears his trident across the firmament, the fame of Adams and Le Verrier will endure. The electro-magnetic power which speeds over the globe the telegraphic message, will carry the name of Wheatstone to its most distant terminus whether in space or time; and the thunderbolt which Franklin drew from heaven, and which, when untaught and untamed, shattered in its course the structures of organic and inorganic life, will acknowledge its apprenticeship to Faraday, while it is imparting new organizations to matter, playing round the solar ray, and guiding even the particles of light in their fantastic gyrations. Other discoveries have associated themselves, even in their nomenclature, with individual names; and in the very terminology of the two great arts which we are about to expound-the Daguerreotype and Talbotype-a grateful age has already embalmed the names of their distinguished inventors.

The two inventions which we have just mentioned possess a character, and occupy a place, essentially different from that of any of the sister arts. While the painter delineates on canvass, or the sculptor embodies in marble those images in their eye to which the law of vision gives an external place, the photographer presents to Nature an artificial eye, more powerful than his own, which receives the images of external objects, and imprints on its

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