an action of debt. * Likewise a divorce altereth the estate of frank-marriage into a bare freehold. If a man add a condition to a single obligation after the delivery, this maketh the obligation void, for now it is not his deed, and the same law is of the raising or interlining of a condition after the delivery of the obligation.

If land be given to one in tail, and the donee giveth the land to the donor, and to a stranger for term of their lives, this is a discontinuance conditional, namely, if the stranger survive. § If the sheriff attach one by force of a capias, that is justifiable; but if he return a non est inventus upon the writ, he is a trespasser ab initio.. || If I disseise J. S. and levy a fine to J. N. and after J. S. entereth upon J. N. and enfeoffeth me, and J. N. entereth upon me, and I bring my assise, and J. N. pleadeth the fine in bar, I may avoid the fine by

* 39. H. 6. 26. per Paston.

+ 7. H. 4. 16.

36. H. 6. 5. per Ash. Just. 28. H. 8. 7. Dy. per Fitzh. || 3. H. 7, 11,

shewing the matter aforesaid. * If a fine be levied of land in ancient demesne, and the lord disannulleth the fine levied at the common law, he hath restored the right to him that levied the fine. If he which + abateth after the death of the tenant in feesimple make a feoffment, upon condition to be performed within nine years ensuing, and after the feoffee levieth a fine with proclamations, and the five years incur, the condition is broken, and the abator reentereth; now the heir of him that died seised may have an assize of Mortdancestor against the abator, whereas before he was bound by the fine. Tenant in † tail maketh a feoffment and taketh back an estate in fee, and bindeth himself in statute merchant, and then maketh a feoffment upon condition, and after the recognizance is put in execution, and the tenant in tail dieth, and the heir in tail being within age entereth for the condition broken, he is remitted, and the recognizance avoided,

* 25. E. 4. 5. per Litt. +16. E. 2. cont. claim, 10. Plow. Com. 358. Stow. case.

but otherwise it had been if he had been of full age; for then he coming in under the estoppel should not have avoided the estoppel, nor by consequence the recognizance. * If my very tenant be seised of a manor held of the king in capite, and of another manor held of me by knight's service, and he is disseised of the manor held of the king, and afterward dieth seised of the manor held of me, whereupon I seize the body of the heir, and after the heir within age recovereth the manor held of the king, now the king may have my land also in ward, because the heir shall now be adjudged to be in my descent, and the king shall have the wardship of the body. If my horse strike one, and after I sell the horse, and afterwards the party that was struck dieth of the stroke, now shall the horse be forfeited as a deodand.

If a villain inflict upon himself a mortal wound, and the lord seiseth his goods, and then the villain dieth, now shall the queen

* 8. H. 7. 7.

+ 15. E. 4. 14. per Littleton, Skreene's Case.

Com. 290. per Cat. Dame Hale's Case.

have his goods because he is felo de se. * A man administereth of his own wrong, and after taketh letters of administration of the ordinary, this shall relate to the death of the intestate. + The heir chargeth land which is after recovered in a writ of dower, the woman shall hold it discharged. Thus it is evident that the understanding of the law worketh especially upon relations on the first causes of things, reducing through many straits of colourable pretences and objections, the right of a thing to him to whom it appertaineth, according to the quality and exigency of the said right and title, so that the understanding of the student when it entereth into the survey of these intricate and hidden points, must be of this ability to compound things, and to resolve them by imagination, to build and destroy, and to turn sail by circumstances and occurrences; for there is no case which accidents may not alter, but that one thing

*Com. 290. per Cat. Dame Hale's Case.

+ 9. E. 4.33.

10. H. 7. Charge 3.

may countervail another, or that a defect may be supplied by enforcement of reason, or that a wrong may be purged and transformed into right, and black as it were changed into white, contrary to nature is the work of intelligence reflecting upon itself, some perhaps carry such spiced and scrupulous consciences, that they cannot abide any fiction or representation of a thing that is not in facto, but surely the supposal admittance and intendment of the law is necessary, without which neither the science of the law, nor any other which consist in contemplation and abstraction of the essences of things from the confusion and mixture of circumstances can be of any worth or force. And though I must confess that every thing which is imagined to be done, and is not actually done, is a phantasy, or an untruth, yet this must be granted, that, that which is not really done, and yet for avoiding inconvenience must be supposed to be done in facto, is not a fault, though it be false. Many things of this kind and quality have I before immediately proposed, which will