To that passage, I have turned. Bracton there confirms the text of Glanville, and tells us, that the Law is so, unless in some cities and boroughs.—This leads him to mention the custom of London, and some floating opinions about its extent. He is of opinion, that the will of a citizen of London ought to be free, and unrestrained by any such limitation, as was imposed upon wills by the common Law. But Lord Coke has hastily assumed, that what Bracton spoke _of the custom of London only_, related to the kingdom at large. As this assumption fails, the deduction that flowed from it fails also. Sir William Blackstone, I find, has mentioned and refuted Lord Coke’s mistake. (2 Comm. 492) as has Mr. Somner in his Treatise on Gavelkynd, p. 96. To these authors, the reader may refer, as also to Reeves’s Hist. Eng. Law. 2. 334. 335. and F.N.B. 270. In concluding this note, I shall mention, the course of distribution of an Intestate’s Effects under the Laws of Canute, and the conqueror. Under the _former_, the Lord took the Heriot, and the remainder was distributed between the wife, children, and relatives, _cuilibet pro dignitate quæ ad cum pertinet_. (LL. Canuti, 68.) Under the _latter_, the children divided the Inheritance equally between them. (LL. Gul. Conq. 36.)] [Footnote 242: Bracton and Fleta perfectly concur with our author, except that they use the word _children_ instead of Heir, adding, that if the deceased had no children, then, the one half was at his own disposal, the other belongs to the wife; and, if he had neither wife nor child, the whole was at his own disposal. (Bracton 60. b. Fleta L. 2. c. 57. s. 10.) Before we quit the present chapter, it may not be amiss to observe, that Glanville has been thought grossly to contradict himself in the course of it. But this has been inconsiderately imputed to him by those, who have not attended to the context. He states, that according to certain customs, which prevailed in particular places, a man was bound to remember his Lord, and the Church, previously to his making his will. But, says he, whatever those customs inculcate, yet, according to the Law of the realm, no man is bound to leave any thing _to any particular person_, unless it be his inclination, for every man’s will is free, _over that part of his property which the Law permits him to dispose of, namely, a third, or, eventually, a half_—When our author laid it down, that a man’s will was to be free, he did not mean to assert, that he was at liberty to dispose of _all_ his property. Should it in the present day be laid down, that a Testator’s will was free, and that he was not bound to give any thing to any particular individual, would it be a fair inference, that a man could devise his _entailed_ Lands? It we apply this to Glanville, he is consistent, and will be understood to speak, with reference to persons, what he has been considered to speak, with respect to things.