their non-production through ignorance, mistake, or accident. 2d. Titles will be simplified; legal estates in trustees will not be kept on foot and transferred after the purposes of their creation shall have been answered; thus there will be only one title to an estate instead of many. 3d. Titles will not be exposed to the present hazard, from the equitable doctrine of notice. 4th. Titles will not be liable to be defeated by the subsequent acts of third parties. 5th. Titles will not be liable to be defeated in consequence of the loss or destruction of do cuments. 6th. Forgery of deeds will become more perilous. 7th. The difficulty and expense of giving deeds in evidence in courts of justice will be greatly diminished. 8th. Attempts at fraud by concealing prior estates and incumbrances; attempts at forgery of deeds; and attempts at supporting and defeating claims by false testimony will be prevented or materially checked. 9th. Titles will cease to be unmarketable from the owners not being able to produce or secure the future production of the title-deeds. 10th. Equitable and secondary estates will become marketable. 11th. The danger both to purchasers and sellers of entering into contracts without previous minute acquaintance with the title will be materially dimi nished. 12th. Both the delay and expense attending the investigation of titles previous to the completion of contracts will be materially diminished; abstracts will be shortened; there will be no tracing of collateral titles; no search after documents; no expense in procuring their production. These are now the chief causes of delay and expense in the transfer of real property. 13th. The expenses attending conveyance will be materially diminished; deeds will be shortened, and they will be lessened in number; such deeds as assignments of satisfied terms, and covenants for production of title-deeds will become unnecessary; copies of deeds will be required to much less extent, and, when required, will be furnished at a cheaper rate. 14th. Many causes of litigation as to titles, and as to the performance of contracts, and as to the possession and the production of deeds, and as to the necessary deeds of conveyance and the parties to them, will be avoided." pp. 98-100. The principal objections to a General Registry are brought forward, and severally answered at considerable length. The expense of the Registry is thus dealt with: "We were anxious, at an early stage of our inquiry, to form a probable estimate of the expenses of a General Register, considering that we could not recommend the adoption of the measure, unless it should clearly appear, that the amount of expense would be moderate, and that the advantages to be derived from a Register would fully compensate every expense attending it; for this purpose we carefully inspected most of the offices of the existing Registers in this country; and from the books, and an examination of the officers, we collected the number of instruments which are registered, and the causes and amount of different expenses. From these sources of information, and from the returns of the land-tax assessments, of the population, and the stamp duties, and from the communications of solicitors, we have been able to make some approach to a satisfactory estimate of the extent of the necessary establishment and charges; various details on this subject will be found in a paper subjoined to this Report. It will there be seen, that the necessary establishment will be moderate, both as to extent of building and number of officers; in fact we are satisfied, that the whole expense of the establishment would be less than the aggregate amount of the charges of the existing Local Registers, the enrolment office, and other offices, which may be consolidated with a Register office, or abolished. There are lucrative sinecures in most of these offices. In order to cover the expenses of the office, and the costs of registration, we think the average expense of registering may be fairly taken at 11. 5s. and the average costs of searching the indexes and obtaining copies of them on the occasion of a purchase at 10s. These estimates include the expenses of transmission and postage. It is only in transactions of very small amount that these expenses would be at all felt: such cases are at present attended with more than usual risk, because the ordinary modes of investigation, and expedients for protection, which would often cost more than the value of the property, are usually omitted. We recommend, that, in these transactions, the charges for registration and for the transmission of the deeds to the office be considerably reduced, or entirely relinquished." pp. 29-30. has always seemed to us entitled to great atThe objection usually made, and which tention-the disclosure of the private transactions of parties-is also met, and it is mentioned in answer to this objection to a General Registry, that it is the deliberate opinion of many eminent bankers and merchants of London, whose names are mentioned in the