nts were
afterwards agreed to unanimously by the commons.

An important alteration was made in this session, also, in the civil law
of the country in respect of the forms to be observed in the execution
of wills. This subject was introduced in the house of peers on the 23rd
of February, by Lord Langdale, the master of the rolls. His lordship
said that the general object of the measure was to collect the
provisions of several statutes relating to wills into one act of
parliament; and to make at the same time such modifications of these
provisions as should afford additional securities for the prevention of
spurious wills, and additional facilities for making genuine ones.
His lordship proposed to allow the owner of copyholds and customary
freeholds to dispose of them by will, which could not now be done. As
the law stood, a person could only bequeath such real property as he was
possessed of at the time of making his will; but his lordship said
he would enable the testator to dispose of any he might acquire
subsequently to the execution of the will. At present no person under
the age of twenty-one could make a will: his lordship proposed to give
the power of disposing of personal property to those who were beyond the
age of seventeen. With respect to witnesses the bill would enact that in
all cases the execution of the will must be attested by two, whether the
property were real or personal. An executor would be admitted to give
evidence of the validity of a will, which he could not do at present.
Under the existing law it was not necessary that both the witnesses
should be present at the same time; but the bill provided that the
signature of the testator or his acknowledgment should be made in the
presence of two witnesses, who should then attest it themselves. With
respect to the revocation of wills, no alteration was proposed in
the rule whereby a woman's will is set aside, by marriage; but it was
proposed to alter the rule adopted from the ecclesiastical courts
in modern times, whereby a man's will is considered as revoked by a
subsequent marriage and the birth of a child. The bill finally provided
for the due construction and effect of certain words. His lordship said
that a legislative construction of words had been objected to; but,
he argued, that when a rule of construction which plainly violated the
lawful intention of testators had been established in the courts of law,
there was no way of correcting it but by