not have diſtinguiſhed him from others; and beſides he has no longer an eſtate of inheritance, or fee[1], for he can have no heirs, capable of taking per formam doni. Had it called him tenant in tail without iſſue, this had only related to the preſent fact, and would not have excluded the poſſibility of future iſſue. Had he been ſtiled tenant in tail without poſſibility of iſſue, this would exclude time paſt as well as preſent, and he might under this deſcription never have had any poſſibility of iſſue. No definition therefore could ſo exactly mark him out, as this of tenant in tail after poſſibility of iſſue extinct, which (with a preciſion peculiar to our own law) not only takes in the poſſibility of iſſue in tail which he once had, but alſo ſtates that this poſſibility is now extinguiſhed and gone.
This eſtate muſt be created by the act of God, that is, by the death of that perſon out of whoſe body the iſſue was to ſpring; for no limitation, conveyance, or other human act can make it. For, if land be given to a man and his wife, and the heirs of their two bodies begotten, and they are divorced a vinculo matrimonii, they ſhall neither of them have this eſtate, but be barely tenants for life, notwithſtanding the inheritance once veſted in them[2]. A poſſibility of iſſue is always ſuppoſed to exiſt, in law, unleſs extinguiſhed by the death of the parties; even though the donees be each of them an hundred years old[3].
This eſtate is of an amphibious nature, partaking partly of an eſtate-tail, and partly of an eſtate for life. The tenant is, in truth, only tenant for life, but with many of the privileges of a tenant in tail; as, not to be puniſhable for waſte, &c[4]: or, he is tenant in tail, with many of the reſtrictions of a tenant for life; as, to forfeit his eſtate if he alienes it in fee-ſimple[5]: whereas ſuch alienation by tenant in tail, though voidable by the iſſue, is no forfeiture of the eſtate to the reverſioner; who is not concerned in intereſt, till all poſſibility of iſſue be extinct. But, in