appendix to the Report, that a Register affording a complete disclosure of the affairs commercial credit. of private individuals will be beneficial to The very important question whether it is expedient that actual notice of an unregistered deed should affect the priority of a registered deed for valuable consideration, either at law or in equity, is also discussed; and here the unanimity of the learned Commissioners seems to have been somewhat disturbed; however, the majority of them have decided in the negative, and the point is thus argued by them: "The reasons against expressly denying effect to notice, seem to be in substance as follows: one of the chief ultimate objects of law, is to protect against fraud. Now it is necessary for the guidance of men in the ordinary conduct of their affairs, that the rules of law should be clear and strict; but to defeat contrivances in whatever form they may be devised for taking unfair advantages of the strict rule, the jurisdiction to relieve against fraud should not be strict, but large. The principal object of a Register is to protect fair purchasers against prior secret deeds; this protection is not wanted against a deed which is known, The man who assists a frudulent seller or mortgagor in defeating a fair purchaser, is not himself a fair purchaser, and a law which should assist him against a fair purchaser, would be a law in favor of fraud; the fraud indeed would be of an aggravated nature, as it would have the character of conspiracy. Although no person might be induced to pay the full value for an estate under such circumstances, or actually to advance money upon it as a security on lawful terms, ad Memoir of the late Mr. Gilbert Jones. vantages might be held out to a purchaser, and especially the property might be given in discharge of an existing debt or made a security for it; in which case the temptation to the debtor to release himself from immediate pressure might be irresistible, and the creditor might take without scruple whatever he could get from the debtor to satisfy a just demand. Ignorance, forgetfulness, improvidence, and hurry, frequently occasion the neglect of forms, though simple and of the utmost importance, such as inrolments of bargains and sales, surrenders and admittances in case of copyholds, presentments of customary deeds, the forms of execution of wills of land, and of powers, and many other forms; and such neglect is peculiarly liable to happen in small transactions, which are entitled to the protection of the law no less, and perhaps require it more, than those of magnitude. The registration of deeds, too, must be intrusted by parties to their professional agents, who, it is to be expected, would be sometimes careless or forgetful, and sometimes wilfully or corruptly negligent; so that whatever care were taken to make known the new law and to facilitate compliance with its provisions, neglect of registration would occasionally happen, and every instance in which a person with full notice should by means of the new law defeat a just purchaser, would be considered as a proof of the unjust rigour of the law, and tend to render it odious. 25 Ireland, in which an unregistered deed has prevailed against a registered deed, by aid of the doctrine of notice, are not so numerous as to have had much effect in producing neglect of registration, and that very few, if any of them, have worked injustice in the particular instance; and that other means beside the hope of obtaining protection from notice, have probably occasioned neglect of registering in Yorkshire, and Middlesex, and in Ireland; that the same neglect is not likely to happen when registering shall be universal, and shall be put on an improved footing, and its benefits shall be fully understood; that, in fact, the hope of escaping from the loss of an estate through the means of a chan cery suit, and only in case knowledge of the deed shall be brought home to another party, is not likely to lead to many cases of neglect of registration; and further, that should such inconvenience be found to exist, the remedy will be easy, by increasing the rigour of the law; but that, if the rigour of the law now to be established shall be found to work injustice and mischief, there will be no remedy for the time past, and there may be danger that the remedy applied for the future may be to abrogate, or to annul, by gradual disuse, the whole law of registration." pp. 56-59. It is proper to observe, that Mr. Bell sides with the majority. Again, as dealings in confidence would still be carried on without registration, a dangerous tempt-It ation to the abuse of such confidence would be created. Besides, there must be some form, how ever simple, essential to the validity of registration, and mistakes in this respect must be liable to happen, however rarely. Again, even although reasonable diligence were used, and especially if delay occurred in registering a deed, there might be an interval in which superior activity might gain priority for a subsequent deed. This, if