that on the grant of the reversion the tenant should have the
opportunity of objecting to the substitution of a new landlord.
It was therefore necessary that he should attorn tenant to the
purchaser. Without such attornment the grant was void, unless
indeed attornment were compelled by levying a fine. The necessity
of attornment was abolished by 4 & 5 Anne c. 16. Its only
use at present seems to be in the case of mortgage. A mortgagor
in possession sometimes attorns tenant to the mortgagee in order
that the latter may treat him as his tenant and distrain for his
interest as rent. The legal view that rent was incident to the
reversion led at common law to a destruction of the rent by destruction
of the reversion. This would chiefly happen in the case
of an under-tenant and his immediate reversioner, if the intermediate
became merged in the superior reversion. To obviate
this difficulty it was provided by the Real Property Act 1845, § 9,
that, on surrender or merger of a reversion expectant on a lease,
the rights under it should subsist to the reversion conferring the
next vested right. The question as to what covenants run with the
reversion is one of the most difficult in law. The rule of common
law seems to have been that covenants ran with the land but not
with the reversion, that is to say, the benefit of them survived to
a new tenant but not to a new landlord. The effect of the act
of 32 Hen. VIII. c. 34, and of the Conveyancing Act 1881, has been
to annex to the reversion as a general rule the benefit of the rent
and the lessee’s covenants and the burden of the lessor’s covenant.
Merely collateral covenants, however, do not run with the reversion,
but are regarded as personal contracts between lessor and lessee.
At common law on the severance of a reversion a grantee of part
of the reversion could not take advantage of any condition for
re-entry, on the ground that the condition was entire and not
severable. This doctrine was abolished by one of Lord St Leonard’s
Acts in 1859. The Conveyancing Act 1881, § 12, now provides
in wider terms than those of the act of 1859 that on severance of
the reversion every condition capable of apportionment is to be
apportioned. In order to guard against fraudulent concealment
of the death of a cestui que vie, or person for whose life any lands are
held by another, it was provided by 6 Anne c. 18 that on application
to the court of chancery by the person entitled in remainder,
reversion or expectancy, the cestui que vie should be produced to
the court or its commissioners, or in default should be taken to be
dead. In Scotland reversion is generally used in a sense approaching
that of the equity of redemption of English law. A reversion is
either legal, as in an adjudication, or conventional, as in a wadset.
Reversions are registered under the system established by the Act
1617 c. 16.
In the United States the act of 32 Hen. VIII. c. 34 “is held to be in force in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Illinois, and Connecticut, but was never in force in New York till re-enacted” (Washburn, Real Property, i.).
REMAND (Lat. remandare), a term of English law meaning the return of a prisoner by order of a court to the custody from which he came to the court. Thus where an application for release is unsuccessfully made by means of habeas corpus, the applicant is remanded to the custody which he has challenged as illegal. Where trials or indictments are not concluded at a single sitting the court of trial has power to remand the accused into proper custody during any necessary adjournment. Where a preliminary inquiry into an indictable offence is not completed at a single sitting, the prisoner, if not released on bail, may be remanded to prison or some other lawful place of custody for a period not exceeding eight days, and so on by further remands till the inquiry is completed and the accused is discharged, or committed to prison to await his trial, or released on bail to take his trial. If the remand is for more than three days the order must be in writing (Indictable Offences Act 1848, 11 & 12 Vict. c. 42, s. 21). Similar powers of remand or committal to prison during adjournments are given to justices in the exercise of their summary criminal jurisdiction, whether as to offences punishable only on summary conviction, or as to indictable offences with which it is proposed to deal summarily (Summary Jurisdiction Acts 1848, s. 16, and 1879, s. 24).
In the case of charges against children or young persons, where the justices commit for trial or order a remand pending inquiry, or with a view to sending a child to an industrial school or a reformatory, they may remand to the workhouse or to some it custody instead of remanding to prison (Youthful Offenders Act 1901, s. 4). For this purpose remand homes have been established.
