ary_ maintenance to children; but what is more than that, they
have no other right to, than as it is given them by the favour of
their parents, or the positive constitutions of the municipal law.

[Footnote d: _Ff._ 25. 3. 5.]

[Footnote e: _Nov._ 115.]

[Footnote f: _l._ 4. _c._ 11. Sec. 7.]

[Footnote g: _De j.b. & p._ _l._ 2. _c._ 7. _n._ 3.]

LET us next see what provision our own laws have made for this natural
duty. It is a principle of law[h], that there is an obligation on
every man to provide for those descended from his loins: and the
manner, in which this obligation shall be performed, is thus pointed
out[i]. The father, and mother, grandfather, and grandmother of poor
impotent persons shall maintain them at their own charges, if of
sufficient ability, according as the quarter sessions shall direct:
and[k] if a parent runs away, and leaves his children, the
churchwardens and overseers of the parish shall seise his rents,
goods, and chattels, and dispose of them towards their relief. By the
interpretations which the courts of law have made upon these statutes,
if a mother or grandmother marries again, and was before such second
marriage of sufficient ability to keep the child, the husband shall be
charged to maintain it[l]: for this being a debt of hers, when
single, shall like others extend to charge the husband. But at her
death, the relation being dissolved, the husband is under no farther
obligation.

[Footnote h: Raym. 500.]

[Footnote i: Stat. 43 Eliz. c. 2.]

[Footnote k: Stat. 5 Geo. I. c. 8.]

[Footnote l: Styles. 283. 2 Bulstr. 346.]

NO person is bound to provide a maintenance for his issue, unless
where the children are impotent and unable to work, either through
infancy, disease, or accident; and then is only obliged to find them
with necessaries, the penalty on refusal being no more than 20_s._ a
month. For the policy of our laws, which are ever watchful to promote
industry, did not mean to compel a father to maintain his idle and
lazy children in ease and indolence: but thought it unjust to oblige
the parent, against his will, to provide them with superfluities, and
other indulgences of fortune; imagining they might trust to the
impulse of nature, if the children were deserving of such favours.
Yet, as nothing is so apt to stifle the calls of nature as religious
bigotry, it is enacted[m], that if any popish parent shall refuse to
allow his protestant child a fitting maintenance, wit