vilege from the emperor: _collegium, si
nullo speciali privilegio subnixum fit, haereditatem capere non posse,
dubium non est_. _Cod._ 6. 24. 8.]

[Footnote z: 1 Inst. 2.]

I SHALL defer the more particular exposition of these statutes of
mortmain, till the next book of these commentaries, when we shall
consider the nature and tenures of estates; and also the exposition of
those disabling statutes of queen Elizabeth, which restrain spiritual
and eleemosynary corporations from aliening such lands as they are
present in legal possession of: only mentioning them in this place,
for the sake of regularity, as statutable incapacities incident and
relative to corporations.

THE general _duties_ of all bodies politic, considered in their
corporate capacity, may, like those of natural persons, be reduced to
this single one; that of acting up to the end or design, whatever it
be, for which they were created by their founder.

III. I PROCEED therefore next to enquire, how these corporations may
be _visited_. For corporations being composed of individuals, subject
to human frailties, are liable, as well as private persons, to deviate
from the end of their institution. And for that reason the law has
provided proper persons to visit, enquire into, and correct all
irregularities that arise in such corporations, either sole or
aggregate, and whether ecclesiastical, civil, or eleemosynary. With
regard to all ecclesiastical corporations, the ordinary is their
visitor, so constituted by the canon law, and from thence derived to
us. The pope formerly, and now the king, as supreme ordinary, is the
visitor of the arch-bishop or metropolitan; the metropolitan has the
charge and coercion of all his suffragan bishops; and the bishops in
their several dioceses are the visitors of all deans and chapters, of
all parsons and vicars, and of all other spiritual corporations. With
respect to all lay corporations, the founder, his heirs, or assigns,
are the visitors, whether the foundation be civil or eleemosynary; for
in a lay incorporation the ordinary neither can nor ought to visit[a].

[Footnote a: 10 Rep. 31.]

I KNOW it is generally said, that civil corporations are subject to no
visitation, but merely to the common law of the land; and this shall
be presently explained. But first, as I have laid it down as a rule
that the founder, his heirs, or assigns, are the visitors of all
lay-corporations, let us enquire what is meant by the _founde