gallantry of appeal in both. In the former case, the author had screwed himself up to the most rigid logic; in the latter, he gave unbounded scope to the suggestions of fancy. It cannot be denied that Mr Godwin is, in the pugilistic phrase, an out-and-outer. He does not stop till he reaches the verge of all we hate:' is it to be wondered if he sometimes falls over? He certainly did not do this in Caleb Williams or St Leon. Both were eminently successful; and both, as we conceive, treated of subjects congenial to Mr Godwin's mind. The one, in the character of Falkland, embodies that love of fame and passionate respect for intellectual excellence, which is a cherished inmate of the author's bosom; (the desire of undying renown breathes through every page and line of the story, and sheds its lurid light over the close, as it has been said that the genius of war blazes through the Iliad ;)-in the hero of the other, St Leon, Mr Godwin has depicted, as well he might, the feelings and habits of a solitary recluse, placed in new and imaginary situations: but from the philosophical to the romantic visionary, there was perhaps but one step. We give the decided preference to Caleb Williams over St Leon; but if it is more original and interesting, the other is more imposing and eloquent. In the suffering and dying Falkland, we feel the heart-strings of our human being break; in the other work, we are transported to a state of fabulous existence, but unfolded with ample and gorgeous circumstances. The palm-tree waves over the untrodden path of luxuriant fiction; we tread with tiptoe elevation and throbbing heart the high hill-tops of boundless existence; and the dawn of hope and renovated life makes strange music in our breast, like the strings of Memnon's harp, touched by the morning's sun. After these two works, he fell off; he could not sustain himself at that height by the force of genius alone, and Mr Godwin has unfortunately no resources but his genius. He has no Edie Ochiltree at his elbow. His New Man of Feeling we forget; though we well remember the old one by our Scottish Addison, Mackenzie. Mandeville, which followed, is morbid and disagreeable; it is a description of a man and his ill-humour, carried to a degree of derangement. The reader is left far behind. Mr Godwin has attempted two plays, neither of which has succeeded, nor could succeed. If a tragedy consisted of a series of soliloquies, nobody could write it better than our author. But the essence of the drama depends on the alternation and conflict of different passions, and Mr Godwin's forte is harping on the same string. He is a reformist, both as it regards the world and himself. If he is told of a fault, he amends it if he can. His Life of Chaucer was objected to as too romantic and dashing; and in his late History of the Common wealth, he has gone into an excess the other way. His style creeps, and hitches in dates and authorities. We must not omit his Lives of Edward and John Phillips, the nephews of Milton -an interesting contribution to literary history; and his Observations on Judge Eyre's Charge to the Jury in 1794,-one of the most acute and seasonable political pamphlets that ever appeared. He some years ago wrote an Essay on Sepulchres, which contained an idle project enough, but was enriched with some beautiful reflections on old and new countries, and on the memorials of posthumous fame. It is a singular circumstance that our author should maintain for twenty years, that Mr Malthus's theory (in opposition to his own) was unanswerable, and then. write an answer to it, which did not much mend the matter. It is worth knowing (in order to trace the history and progress of the intellectual character) that the author of Political Justice and Caleb Williams commenced his career as a dissenting clergyman; and the book-stalls sometimes present a volume of Sermons by him, and we believe, an English Grammar. We cannot tell whether Mr Godwin will have reason to be pleased with our opinion of him; at least, he may depend on our sincerity, and will know what it is. ART. VII. The Question of Registry, or no Registry, considered, with reference to the Interests of Landowners and Commercial Credit; in a Letter to the Right Honourable ROBERT PEEL. By H. BELLENDEN KER, Esq. F.R.S. 8vo. London. 1830. THE THE uncertainty and the complexity of the principles which govern the laws relating to the transfer of real property in England, have long been known and admitted. Till lately, however, none has ventured to approach the task of reform in this important department. Some years ago, we called the attention of our readers, generally, to the subject, and attempted, as far as perhaps it was then possible, to point out some of the more glaring evils of the system. After this came Mr Humphrey's valuable work, which has also been noticed in this Journal; and there can be but few of our readers who are unacquainted with the result of Mr Brougham's motion for a general enquiry into the state of the law. Two Commissions were appointed to enquire, the one into the proceedings of the English courts of Common Law, the other, into the state of the laws relating to Real Property in England. The former Commission has presented two Reports, of great value, whether we regard the information or the suggestions which they contain; and one voluminous Report has been presented by the latter Commission, highly creditable at once to the talents and the liberal spirit of the learned persons employed. Another will probably be presented to Parliament before these pages see the light. In their First Report, the Commissioners have taken a review of the general state of the law of real property, dividing it into two heads-Enjoyment and Transfer. They conceive that the laws which relate to the enjoyment of property, require few essential alterations; but, as to those which regulate the transfer of it, the field for reform appears to be ample. We shall extract a few introductory remarks from the Report on this head, which we think will fully bear out all that has been said on this subject, either by ourselves or others : It appears to us that the modes by which estates, and interests in real property, are created, transferred, and secured, are exceedingly defective, and require many important alterations. This proceeds in a considerable degree from rules and maxims which once were suitable and rational, being maintained when the state of society, and the modifications of property, are changed. Statutes have been often passed on the spur of the occasion, with little regard to the harmony of the system; and, from the reign of your Majesty's illustrious ancestor, King Edward I., till the issuing of this Commission by your Majesty, there has been no general revision of the law. A long succession of upright and able judges have corrected many abuses, and introduced many improvements; yet their decisions have occasionally exhibited a strange vacillation between rigid adherence to technical forms, and respect for the principles of enlightened jurisprudence. They