done in order to defeat a just right acquired, would be fraud. On such grounds it is, that the courts of equity in this country, and also in Ireland, have determined that actual notice of an unregistered purchase deed shall deprive a purchaser of the benefit of his registry, fraud being by some of the judges expressly stated as the grounds of these decisions, and the same rule prevails generally in the United States of America. As fraud is the ground on which it is proposed to give effect to actual notice against registry, it appears to be generally agreed, that no such effect ought to be given to notice by construction of law, which is no proof of knowledge, nor even raises a fair presumption of it; and it is contended by those who think that the effect of actual notice should not be taken away, that sufficient guard would be provided against effect being given to constructive notice, if the preference to be given to deeds according to priority of registration were enacted in strong terms, with an express saving of the jurisdiction of equity in cases of fraud; or if there were a provision, that notice simply, or notice by construction of law, should not affect the rule of priority without actual fraud: and further, that there are many cases of fraud, of which notice is an ingredient, which must escape the jurisdiction of equity, if, in consequence of an express enactment that notice should not have the proposed effect, it came to be considered as not an ingredient towards constituting a case of fraud. It is contended, on the same side, that a statement which has been brought forward, that the effect given to notice has materially impaired the benefits of the Registers actually established, is not founded in fact; that cases in this country and in We have thus adverted to what appear to us the most important portions of the Report. is, however, replete with useful information in the details of the proposed plan. It is written with much clearness, and we think that, on the whole, it is creditable to the learned body from whom it emanates. MEMOIR OF THE LATE MR. GILBERT JONES. THE profession has lately sustained the loss of one of its most valuable members in Mr. Gil bert Jones, to whose memory we pay our ear liest tribute of respect. He was a native of Bul. lingham, in Herefordshire; he came to London at an early age, and seems at once to have taken root at the very spot where he afterwards sprung up and flourished, till his way of life Had fall'n into the sear and yellow leaf." He served nearly the whole of his clerkship to Mr. Gwatkin, of Salisbury square, who died shortly before Mr. Jones's articles expired. That he well employed the many opportunities for improvement, which a well regulated attorney's office affords, is attested by the fact of his ultimately succeeding to the practice of his deceased master. He was admitted on the Roll in 1780, and those clients of Mr. Gwatkin who had witnessed his attention and ability in conducting that portion of the business which devolved upon him while a clerk, had no hesitation in confiding their affairs to his care, now that the entire management of them would rest in his hands. The importance of the interests which are of necessity committed to an attorney is sufficiently obvious to those who have occasion to seek his professional assistance, and as there is nothing in which men are more scrupulous than in the selection of their legal adviser, it might be said as a test of the character of the practitioner, "tell me who are his clients, and I will tell you what sort of an attorney he is." Were there 26 Improvements in Chancery Practice. SO IMPROVEMENTS IN CHANCERY WE feel considerable difficulty in making a It is on this principle that we insert the following paper for the improvement of the practice in the court of Chancery, with regard to swearing answers and the transmission of them from the country. The expense and inconvenience of the present mode are fully shewn. We think the facts cannot be disputed, nor the advantage of the alteration impugned. no other criterion than this by which to form | sally respected in the profession, and out of it an estimate of Mr. Jones, his character he was favored with the esteem and confidence would stand high, for he had the honour to of many great and excellent men. be concerned for many of the nobility, a class of clients whose affairs require an intimate knowledge of the laws and equities of property, with which their tenures, entails, settlements, and family arrangements are closely interwoven; and who, well educated themselves, and accustomed to the prompt fulfilment of their wishes by their numerous dependants, expect in their solicitor a readiness to explain difficulties, and resolve doubts, in which the ignorance of a superficial lawyer would soon be detected. A proof of the high opinion entertained of Mr. Jones, by a body preeminently qualified to form a correct judgment of legal abilities, is, that he was solicitor to the honourable and learned society of Lincoln's