MORTMAIN, signifies an alienation of lands and tenements to any corporation, and their successors, as bishops, parsons, vicars, &c. which is restrained in Magna Charts, and cannot be done without the King's license. The disposing of pro perty to hospitals is allowed by 35 Eliz. c. 5. and various enactments• have been' made, to prevent the influence of priests and crafty men from taking advantage of the last hours of the lives of weak de votees, by obtaining gifts in mortmain or perpetuity. The chief of these is the stat. 9. Geo. II c. 36, (called the statute of mortmain) that no manors, lands, tene ments, rents, advowsons, or other heredi. taments, corporeal or incorporeal, what soever, nor any sum or sums of money, chattles, stocks in the public Roods, funds, securities for money, or other per sonal estate whatever, to be laid out or disposed of in the purchase of any lands, tenements, or hereditaments, shall be given, limited, or appointed by will, to any person or persons, bodies politic or corporate, or otherwise, for any estate or interest whatsoever, or any ways charged or incumbered by any person or persons whatsoever in trust, or for the benefit of any charitable use whatsoever ; but such gift shall he by deed, indented, sealed, and delivered, in the presence of two or more credible witnesses, twelve calendar months at least before the death of such donor, and be enrolled in the high Court of Chancery within six calendar months after execution, and the same to take effect immediately after the execution for the charitable use intended, and be with out any power of revocation, reservation, or trust, for benefit of the donor. And
by the fourth section all gifts or incum brances otherwise made are void. This act however does not extend to prevent the making bequests, merely, of money, to charitable uses, and it is much to be feared that certain fanatics, who are what the monks were formerly, have taken advantage of this, to obtain great be. quests of property to improper purposes. In the Evangelical Magazine is publish ed frequently a form of a bequest for the encouragement of Calvinistic Methodism.