have found themselves unable to break through rules become purely arbitrary. Thus, though military tenures have been long abolished, the incidents of military tenure are still often referred to in judicial argument; and the manifest intention of the parties to a deed is, at this day, liable to be defeated, because the law supposes that there must always be a tenant seised of the freehold to attend the Lord's Court, and to defend any real action that may be brought by an adverse claimant. The cumbrous and circuitous forms of conveyancing now in use, are founded on antiquated doctrines. - Dower has long ceased to be the provision for widows, but the legal right to it remains in its ancient strictness. To evade this, and to make obsolete law bend to modern usage, there are introduced into every conveyance upon a purchase of land, limitations which not only swell its bulk, but sometimes lead to very inconvenient consequences. Although what could in former times be only done indirectly by way of fiction, is now acknowledged law, the fiction is still preserved. Thus a married woman conveys her interest by means of an imaginary suit, called levying a fine, and an estate tail is now barred by a fictitious recompense in value, awarded to the issue in tail through the medium of a common recovery. • Much perplexity and confusion have likewise been occasioned by the entire want of system in the various periods of limitation, and the incongruous variety of remedies allowed for the recovery of real property. • But there is no evil in the present system of conveyancing so great as the want of a substitute for the notice supposed by the common law to be given by the open delivery of possession upon the creation of an estate of freehold. At present, there is constant danger from secret transfers and secret charges. To guard against this, outstanding terms and other legal estates (that is, mere fictitious estates, as far as regards possession, enjoyment, and dominion,) are carefully kept alive, in the hope that an older legal estate may fortify the title of a purchaser against an intervening fraud. 'Hence abstracts of title are loaded with tracing not only the transmission of the equitable, or beneficial estate, for a considerable time, but also of numerous legal estates, for a still longer period; and the purchaser either insists on having these brought down and conveyed to his own nominee, or, if he consents to waive this on account of the great difficulty and expense which may attend it, he submits, as his legal advisers well know, to a considerable risk. When all is done, there is no absolute certainty, on the one hand, that a court of law may not consider the legal estate he relies on, to have been determined by a presumed surrender, or, on the other, that some older, and therefore (if subsisting) preferable estate, may not be outstanding for the protection of some unknown and still more vigilant, or more fortunate purchaser or incumbrancer. The controlling power exercised by the Court of Chancery, has certainly done much in preventing hardship in individual cases, from the inapt maxims that are considered as still binding in courts of law, and in settling conflicting claims according to the true principles of justice; but this has been found a dilatory and expensive mode of obtaining relief, and new evils have arisen from the rules of property applicable to the same subject matter, under the same circumstances, in two competent tribunals, in the same country, being essentially different. A formidable inconvenience has likewise been produced from the vast load of business thus brought into Courts of Equity.-Real Property Report, p. 7. We have given this passage as the text upon which we are about to comment. It contains matter deserving of the deepest consideration; because it speaks the sense of the persons best entitled to be heard upon the subject,-whether we regard their general learning in the law, or their practical experience in that branch of it which is under discussion. The important subject of a General Registry, which is broached in a prominent part of the passage quoted, has excited much controversy among the lawyers of England; and, as might be expected, has given an occasion to the alarmists,-the enemies of all reform, who perpetually confound change with destruction, for propounding their favourite commonplaces, and seeking to rouse the prejudices and the fears of particular classes, when they despair of convincing the reason of the community at large. The discussion has fortunately produced, among other works of learning and ability, in favour of the projected improvement, the very excellent tract of Mr Bellenden Ker, which now lies before us, and which we particularly recommend, on account of the admirable perspicuity of its explanations. They are indeed so didactic, that a person ignorant of the principles and practice of English jurisprudence, may form a most accurate judgment of the matter handled in the argument for the change, by being first made thoroughly to understand the present state of the law, and the mischiefs which arise out of its defects. The learned author is himself an experienced and eminent conveyancer; and, like Mr Humphreys, he seems to regard himself as a more judicious friend of their common profession, by pointing out its imperfections, and attempting to remove them, than those whose intolerant and indiscriminate praises, assuming all to be faultless, preclude the chance of a cure. The question may be stated very shortly; nor are we aware of any stronger argument in favour of the proposed measure, than this simple statement of the case at once presents. Personal and movable property passes from hand to hand by actual delivery. According to the law of all countries, the apparent owner of chattels, except in a few cases of rare occurrence, is the real owner; and it is not the practice in any country to burden such property, by constituting rights over it in favour of one party, while the possession remains in another. Therefore, in almost every instance, you are quite safe in dealing with him who has the chattel in his actual custody, as if he had the entire dominion over it, unfettered by any other person's rights. But the case is widely different with respect to real or landed property; which, from its nature, is incapable of being delivered from one to another, or kept in exclusive corporal possession; and which, partly from its great importance, partly from its immovable nature, partly from the feudal scheme of polity, has become the subject of a kind of dealing hardly ever applied to chattels, whereby different persons may have different kinds of interest in the same property. It may belong to two or more jointly; it may be one person's as long as he lives, and no longer; another's immediately on his decease: it may belong to a person under certain conditions, the breach of which incurs a forfeiture of all right to it; it may be in one man's occupation for another's sole benefit; it ma pledged by the owner for his debt, and yet remain |