end. This eſtate is a fee, becauſe by poſſibility it may endure for ever in a man and his heirs; yet as that duration depends upon the concurrence of collateral circumſtances, which qualify and debaſe the purity of the donation, it is therefore a qualified or baſe fee.
2. A conditional fee, at the common law, was a fee reſtrained to ſome particular heirs, excluſive of others: "donatio ſtricta et coarctata[1]; ſicut certis haeredibus, quibuſdam a ſucceſſione excluſis:" as, to the heirs of a man's body, by which only his lineal deſcendants were admitted, in excluſion of collateral heirs; or, to the heirs male of his body, in excluſion both of collaterals, and lineal females alſo. It was called a conditional fee, by reaſon of the condition expreſſed or implied in the donation of it, that if the donee died without ſuch particular heirs, the land ſhould revert to the donor. For this was a condition annexed by law to all grants whatſoever; that on failure of the heirs ſpecified in the grant, the grant ſhould be at an end, and the land return to it's antient proprietor[2]. Such conditional fees were ſtrictly agreeable to the nature of feuds, when they firſt ceaſed to be mere eſtates for life, and were not yet arrived to be abſolute eſtates in fee-ſimple. And we find ſtrong traces of theſe limited, conditional fees, which could not be alienated from the lineage of the firſt purchaſor, in our earlieſt Saxon laws[3].
Now, with regard to the condition annexed to theſe fees by the common law, our anceſtors held, that ſuch a gift (to a man and the heirs of his body) was a gift upon condition, that it ſhould revert to the donor, if the donee had no heirs of his body; but, if he had, it ſhould then remain to the donee. They therefore called it a fee-ſimple, on condition that he had iſſue. Now we muſt obſerve, that, when any condition is performed, it is thenceforth intirely gone; and the thing, to which it was before
