shelves, belonging to the Dunstan branch of the old Smith family. At
one moment, during the searches, it is true, hopes were excited on the
perception of a faint brimstone odour issuing from an antiquated iron
box found among some rubbish; but instead of any vellum or parchment,
there were only the unused remains of some bundles of veteran matches,
with their tinder-box accomplice, which had been thrown aside and
forgotten, ever since the time when the functions of those old hardened
incendiaries, flint and steel, were extinguished by the lucifers.
All further search, it is feared, will be in vain; and the deed is now
believed to be as irrecoverably lost, as the musty muster-roll of Battle
Abbey.

A legal friend has volunteered an opinion, that certain supposed defects
in the alleged deed evince its spuriousness, and even if genuine, its
inefficiency. His words are, "The absence of all legal consideration,
that is to say, valuable consideration, such as money, or money's worth;
or good consideration, such as natural love and affection, would render
the deed void, or voidable, as a mere _nudum pactum_. [See
_Plowden_.] Moreover, an objection arises from there being no
_Anno Domini_, [_Year Book, Temp. Ric. III._] and no _Anno Regni_,
[_Croke Eliz._] and no condition _in poenam_. [_Lib. Ass._] Now,
if the original deed had been thus defective, the covenanting party
thereto is too good a lawyer, not to have set it aside."

To these learned subtleties it may be answered, that the deed was
evidently intended, not so much as an instrument effectively binding
"the covenanting party," as a record whereby to justify a renewal
of punishment, in case of contravention of any of the articles of
treaty. It would have been informal to make mention of money as the
consideration, it being patent that this "covenanting party" considers