tempt to alien, his estate should cease, as if he were naturally dead. Is it said there that the words as if he were naturally dead shall be void, and the words that his estate shall cease, good? No, but the whole clause shall be void. And it is all one reason of a so that, as of an as if, for they both suspend the sentence. So if I make a lease for life, upon condition he shall not alien, nor take the profits, shall this be good for the first part, and void for the second? No, but it shall be void for both. So if the power of declaration of uses had been thus penned; that Sir John Stanhope might by his deed indented declare new uses, so that the deed were inrolled before the Mayor of St. Albans, who hath no power to take inrolments; or so that the deed were made in such sort, as might not be made void by Parliament; in all these and the like cases the impossibility of the last part doth strike upwards, and infect and destroy the whole clause. And therefore, that all the words may stand is the first and true course; that all the words be void, is the second and probable; but that the revoking part should be good, and the assuring part void, hath neither truth nor probability. Now come I to the second point, how this value should be measured; wherein methinks you are as ill a measurer of values as you are an expounder of words. Which point I will divide, first considering what the law doth generally intend by the word value; and secondly to see what special words may be in these clauses, either to draw it to a value of a present arrentation, or to understand it of a just and true value. The word value is a word well known to the law, and therefore cannot be (except it be willingly) misun derstood. By the common law there is upon a warrant a recovery in value. I put the case therefore that I make a feoffment in fee with warranty of the manor of Dale, being worth twenty pounds per annum, and then in lease for twenty shillings. The lease expires; (for that is our case, though I hold it not needful;) the question is whether upon an eviction there shall not be recovered from me land to the value of twenty pounds. So if a man give land in frank-marriage then rented at forty pounds and no more worth; there descendeth other lands, let perhaps for a year or two for twenty pounds, but worth eighty pounds: shall not the donee be at liberty to put this land in hotchpot? So if two parceners be in tail, and they make partition of lands equal in rent, but far unequal in value; shall this bind their issues? By no means. For there is no calender so false to judge of values as the rent, being sometimes improved, sometimes ancient, sometimes where great fines have been taken, sometimes where no fines; so as in point of recompense you were as good put false weights into the hands of the law, as to bring in this interpretation of value by a present arrentation. But this is not worth the speaking to in general that which giveth colour is the special words in the clause of revocation, that the twenty pounds' value should be according to the rents then answered, and therefore that there should be a correspondence in the computation likewise of the recompense. But this is so far from countenancing that exposition, as, well noted, it crosseth it; for opposita juxta se posita magis elucescunt: first, it may be the intent of Sir Thomas in the first clause was double, partly to exclude any land : in demesne, partly because knowing the land was double, and as some say quadruple, better than the rent, he would have the more scope of revocation under his twenty pounds' value. But what is this to the clause of recompense? First, are there any words secundum computationem prædictam? There are none. Secondly, doth the clause rest upon the words similis valoris? No, but joineth tantum et similis valoris. Confound not predicaments; for they are the mere-stones of reason. Here is both quantity and quality. Nay he saith farther, within the same town's. Why? Marry it is somewhat to have men's possessions lie about them, and not dispersed. So it must be as much, as good, as near: so plainly doth the intent appear, that my Lady should not be a loser. For the point of the notice, it was discharged by the Court. |