REMBRANDT (1606–1669). Rembrandt Harmens van Rijn, Dutch painter, was born in Leiden on the 15th of July 1606. It is only within the past fifty years that we have come to know anything of his real history. A tissue of fables formerly represented him as ignorant, boorish and avaricious. These fictions, resting on the loose assertions of Houbraken (De Groote Schouburgh, 1718), have been cleared away by the untiring researches of Scheltema and other Dutchmen, notably by C. Vosmaer, whose elaborate work (Rembrandt, sa vie et ses œuvres, 1868, 2nd ed., 1877) is the basis of our knowledge of the man and of the chronological development of the artist.[1] Rembrandt’s high position in European art rests on the originality of his mind, the power of his imagination, his profound sympathy with his subjects, the boldness of his system of light and shade, the thoroughness of his modelling, his subtle colour, and above all on his intense humanity. He was great in conception and in execution, a poet as well as a painter, an idealist and also a realist; and this rare union is the secret of his power. From his dramatic action and mastery of expression Rembrandt has been well called “the Shakespeare of Holland.”
In the beginning of the 17th century Holland had entered on her grand career of national enterprise. Science and literature flourished in her universities, poetry and the stage were favoured by her citizens, and art found a home not only in the capital but in the provincial towns. It was a time also of new ideas. Old conventional forms in religion, philosophy and art had fallen away, and liberty was inspiring new conceptions. There were no church influences at work to fetter the painter in the choice and treatment of his subject, no academies to prescribe rules. Left to himself, therefore, the artist, painted the life of the people among whom he lived and the subjects which interested them. It was thus a living history that he painted scenes from the everyday life and amusements of the people, as well as the civic rulers, the “regents” or governors of the hospitals and the heads of the guilds, and the civic guards who defended their towns. So also with religious pictures. The dogmas and legends of the Church of Rome were no' longer of interest to such a nation; but the Bible was read and studied with avidity, and from its page the artist drew directly the scenes of the simple narrative. Perhaps the earliest trace of this new aspect of Bible story is to be found in the pictures painted in Rome about the beginning of the 17th century by Adam Elsheimer of Frankfort, who had undoubtedly a great influence on the Dutch painters studying in Italy. These in their turn carried back to Holland the simplicity and the picturesque effect which they found in Elsheimer’s work. Among these, the precursors of Rembrandt, may be mentioned Moeyaert, Ravesteyn, Lastman, Pinas, Honthorst and Bramer. Influenced doubtless by these painters, Rembrandt determined to work out his own ideas of art on Dutch soil, resisting apparently every inducement to visit Italy. Though an admirer of the great Italian masters, he yet maintained his own individuality.
Rembrandt was born at No. 3 Weddesteg, on the rampart at Leiden overlooking the Rhine. He was the fourth son of Gerrit Harmens van Rijn, a well-to-do miller. As the older boys had been sent to trade, his parents resolved that he should enter a learned profession. With this view he was sent to the High School at Leiden; but the boy soon manifested his dislike of the prospect, and determined to be a painter. Accordingly he was placed for three years under Swanenburch, a painter of no great merit, who enjoyed some reputation from his having studied in Italy. His next master was Lastman of Amsterdam, a painter of very considerable power. In Lastman’s works we can trace the germs of the colour and sentiment of his greater pupil, though his direct influence cannot have been great, as it is said by Orlers that Rembrandt remained with him only six months, after which time he returned to Leiden, about 1623. During the early years of his life at Leiden Rembrandt seems to have devoted himself entirely to studies, painting and etching the people around him, the beggars and cripples, every picturesque face and form he could get hold of. Life, character,
- ↑ Vosmaer’s first volume, on the precursors and apprenticeship of Rembrandt, was published in 1863. New light has since been thrown on important points by Dr Bode (Holländische Malerei, 1883), 'De Roever, De Vries and others.
