is a person who succeeds to another by descent. Both in England and Scotland, estates, in the absence of a different special destination, descend to heirs in the direct line, however remote. The exclusion of parents, until the extinction of all descendants, both direct and collateral, is almost peculiar to the laws of these kingdoms. By the Jewish law, on the failure of issue, a father succeeded to his deceased son, to the exclusion of the son's brothers, unless one of them married and had issue by his widow. By the Roman law, on the failure of children or lineal descendants, the father and mother, or other lineal ascendants succeeded, together with the deceased's brothers and sisters. As a consequence, however, of the feudal system in Britain, a landed estate descends to sons, in the order of their seniority—the issue of the elder son always excluding the immediate younger son, and so on through the whole sons. It is only in default of such issue that daughters succeed, and then they succeed equally. The children of a deceased child in the order now mentioned, represent the parent, and exclude all relatives which such deceased parent, if surviving, would have excluded. By this rule the son of an eldest son, and failing him and his issue, the daughters of an eldest son, equally among them, and their descendants, exclude the other sons and daughters of the ancestor, and so on through all the ancestor's children. On the entire failure of lineal descendants, the estate goes to collateral heirs—that is, the ancestor's immediate younger brothers in the order above mentioned, and their issue; failing whom it goes to his sisters equally and their issue. On the entire failure of collateral descendants, it goes to the ancestor's father, then collaterally to the ancestor's uncles and their descendants; whom failing, to his aunts (the latter equally) and their descendants. It is only on the failure of all these, that the succession opens to the grandfather, and next to his relatives. There is no succession by or through the mother, unless the estate came from her. In Scotland where an estate is not acquired by inheritance, it is called conquest; and in all competitions among brothers or uncles, or their descendants regarding conquest, it is not the immediate younger brother or uncle, as in heritage, who succeeds, but the immediate elder brother or uncle.

HEIR by Destination, sometimes called "heir of provision," is a person called to succeed by the will of the proprietor, either directly, or on the failure of persons to whom the estate is primarily conveyed. Any absolute proprietor executing a conveyance of his estate, can regulate the order of succession; but unless the specified destination be protected and enforced by certain legal prohibitions and re- HEI

HELEN, St., the mother of the Emperor Constantine, was born of humble parents in Bithynia. The place of her birth was the little town of Drepanum which her son afterwards raised to the dignity of a city, under the name of Helenopolis. Reasons of state compelled her husband (Constantius Chlorus) to divorce her when he assumed the purple in A.D. 292; but she was amply compensated for this indignity by her son Constantine. After her conversion to the Christian faith, which seems to have been effected by her son, she made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, where she is said to have discovered the Saviour's tomb, and the real wood of his cross. She exhibited so many virtues and so much Christian zeal and charity, that in due time after her death, which happened in A.D. 328, she was canonized by the church.