Inn, which reckons among its benchers some of the most distinguished men that have graced the bench and the bar of this country. Among the clients of Mr. Jones were Sir Vicary Gibbs, and Sir James Mansfield, both of whom reposed such confidence in him, that he was appointed an executor in the will of each. He likewise enjoyed the confidence of two other [FROM A CORRESPONDENT.] eminent judges still living; the one whose early Answers sworn in the Country. retirement from the Rolls court has always Ir is, of course, well known to every prac been regretted as a great loss to the public ser- tising solicitor, that after an answer has been vice, and the other who now so ably fills the sworn to by a defendant in the country, if it is same judicial seat. Mr. Jones was, with his brought to London by one of the commispartner, Mr. Green, appointed solicitor to hissioners, it is left by him with the defendant's Majesty's Commissioners of Woods and Fo- clerk in court, who indorses upon it: "Rerests; the vast increase of business in this de-ceived from the hands of A. B., one of the partment of late years, must have given occasion to most solicitors of extensive practice in the metropolis, to have some transactions with that firm, so that the generality of our readers will not need to be informed of the satisfactory manner in which its business was and is conducted. It may easily be supposed, that, with such connexions and appointments, Mr. Jones was able to realize a competent fortune. He had the good sense not to make himself in his old age a slave to the continual acquisition of money; he retired from general practice in 1816, and from the post of solicitor of woods and forests five years afterwards. After his retirement he resided during the summer months at Footscray, in Kent. While riding out in that neighbourhood, at the age of 72, his horse fell with him, and he died in consequence of the injuries he received. commissioners," and then files it with the six clerks; but, if it is not brought by a commissioner, it is delivered by one of the commissioners to any one who happens to be coming to town, in order to be left by him at the public office; and, on leaving it there, he takes an oath before one of the masters in Chancery, that he received it from the hands of A. B., one of the commissioners, and that it has remained in his possession ever since, and has not been altered. The latter is the most usual course: answers being generally sent by the guard of the mail, or other coaches, who charges half a guinea, and often a guinea, according to his trouble, for if it happens that he attends at the public office between four and six o'clock, when it is closed, he is obliged to attend a second, or a third time, and charges accordingly. Mr. Jones sat in Parliament for Aldborough, An additional inconvenience is experienced in Yorkshire, from 1806 to 1812; he made no in the northern counties of the kingdom, for pretensions to oratorical fame, but his sound as none of the guards go farther than the judgment and experience, with his habits of latitude of Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, business, rendered him a very serviceable and York, if an answer happens to be taken member on committees. He had much at beyond any of those places, one of the comheart the credit of that branch of the profession missioners is obliged to proceed with it to one to which he belonged, and was anxious that the of them, to deliver it to a guard who may be characters of all its members should stand as far going all the way to London. Within the above reproach as his own. He was for many last twelve months, three instances have ocyears a member of the Society of Practitioners curred in my own experience, of its being nein the several courts of law and equity. He was cessary for a commissioner to take three joura man of sterling integrity, and high honour; of nies on purpose out of Westmoreland, to good abilities, and solid attainments: his man- Liverpool, Manchester, and Leeds, (each a ners were amiable and polished, he was univer-distance in going and returning of 140 miles,) Shakspeare a Lawyer. to deliver answers to the guards of the mail coaches at those places, in order to prevent attachments in two of the cases, and an in- | junction in the third. And another instance also came under my observation during the sittings after last Trinity term, where an answer waited at Lancaster for about three weeks for want of an opportunity of sending it to London; and, if indulgence had not been given, one of the commissioners must have gone to Liverpool or Manchester (which is above 100 miles there and back,) to deliver it to the guard of the mail, or some other coach. Now all this inconvenience, delay, and expense, may be avoided by the following very simple plan. Let one of the commissioners take the answer, carry it to the nearest Postoffice, and deliver it to the Post-master. Let the Post-master, after marking upon it, "Received from the hands of A. B. a commissioner," put it in an envelope; and, after