It is needless to add, that the weight of this eminent person's authority is very great in the law upon every question with which he had occasion to deal. In the House of Lords none stands higher; and we cite the following just eulogy pronounced upon him in that court of last resort, the rather because Lord Meadowbank's opinion was the ground upon which the Lords overruled a case often cited in the courts below; a case, however, which Lord Meadowbank, with the freedom and the discrimination in weighing authorities already alluded to, had not hesitated to declare bad law. In the important case of Inglis v. Mansfield, April, 1835, Lord Brougham gave the judgment of the House connected with that case, and said, "We have the admitted sense of professional men, but above all, we have what is to me the highest authority, and of the greatest weight, that of the late Lord Meadowbank; he having been one of the very best of lawyers, one of the most acute of men, a man of a philosophical mind, a man of great reach of thought, of large general capacity, of great experience, and without exception the most diligent and attentive judge I ever remember in the practice of the Scotch law." His Lordship then proceeds to state, his having introduced the most useful practice of appending notes to interlocutors, in one of which is found Lord Meadowbank's unhesitating opinion against the authority of Houston v. Stuart. Lord Meadowbank never gave any work to the world, except his able and profound dissertation, in the Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, upon the Origin and Formation of the Feudal System; and a tract of great merit, and much practical use, upon the Application of Jury Trial to Scotch Civil Proceedings, in 1814. Of the latter work, Lord Eldon formed a very high opinion, and expressed himself to this effect in a letter which is now before us. He particularly mentions "his surprise at the accurate knowledge of English jury proceedings." But he was probably not aware of the English law education which the author had received, as we have already stated. In 1815, he was appointed one of the Judges of the new Jury Court, then established; and in this as in all other departments of his judicial duty he gave unbounded satisfaction both to his colleagues, to the profession, and to the suitors. For many years of his life, Lord Meadowbank, always fond of mechanics and other experimental researches, had devoted much of his spare time to agricultural pursuits, in which he was knowing and skilful. His health was, generally speaking, good, and he passed on his farm, and among his books, all the hours which he could take from his professional occupations. But about the year 1814, it began to fail, and for the last few months of the two years that he still lived, he was confined to the house, and only could take an airing in the carriage. It is, however, singular, that not only his cheerful temper and lively disposition remained unaltered, but it was seen how eager and how active his mind continued to the last. His faculties were wholly unimpaired; and the ardent desire of knowledge and fondness for argument and discussion abode by him to the end. Within a few days of his decease, he desired strict inquiry to be made after two works which he had seen advertised in the newspapers; and aware how nearly he approached his end, he expressed some disappointment at finding that they were not yet published. One of the last incidents of his life, and which gave him extreme satisfaction, was the elevation of his eldest son, then Solicitor-General, to the head of his profession, as Lord Advocate. He died 14th June, 1816, in the 69th year of his age, leaving, with the Lord Advocate (since a Judge by the same title with his father), Robert, in the East India Company's service, both still surviving, and James, a Scotch barrister, and a man of much curious and accurate learning, who died early in the present year. Thomas, in the profession of the Law, died in the year 1816. It remains to add, that, in private life, no man could be more amiable in all respects. His strict and undeviating integrity, his high sense of honour, the kindness of his nature, and the strength of his attachments in all the relations of society, both towards his family and his friends, were without an exception or a blot. He delighted to assist the young and inexperienced with his counsels, and opened to them freely the stores of his great knowledge. He was fond of discussion, and though unyielding in argument, he was a fair and well-natured disputant. The difference which he had with his old and intimate friend, Dr. Gregory, lasted a few years, and was succeeded by a renewal of all their ancient intimacy; but it was only one of the many estrangements which were incident to the social intercourse of that eminent and gifted, though somewhat eccentric, individual. Lord Meadowbank's kindness, however, was not within the circle of his connections, confined to his disposition, his temper, or his advice. He was, to the extent of his means, and even beyond it, helpful to the relatives