687.—Rule in Shel~ ley’s Case. A celebrated rule in English law, ropounded in Lord Coke’s reports im the folowing form: That whenever a man, by any gift or conveyance, takes an estate of freehold, and in the same gift or conveyance an estate is limited, either mediately or immediately, to his heirs in fee or in tail, the word “heirs” is a word of limitation and not of purchase. In other words, it is to be understood as expressing the quantity of estate which the party is to take, and not as conferring any distinct estate on the persons who may become his representatives. 1 Coke, 104a; 1 “aedaggt Comm.