sealing it with an official seal, and receiving the postage, address it thus, "To "The Six Clerks of the court of Chancery, Chancery lane, London," and transmit it to town by the next post. By this means the answer will arrive at the office, where it is to be filed, without having travelled to town in the pocket of the coachman, or guard, then to the public office, and thence to the Six Clerk's office. The Six Clerk should mark the time of its receipt, in order that, when necessary, the fact may be proved. SHAKSPEARE A LAWYER. THOUGH great obscurity hangs over the life of Shakspeare, it is certain that his early days were marked by considerable vicissitude. When he left school, it seems probable that he for some time assisted his father in his trade, either of a woolstapler or a glover. But, before he quitted his native country for the metropolis, it has been conjectured, and with great plausibility, that he passed some time in the office of an attorney, or the seneschal of some manor court. This conjecture rests principally on the frequent use which Shakspeare makes of legal terms and phrases; his familiarity with which appears to be so great as to indicate a professional acquaintance with the law. Had Mr. Malone, with whom the conjecture originated, been content to depend upon the evidence of the poet's works, he would have established a case of great probability; but, he rather weakened than added strength to his cause, by endeavouring to fortify it by something like testimony. Unable to find any directly to his purpose, he sought to avail himself of a tradition that Shakspeare had once been engaged as a school 15 an master; and arguing that such floating traditions, though not perfectly accurate, usually contain adumbration of the truth," he imagined that Shakspeare having in the manner just mentioned acquired a knowledge of the law, employed himself iu teaching it to others. It is strange that this wild fancy should not only have satisfied Malone, but and Dr. Drake. The latter writer supposes that that it should have been adopted by Mr. Whiter Shakspeare, on his marriage, finding his income insufficient to meet his wants, adopted this method of "making the pot boil." The inconsistency of Malone is extreme. Aubrey, from whom the report is borrowed, says-and in the same sentence in which he states Shakspeare to have been a schoolmasterthat he understood Latin pretty well. Malone contends with Dr. Farmer that Shakspeare knew so little of Latin that he could not have taught that language; therefore, he must have taught law. But the assumption is perfectly unnecessary: Shakspeare which he is supposed to have communicated-and must previously have acquired the knowledge the question is, not what use did he make of his legal learning, but how did he obtain it. The supposition is improbable, as well as useless, since there is not the slightest reason to believe that there existed such a class of teachers as that to which Shakspeare is supposed to have belonged. The knowledge of the law was obtained then as it is now, in the office of a professional man: and we have no right, with out evidence, to assume the existence of seminaries mined upon other grounds; and it may be presumed for sucking lawyers. The question must be deterthat Malone became ashamed of this monstrous the edition of 1821, he does not revert to it. conjecture, since, in his life of the poet, prefixed to The following passage is quoted by Malone, from an epistle to the gentlemen students of the two universities, by Thomas Nashe, prefixed to Green's Arcadia, which was published in 1589. sort of shifting companions, that runne through every "It is a common practice now-a-days, among a art and thrive by none, to leave the trade of Noverint, whereto they were born, and busie themselves with the endeavours of art, that could scarcely Latinize their neck verse if they should have neede; yet English Seneca read by candle light yeelds many good sentences, as bloud is a beggur, and so forth; and if you intreat him fair in a frosty morning, he will affoord you whole Hamlets, I should say, Handfuls of tragical speeches." Malone says, "Nashe seems to point at some dramatic writer of that time who had originally been a scrivener or attorney: 'A clerk foredoom'd his father's soul to cross, Who penn'd a stanza when he should engross;' who, instead of transcribing deeds and pleadings, chose to imitate Seneca's plays, of which a translation had been published many years before." The allusion is unquestionably to a person educated to the law-Noverint referring to the commencement of deeds Noverint Universi— Know all men, &c. In some respects it is not inapplicable to Shakspeare, as in the alleged want of scholastic learning. The writer also appears to sneer at the play of Hamlet, which word, in the original, is printed in a different character from the rest. Malone, however, decides that it does not apply to Shakspeare, principally because Shakspeare borrowed nothing from Seneca. The commentator is somewhat annoyed