steady. Where a testator gives a legacy to Mrs. G. it is not easy to shew that the ambiguity which this imperfect designation creates is not an ambiguity arising upon the face of the will, and, as such, an ambiguity patent.

Perhaps we must allow that the rule is flexible to the extent of admitting extrinsic evidence in a few particular cases, where the ambiguity, though patent, > arises from something short in the expression or designation of the objects of the testator's intention, and is of a nature calculated to receive an easy explanation from outward facts.

So in other cases, although the effect of a positive clause, is not to be controuled by inference from other parts of the instrument; yet if matter can be collected from the general context of the instrument, the approach to an ambiguity patent in a particular clause or sentence, will not exclude the admission of parol evidence, provided it tends to confirm this collective inference from the context. indeed, that can scarcely be termed an ambiguity, which is capable of an exposition from other parts, or from the bearing and scope, of the instrument. And it is generally true, that where the context of flected upon par- the instrument reflects light upon an ambiguous passicular passages sage, but not strong enough to decide the exposition with sufficient certainty, it may nevertheless afford

Of the lights re

by the context.

* 8 Vez. Jun. 42. Jones v. Colbeck.

a ground for the admission of extrinsic evidence. Perhaps too we may go a step further, and say, that where such secondary grounds of construction are morally decisive, as may sometimes be the case, it may be doubted, whether any extrinsic evidence can be received to contradict it, for instruments are not to be construed piecemeal, but illustration is to be borrowed from all the parts of them, to give light to particular passages.

1

In Ulrick . Litchfield", the ambiguity was also upon the face of the instrument, but there was a bearing in the language of the will that assisted the sense; parol evidence was therefore, as it seems, very consistently and properly admitted, to decide the preponderance. The devise in Castledon v. Turner, upon which the question arose, was considered as receiving illustration from the other parts of the will, and from a natural order of preference, inferible both from the instrument itself, and from the relation of the persons concerned, so that the particular uncertainty was expounded by a comparison with the general tenor and object of the will; yet the Lord Chancellor seemed to hold, that as it was a case in which there was an absolute omission of a devisee, no extrinsic evidence could be admitted. But the case, as it was regarded by his Lordship, did not stand in need of it, there being enough in the will

sometimes look

out of the instrument, and

infer the intention from the si

tuation of the person or property,

for its own exposition. The point of the case was this: "W. bequeathed his lands to his wife for her life, and after her decease, to M. D. the niece of his wife, and proceeded thus: Item, I give the use of 5001. stock for her natural life, but after her decease, I give the 5001. among my wife's brothers and sisters." Lord Hardwicke considered this as a case of the absolute omission of a devisee, and nearly the same as where a blank is left for the name of the devisee, in which case parol evidence is always excluded.

Upon the whole it appears that whatever doubts may exist, whether in any case of a palpable ambiguity patent, any help can be borrowed from The courts will mere parol evidence, consisting of words and declarations; yet it seems to be settled in practice, that if the court can, from the lights furnished by the instrument itself, gain some foundation of conjectural inference, they will look out of the instrument itself to the situation of the parties or persons concerned. Masters v. Masters (11), was a strong case decided on this principle. There a testatrix gave a sum of money to all and every the hospitals, without saying where the hospitals intended by her were; but because it appeared that the testatrix lived at Canterbury, and moreover, that she took notice by her will

And see

(11) 1 P. Wms. 423. It appears also by this case, that a blank left in a codicil may sometimes be supplied from the will. 13 Vez. Jun. 174, that circumstances dehors the will may be evidence as to the property, but not as to the intention.

of two Canterbury hospitals; the devise was held not to be void for uncertainty, but to have been intended for all the hospitals of Canterbury.

The same practice of looking out of an instrument to the situation of the parties concerned, for collecting inferences of intention, appears in the case of Harris v. the Bishop of London', which was thus: Talbot Barker being seised in fee of a real estate, as heir on the part of his mother's mother, and being also seised in fee of a very small estate of 41. per annum, as heir of his own father, devised all these lands to trustees and their heirs, in trust to pay several annuities and charities; after payment of which, he devises the residue of the rents and profits of the premises to his own right heirs of his mother's side, for ever; and the question was, who should be entitled to the residue of the rents and profits; whether the heir of the mother's father, or the heir of the mother's mother. Here the court looked beyond the will to the testator's title to the property devised, and finding it to be derived through the mother's mother, decreed it to go to the heirs of the testator on the part of his mother's mother.

This will perhaps appear when properly considered a stronger case than that of Masters and Masters, for although the extraneous matter was not introduced to explain an ambiguity patent,

2 P. Wms. 135.

since in the words of the will there was no ambiguity at all; yet it was certainly resorted to by Lord Macclesfield, to annex a meaning to words beyond their legal effect; the "right heirs of the mother's side," being a description properly applicable, in the first place, to the heir of the mother's father; nevertheless, as we have seen, the court gave the estate to the heir of the mother's mother, in deference to the argument drawn from the manner in which the estate had in fact devolved to the testator. And it is to be further noted, that in this case the Chancellor did not look out of the will to the title to the property for the sake of deciding the judgment already inclined the same way by the context of the instrument, for it does not seem that the will afforded any internal evidence,

But the want of this internal evidence in the will itself, to justify the resort in the last-mentioned case to the external facts, makes the propriety of that decision at least questionable, if we regard the authorities on this head; and, perhaps the consistency of legal principles was better consulted by the firmness of the decision of Lord Talbot, in the case of Brown v. Selwyn', which was shortly as follows: John the extinction of Brown made his will, and after several dispositions vise to the dcb- of real and personal property, devised as follows: "And as to the rest, residue and remainder of my ty; and extrin- estate, whether real or personal, whereof I am seised

Equity prevents

a debt by a de

tor, and holds

the interest to

pass by a bequest of the personal

Cas. Temp. Lord Talbot, 240; and see 4 Bro. P. C. 179.