"
"I should have said that that was just what it was devised for."
"I think not. It was devised with the more picturesque idea of maintaining
chivalric associations. Heirlooms have become so, not that the future
owners of them may be assured of so much wealth, whatever the value of the
thing so settled may be, but that the son or grandson or descendant may
enjoy the satisfaction which is derived from saying, My father or my
grandfather or my ancestor sat in that chair, or looked as he now looks in
that picture, or was graced by wearing on his breast that very ornament
which you now see lying beneath the glass. Crown jewels are heirlooms in
the same way, as representing not the possession of the sovereign, but the
time-honoured dignity of the Crown. The Law, which, in general, concerns
itself with our property or lives and our liberties, has in this matter
bowed gracefully to the spirit of chivalry and has lent its aid to
romance! but it certainly did not do so to enable the discordant heirs of
a rich man to settle a simple dirty question of money, which, with
ordinary prudence, the rich-man should himself have settled before he
died.
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