by the word HAMLET, but he is relieved by conjecturing that some one had written a play on the story of Hamlet previous to Shakspeare. And he not only satisfies himself of the play having been written, but even fixes on the author, and speculates on what will probably be found in it, should "the old play of Hamlet ever be recovered." To affirm positively that Shakspeare was the writer ulluded to by Nashe, would be to imitate Malone in the facility with which he converts fancy into fact; but, perhaps, it would be equally rash to decide, dogmatically, that Shakspeare was not meant; especially as we have no knowledge of any play on the story of Hamlet previous to that of Shakspeare. At any rate it is more reasonable to apply this passage to our great bard, than to conclude that he was a lawyer, because it had been said that he was a school-master. The question of Shakspeare's connexion with the law must, after all, be decided by the internal evidence afforded by his writings; and in them we find the author recurring continually to the language of the law. He uses it with minute propriety, and like a man accustomed to it. The passages which might be produced to prove this are almost innumerable,and those which have been brought forward are neither few nor inconclusive. The following are given by Malone. For what in me was purchased, Falls upon thee in a much fairer sort." (K. Hen. IV. P. ii.) "Purchase is here used in its strict legal sense, in contradistinction to an acquisition by descent. "Unless the devil have him in fee-simple, with fine and recovery." (Merry W. of Win.) "He is 'rested on the case." (Comedy of Er.) With Bills on their necks, Be it known unto all men by these presents." (As you Like it.) "who writes himself Armigero, In any bill, warrant, quittance, or obligation." (Merry W. of Win.) "Go with me to a notary, seal me there Your single bond." (Mer. of Venice.) 'Say, for non-payment that the debt should double." (Venus and Adonis.) "On a conditional bond's becoming forfeited for non-payment of money borrowed, the whole peInalty, which is usually the double of the principal sum lent by the obligee, was formerly recoverable at law. To this our poet here alludes. "But the defendant doth that plea deny; (Sonnet xlvi.) "In Much ado about Nothing, Dogberry charges the watch to keep their fellows' counsel and their own. This Shakspeare transferred from the oath of a grand juryman. And let my officers of such a nature Make an extent upon his house and lands." (As you Like it.) Precept in this sense is a word only known in the office of a justice of peace. "Tell me what state, what dignity, what honour, Canst thou demise to any child of mine?” (K. Richard III.) "bath demised, granted, and to farm let," is the constant language of leases. What poet but Shakspeare has used the word demised in this sense? "This fellow might be in his time a great buyer of land, with his statutes, his recognizances, his fines, his double vouchers, his recoveries." (Hamlet.) The references are made to Boswell's edition of Malone's Shakspeare, 21 vol. 1821. The following are referred to, but not quoted by Malone: "So should that beauty which you hold in lease Find no determination." (Sonnett xiii.) " "Now where is he that will not stay so long, Till his friend sickness hath determined me.' (K. Henry IV. P. ii.) "O twice, my father! twice am I thy son; The life thou gav'st me first, was lost and done, Till, with thy warlike sword, despight of fate, To my determined time thou gav'st new date." (K. Henry VI. P. i.) " Mr. Chalmers, who made it à point of conscience to dissent from Malone in every thing, contends that the passages adduced prove nothing, inasmuch as Shakspeare might have acquired all the knowledge which he displays of legal language, from the perusal of three books, Totell's Presidents, 1572;" "Pulton's Statutes, 1578;" and "Abraham Fraunce's Lawier's Logike, 1588." Granted, that he might-granted that he had read those booksa question arises, why did he read them? People seldom read such books for amusement, and Shakspeare was not a man to acquire knowledge for the mere purpose of displaying it. His genius placed him above the necessity of such expedients, and the noble simplicity of his mind would have disdained them. He was of those who "write what they think," not of those who "sit down to think what they shall write." Malone has on this subject expressed himself with culpable carelessness. Speaking of Shakspeare's knowledge of legal terms, "It has," says he, "the appearance of technical skill, and he is so fond of displaying it on all occasions, that there is, I think, some ground for supposing that he was early initiated in at least the forms of law." Shakspeare indeed displays the knowledge ascribed to him, but he is not fond of displaying it. He writes on these, as on all other occasions, from the fulness of his mind. He uses legal language, because early impressions had given his mind a bias which it would have required an effort to control. No one was ever more free |