who stood in need of his assistance, as appears by the correspondence which remains, and as never was otherwise known. We have deemed that we discharged a duty to the legal profession in bringing before our readers the studies and the actions of this distinguished Judge, the rather because they illustrate the position often lost sight of by busy men, and not comprehended by men of narrow minds, that all the liberal arts are mysteriously related, having what Tully calls "quoddam commune vinculum ; " that no man can justly be regarded as an accomplished lawyer whose knowledge is closely confined to the lore of his own profession; and that the student, the practitioner, the administrator of the law, may most usefully enlarge their understanding, from branches of general learning, without any risk whatever of becoming less skilful in their own art, or less successful in its practice. ART. VI. - ON THE LAW RELATING TO CONDITIONS OF SALE. No persons experience more surprise than the owners of landed estates, when they are informed that the property which they have enjoyed for a long course of years, either by descent from an ancestor, or by undisturbed transfer from a former owner, is in point of law totally unmarketable. The general ignorance respecting the nature of titles and the principles of tenure leads such parties to imagine, that estates, of which they are the lawful owners by every moral right, are therefore accompanied by an equally unquestionable legal title. But a long series of decisions in Courts of Equity upon suits for the specific performance of contracts, whether for the sale or for the purchase of lands, has established a contrary conclusion, and rendered it an imperative precaution on the part of every vendor, that his title should undergo a strict technical investigation before he offers his estate for sale. By such means a well-advised vendor is saved from entering into fruitless contracts; while he avoids the still greater disadvantage and probable loss arising from the condemnation of his title by a court of justice, and from the inducements or opportunities thus afforded for the preferment of adverse claims resting upon flaws unadvisedly exposed. He is thus enabled beforehand to impose such restrictions on a purchaser, and to reserve such rights to himself, as shall effectually obviate the difficulties and perils to which we have alluded: or otherwise to refrain from offering his estate for sale with a doubtful or unmarketable title. Special conditions of sale have hence derived their origin : and when the language in which they are clothed, and the points to which they relate, are carefully digested and selected, the result is of great value to the vendor. Such conditions, however, are often inartificially and illogically drawn; they frequently proceed upon an insufficient knowledge of the title to which they relate, and not seldom exhibit a very limited apprehension of the effects or consequences which will result from the conditions themselves. In point of form they fluctuate as widely as last wills and testaments; and on many occasions they have been productive of so much litigation and mischief, that an unreserved or unconditional sale would probably have been less detrimental to the parties concerned. It appears also from Sir Edward Sugden's denunciation of the practice, that auctioneers were formerly employed or allowed to prepare the conditions of sale: but that learned writer advises that a vendor should never permit such a course of proceeding, as continual disputes had arisen from the mis-statements consequent upon their ignorance of the title. This practice has probably now ceased; but in consequence of the want of fixed precedents applicable with the same facility as common forms in conveyances, great uncertainty has prevailed as to the interpretation of the conditions most frequently used, and the best mode of rectifying the errors which they contain. Such conditions, however, are not, in our apprehension, necessarily accompanied by all their present dangers and imperfections. The preparation of such conditions in an effectual form is doubtless an exercise of the utmost skill and knowledge of the conveyancer. But the subject will probably be matured by the various decisions of the courts into something like a systematic shape, in the same way as the established forms of conveyancing have acquired their present accuracy and precision and in the mean time the construction of a well-digested code of conditions applicable to all the ordinary emergencies of vendors and purchasers, and expressed in language of definite legal import, would be a task worthy of the highest learning and attainments in the doctrines of real property. : In Hyde v. Dallaway1, Lord Langdale, M. R., observed on the difficulty which the Court sometimes had in dealing with special conditions of sale. "On the one hand it was hard to say that parties should not enter into contracts suited to their convenience and to the exigency of their titles ; but, on the other hand, conditions of sale were sometimes of 14 Beav. 606. |