Note 860 — SATURDAY, OCTOBER 16.

Sir William Blackstone says, in his Commentaries, that 'he cannot find that ever this custom prevailed in England;' and therefore he is of opinion that it could not have given rise to Borough-English. BOSWELL. 'I cannot learn that ever this custom prevailed in England, though it certainly did in Scotland (under the name of mercketa or marcheta), till abolished by Malcolm III.' Commentaries, ed. 1778, ii. 83. Sir H. Maine, in his Early History of Institutions, p. 222, writes:—'Other authors, as Blackstone tells us, explained it ["Borough English"] by a supposed right of the Seigneur or lord, now very generally regarded as apocryphal, which raised a presumption of the eldest son's illegitimacy.'