Then as to the benefit of the use. We are told that the right to sue the subpoena descended indeed to the heir, on the ground of heres eadem persona cum antecessore, but that it was not assets. /5/ The cestui que use was given power to sell by an early statute. /6/ But with regard to trusts, Lord Coke tells us that in the reign of Queen Elizabeth [409] all the judges in England held that a trust could not be assigned, "because it was a matter in privity between them, and was in the nature of a chose in action." /1/ Uses and trusts were both devisable, however, from an early day, /2/ and now trusts are as alienable as any form of property. The history of early law everywhere shows that the difficulty of transferring a mere right was greatly felt when the situation of fact from which it sprung could not also be transferred. Analysis shows that the difficulty is real. The fiction which made such a transfer conceivable has now been explained, and its history has been followed until it has been seen to become a general mode of thought. It is now a matter of course that the buyer stands in the shoes of the seller, or, in the language of an old law-book, /3/ that "the assign is in a manner quasi successor to his assignor." Whatever peculiarities of our law rest on that assumption may now be understood. FOOTNOTES 3/1 E.g. Ine, c. 74; Alfred, c. 42; Ethelred, IV. 4, Section 1. 3/2 Bract., fol. 144, 145; Fleta, I. c. 40, 41; Co. Lit. 126b; Hawkins, P.C., Bk. 2, ch. 23, Section 15. 3/3 Lib. I. c. 2, ad fin. 3 /4 Bract., fol. 144a, "assulto praemeditato." 4/1 Fol. 155; cf. 103b. 4/2 Y.B. 6 Ed. IV. 7, pl. 18. 4/3 Ibid., and 21 H. VII. 27, pl. 5. 4/4 D. 47. 9. 9. 7/1 xxi. 28. 7/2 [theta], ix. Jowett's Tr., Bk. IX. p. 437; Bohn's Tr., pp. 378, 379. 7/3 [theta], xv., Jowett, 449; Bohn, 397. 8/1 [iota alpha], xiv., Jowett, 509; Bohn, 495. 8/2 [theta], xii., Jowett, 443, 444; Bohn, 388. 8/3 [Greek words]. 244, 245. 8/4 l. 28 (11). 8/5 Solon. 8/6 "Si quadrupes pauperiem fecisse dicetur actio ex lege duodecim tabularum descendit; quae lex voluit, aut dari [id] quod nocuit, id ist, id animal, quod noxiam commisit; aut estimationem noxiae offerre." D. 9. 1. 1, pr.; Just. Inst. 4. 9; XII Tab., VIII. 6. 8/7 Gaii Inst. IV. Sections 75, 76; D. 9. 4. 2, Section 1. "Si servus furtum faxit noxiam ve noxit." XII Tab., XII.2. Cf. Just. Inst. 4.8, Section 7. 9/1 D. 39. 2. 7, Sections 1, 2; Gaii Inst. IV. Section 75. 9/2 "Noxa caput sequitur." D. 9. 1. 1, Section 12; Inst. 4.8, Section 5. 9/3 "Quia desinit dominus esse ubi fera evasit." D. 9. 1. 1, Section 10; Inst. 4. 9, pr. Compare May v. Burdett, 9 Q.B.101, 113. 10/1 D. 19. 5. 14, Section 3; Plin. Nat. Hist., XVIII. 3. 10/2 "In lege antiqua si servus sciente domino furtum fecit, vel aliam noxiam commisit, servi nomine actio est noxalis, nec dominus suo nomine tenetur." D. 9. 4. 2.